catASStrophic

Over here. Step on into the emporium.

Here’s the new 24 hour comic I drew this year!  This one is called THE KING’S FOREST.  cw: blood, violence

iliad mini comics part 3: the thrilling conclusion!! (part 1/part 2)

these took a lot longer than expected, but i had fun and did lots of iliad art in the meantime :) stay tuned–I’m looking into producing a zine or poster for these!

more iliad stuff

more ancient studies comics

If yall need more player! Brennan, DM!Aabria in your life >:)

Weep for yourself, my man You’ll never be what is in your heart Weep, little lion man You’re not as brave as you were at the start

Song: Little Lion Man by Mumford and Sons 

Oh my gosh. I just found this website that walks you though creating a believable society. It breaks each facet down into individual questions and makes it so simple! It seems really helpful for worldbuilding!

Heads up that this is a very extensive questionnaire and might be daunting to a lot of writers (myself included). That being said, it is also an amazing questionnaire and I will definitely be using it (or at the very least, some of it).

Its not an antisemitic conspiracy, although it's not... exactly as simple as that. It's not like a scheme at all really, it's more a real historical phenomenon that's very easy to sensationalize into a clickbait-y sounding headline, but there very much ARE real "lost" books.

So what makes it complicated is that they aren't lost books "of the Bible" because "the Bible" is a construct. By definition, by being "lost" (or in many cases deliberately left out of the Canon) makes them NOT "of the Bible."

Further complicating the issue is that what does and doesn't constitute "the Bible" or broader still "scripture" is very subjective depending on the time period and group you're talking about. So. For example, let's take Enoch. The community at Qumran had more copies of Enoch than like, literally anything. It was DEFINITELY "Canon" for them, it was part of their central, most studied, most commented on body of texts. Does that make it "lost" from "the Bible?" Not really. It means that Enoch wasn't as important to other communities, and that the Qumran community was wiped out.

The thing is that these books your talking about originate in an era where there isn't such a thing as "the Bible." The Tanakh alone is composed of at least 24 different books (actually more because we grouped some together before we even grouped the whole Tanakh together). There were MANY MANY more religious/historical/poetic/prophetic books written in ancient Israel and Judah, and by Jewish people in the Exile and then back in Judea again. So many. And over the years, the most well known, cohesive, and influential ones became crystallized into the Tanakh. Christians did their own Canon-crystalizing, which basically amounted to copying the mainstream Rabbinic Jewish Canon and appending a bunch of their own literature, leading to "the Bible" as we know it in popular culture.

So the real question becomes "why did certain books get left out of the Canon?" To which there are almost as many answers as books.

Complicating matters EVEN MORE is the fact that there have been forgeries of Gnostic gospels etc, because uh, money. Controversy sells. Gnostics criticized mainstream Christians a LOT. What do people nowadays LOVE? Criticizing the religious establishment! It's like an instant bestseller.

Complicating matters EVEN MORE THAN THAT is that in the ancient world they had very very different attitudes about scholarship, academia, the fine line between plagiarism and synthesis, and just like. Vastly different conventions about text writing that we can't really relate to from a modern perspective at all. For example, Isaiah seems to have been written by at least 3 people across a long span, which seems like a problem from a modern perspective. But if you study ancient books of prophecy in West Asia, you'd know that that's just... how they did it. Rather than being a blow to the authoritativeness of the book, they would consider it a boost, because assembling smaller prophetic works into a larger, synthesized single work was done all the time, and was almost the prophetic equivalent of peer review.

And that plays into the remainder of your question as well - lost sections, missing sections, divergent sections. Yeah. There are totally different versions of books of the Bible. Even the Torah, which Jews meticulously copy to the LETTER, has alternate versions still in use, among the Samaritan community. We are very very careful about manuscript copying NOW, but literary examination of the Bible betrays that it is already a synthesis, that the Torah is a synthesis of between 2 and 4 separate source, etc. So of COURSE there are missing source documents (or more likely, oral traditions), different versions, and additional or missing verses. The Qumran community seems to have had most of our books of the Bible in a very stable form, almost identical to the Jewish traditional texts. However, they also seem to be totally chill about literally paraphrasing and rewriting the entire Torah in new words, showing that the texts weren't as stable and concrete as you've probably been led to believe.

Idk again I literally do not know when to shut up on this topic. But. Yes, there are books mentioned in the Bible that are literally lost, there are also books that most people don't consider Biblical but some do, and there are some books that survived that USED to be considered "Biblical" but now aren't by anyone because there adherents have died or assimilated.

All that said! There is absolutely a small ecosystem of conspiracy theories that claim to be some variation of biblical apocrypha. The book of Enoch specifically forms the core of a panoply of strange and esoteric pseudo-biblical texts that can range in value from the wonderful Gnostic Esoterica to things like horrendous Urantia Book.

Luckily, the problematic-ness of a particular piece of biblical pseudo-apocrypha is pretty easy to spot. It's not a huge ecosystem. Basically meaning: It's pretty obvious when they're saying really fucked up stuff.

So while this sort of thing can absolutely be antisemitism-adjacent, running across a conspiratorial "lost biblical text" is pretty rare. As long as you use your best judgment, you should be fine anon.

This is an awesome explanation, thank you both!!

I was getting pretty fed up with links and generators with very general and overused weapons and superpowers and what have you for characters so:

Here is a page for premodern weapons, broken down into a ton of subcategories, with the weapon’s region of origin. 

Here is a page of medieval weapons.

Here is a page of just about every conceived superpower.

Here is a page for legendary creatures and their regions of origin.

Here are some gemstones.

Here is a bunch of Greek legends, including monsters, gods, nymphs, heroes, and so on. 

Here is a website with a ton of (legally attained, don’t worry) information about the black market.

Here is a website with information about forensic science and cases of death. Discretion advised. 

Here is every religion in the world. 

Here is every language in the world.

Here are methods of torture. Discretion advised.

Here are descriptions of the various methods used for the death penalty. Discretion advised.

Here are poisonous plants.

Here are plants in general.

Feel free to add more to this!

An exceedingly useful list of lists for writers.

So I managed to 1.) find safety town clip in decent quality and 2.) somehow get it to upload here

Self care is....drawing your in game npcs like visual novel characters to use in game because you can draw and youre the dm.....right?

Since my Kofi goal got completed, we reveal the goblinoid name tables! For all your gobby needs. My Kofi.

My newest D&D character Anemone! She’s a moon druid and part of our Odyssey of the Dragonlords campaign which has a delightful ancient Greek theme!

2020 Retrospective:

fuck it podcast rec list

(order within categories is not important)

[If one of the podcasts interests you, but you aren’t sure if it contains sensitive material, DM me and i’ll do my best to give you a complete trigger list!]

[All of these are more or less queer, and tbh what podcast isn’t at leat a litlle bit gay these days? I had a few questions abt it tho so i edited it so it’s clear each time]

All time faves:

The Adventure zone: A tumblr fave, my introduction to the world of podcasts. Follow the most wholesome family, the Mcelroys, as they play Dnd and other board games. Each “arc” has a plot line, but can easily be listened to just for the unique McElroy vibe. It’s pretty long (around 130 ~60mins episodes) but you can jump at the start of any campaign you wish to! Ongoing. [queer characters rep through the whole series]

The Magnus Archives: Another popular one! An archivist for the Magnus Institute of London is forced to accept that eldrich horrors and paranormal activity are real. This is a horror podcast, with a pretty extensive trigger list (the horror in itself is treated really well, and very rarely goes into real life horror. YES there is queer rep in this (main characters) but you definetly shouldn’t listen to it for that specific reason, trust me.) Somehow not linked to magnus burnsides? Finished [mlm + bi/ace Mcs, bisexuals characters, various trans/nb secondary characters]

Archive 81: Another horror podcast centered around an archivist dealing eldrich horror and paranormal. The story is more focused on paranormal than horror, but there is still a trigger list. The various protagonists are really funny/lovely. Not finished, currently on hiatus. [mlm main character in the 2nd part of the show]

Death by dying: An obituary in a small town investigates a series of strange deaths. Talks about paranormal and grief, strangly uplifting and sad at the same time? bite sized, only 5 episodes of roughly 30 minutes. A second season was just announced!

Alice isn’t dead: A roadtrip about à woman trying to find her wife, but finding terrible things along the way… Horror podcast, but a bit lighter than tma or archives 81. End is uplifting, fuck all love stories except for whatever those two lesbians got going on. I definetly have the hots for the voice of the big mean lady. [wlw mc]

Time:bombs : a three episodes short story about a bomb disposal unit. The dynamic between the characters is hilarious and wonderful. Sadly short, but the Creators did express the desire to keep going with these characters sometimes in the future. [Too short to act on it, but all the MCs are explicitly mlm.]

Really good:

King falls AM: Sammy is a new resident and radio host in the city of King falls, a small city that surprises him at every turn. Paranormal activity, a vibe that’s halfway between gravity falls and welcome to nigthtvale. I adore the dynamic between Ben and sammy. [main character is mlm, secondary wlw character]

Midnight Radio: All ghost stories are love stories. A radio hostess falls in love with the mysterious girl that sends her letters at the station. A really wholesome short story, will lift your mood. 10 episodes of 20 minutes. [wlw]

Caravan: A young man, desesperatly in love with his best friend falls into a canyon and some sort of magical world? Sexy cowboys and demons, a legendary caravan. Is Horny, but also very funny. Still ongoing, season 2 coming 2021. [mlm MC, multiple bisexual characters.]

Welcome to Nightvale: Cecil Palmer is the radio host of Nightvale, and tells you the tales of this myterious and highly paranormal town. Narrative lines are more of the long type, and anyone can hop on at any episode. Definetly a good background podcast for when you’re busy doing something else. [Mlm main character.]

The penumbra podcast: A podcast alternating between two stories, one of them being the story a noir detective, the mess of his life and psychological progress. Heavy on found family towards the last episodes. Didn’t listen to Last citadel yet. Ongoing. [A lot of queer rep. There is canonically only one straight man in the junoverse. NB main character using he/him pronouns. Various mlm/wlw]

The far meridian: A young agoraphobic girl travels the world with her moving lighthouse, searching for her brother. found family themes/wlw main character. Ongoing. [wlw Mc]

Wayward guide for the untrained eye: A pair or twin journalists investigate the town of Connor Creek and its terrible secret… WEREWOLVES! The twin’s dynamics is gold, i am in love with both of them, and the show’s general energy is really light and upllifting. Only a season of 10 episodes, they havent released a statement concerning a possible new season yet, but definetly can be listened to as a stand alone. [Some bg queer characters.]

Unseen: A Series of unrelated episodes following characters whose story w cannot see. Wonderful narrative, super cool voice actors. I am in gay love with the mean teacher from ep 2. Witchery and magic but make it bittersweet. [Various queer main characters.]

Good:

(all these were really good too, but i just didnt get as involved as in the previous recs)

The strange case of starship iris: Gay space pirats and found family against capitalism. Easy to listen to, pretty light hearted. The second season is currently coming out. [wlw Mc. Trans character]

The 12:37: A young woman climbs aboard the wrong train, and ends up travelling through time and space. wlw main character, found family theme. mental health issues are talked about/shown. [wlw Mc]

Love and Luck: A queer slice of life, spiced up with a touch of magic. The story is told through voices messages. A really light hearted tone even tho serious subject are talked about. Will give you cavities. [Mlm main characters]

Bedtime stories from hell: A depressed demon tells you bittersweet bedtime stories. in the “good” section because it juste started, only a handful episodes and we still have to see where it goes! But a good start, the stories really are captivating. [Variously queer.]

The bright sessions: What if the X-men went to therapy? Thats it that’s the plot. Lovely characters, always walking on the gray morals line but in the best way possible. [mlm mcs, ace mc]

Lost my interest/never finished it:

Let’s talk about myth baby: a really interesting podcast about Greek mythology. Will be for you if you love that subject. I couldn’t keep going because I didn’t like the narrator’s voice (yea I know I’m shallow lmao) [As gay as greek preople went. Which is gay but also somehow homophobic at the same time. You know how it goes.]

Wolf 359: Doug Effeil is the communication officier in a spaceship. His story and struggles with his peticuliar shipmates. Honestly was really good, but i dropped it because of college and never picked it up again. Might try again some time around. [Bisexual characters.]

The two princes: Two princes of opposites kingdoms are bound to fight each other until one kingdom is left. A really fluffy/easy going podcast. Listen to this if you need a no brainer gay love story. I binged the first season, but was less enthusiastic about the other two. Just not my type of story i fear. [mlm]

Return home: A young man receives a mysterious voicemail telling him to go back to his home town, where his mother is missing and his father doesnt remember him… A horror/comic story. No trigger list for this one, at least for the first 30 episodes i listened to. They do talk about stuff that would typically be horror, but in such a light hearted way that it really isn’t. The plot is cliché, but self aware. It’s a nice podcast, but the “light adventure” tone without any contrast lost me on the long run; again, good but not my thing. [Mlm character that literally dates the devil so thats sexy.]

Critical role: Another Dnd podcast; a different vibe than taz, as there is much more roleplay. I was stopped by the fact that you have to watch the videos to fully get the interest. It is really good!  but podcasts are my working background sound, so i don’t really have the time for this one. [no idea i didn’t get far]

Dream boy: great soundrack, interesting story, a really good voice actor. Just… too horny for me (i got second hand embarassed by the time the neighbour just… you know , in the rain and stopped and never picked it up since) [mlm]

[I will update this post as I go, so check my profile for the updated version as time passes]

my favorite calvin and hobbes comic is the one where his dad just rolls up and casually destroys his entire night by pointing out some neat trivia about record players

@nightcrawler-fan

#his expression in the last panel is black comic gold #the best part is that his dad was trying to be nice

are you sure. are you sure calvin’s dad is not a seasoned elder trickster. are you sure this isn’t the exact outcome he was hoping for

ok but that’s actually canon

You forgot this one

*looks pointedly at ETD*

Calvin’s dad is basically a Calvin who has learned that he can’t get away with running outside naked or throwing snowballs at neighborhood girls, but he is still precisely the same little shit under the thin veneer of civilization.

@lyricwritesprose Calvin and Hobbes has been one of my favorite things since I could read and Calvin’s dad one of my favorite characters, but that last comment blew my mind wide open. Of course that’s what he is. Of course.

one of the most subtly delightful things about calvin and hobbes is that you can SEE that calvin is his parents’ kid: his dad is so playful and imaginative, and his mom has a heck of a temper and a good sense of what’s right and wrong. calvin is a smart, passionate, imaginative kid who gets really upset when he thinks things are stupid or unfair. he drives his parents crazy sometimes because he’s a kid. but they were probably a lot like calvin themselves, when they were little. 

My favorite goddamn comic

New The Secret Knots

Whalefall, or What If The Ocean Was Haunted?

oh to be a lonely old lady in love with a ghost