#i still technically consider them my characters even though i didn't technically invent the idea of them | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

katyspersonal · 1 year

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Some recent 🅱️loodborne ideas notes reflecting my internal creative workings:

1) I was drawing Yurie with dark hair and only later learned her data has blonde hair, plus her name is correctly translated as Julie ( x ), so that kept bothering me... But honestly? Despite blonde color, she is bald, so like... What if I call it that she IS blonde but got early balding (like Patches xd), but was self-conscious and wearing a wig that just happens to be dark. I already was drawing her with different hairstyle every time as a gag, so like... This honestly wrote itself and makes too much sense ;-; gfjhjvhj

2) I decided I will actually split Caryll into two characters - one is this very smart scholar guy that created the alphabet for sounds of Great Ones, and another is the witch from Hemwick that invented the tool that burns runes in the mind and thus was honored by Old Hunters as statue in workshop and explored dungeons! They worked together as the witch got surgery to put literal eyes on her brain to listen to more sounds - while Caryll was writing them down and making sense of them! The fact that Hunter can learn a rune by killing someone or standing next to Adeline during her insight or something tells me being close to who perceives the sound could make you hear (see?) it too! I think even though Caryll is also a mistranslation and character's name is Karel (explicitly male name), giving him the Caryll works better as I opt out for localized names too. But I could name the witch Carolee - a variant of name Caryll (not name Karel!) that still avoids the confusion. Funny enough - 'runesmith' is ALSO a mistranslation, as Karel is actually 'transcriptor' in Japanese original. But runesmith fits her better, meanwhile transcriptor fits him better! Yeah, what else can I say except...

3) Gratia note! In real world, gigantism only effects males, and in Bloodborne lore we also notice that Pthumerians have gigantic variants... only found within male enemies. I also already safely assumed pthumerians and humans can mix (like vilebloods and BB Patches are easily mixed species), so this 'gene' might persist here too. Okay lets smoke harder - within the canon, particularly RED type of ginger hair is only shown in Gratia and females of Cainhurst, and if Lost Giant Children (known as 'abandoned at birth' in internal files) having whiplash scars on their backs means anything - this 'gene' could be considered a birth defect back I'm pthumerians and now vilebloods too. Gratia might be not just soulsbornishly tall - she might be 'giant'! Very strong and hulking but dimwitted (legit word used in Japanese). So basically, being born a woman with this anomaly is a miracle comparable with male calico cats (that are technically intersexual, and alas can't breed). So uh... Intersexual Gratia, anyone? Alas, most likely orphaned by Cainhurst.

4) I think I smoked THE strangest idea for Amelia's second parent and that came from NOwhere o_o But I mentioned that I think the white church woman at Surgery Altar was her mother? Okay like... I can't quite explain it, it wrote itself, but father could be Logarius. It just came to me on its own without any logical chain, by intuition, but after I looked at how I designed Amelia it made sense and I HATE it gdjjgjhh Vasylissa (the white church hunter lady) basically more or less used him specifically to get pregnant, as he appeared 'not TOO repulsive' in her eyes back then as just an intriguing local Evil!Ludwig rambling weird shit and being brutal hunter, nor she really wanted/planned to tie her life with a man in familial way. Raising the child with a (future) wife, on the other hand.... He was good for ensuring lack of lasting emotional attachment on his side as well, her concern was 'very good health for the baby' at most - she certainly didn't plan to die early and leave Amelia orphaned, though... Also for basically everyone else father is not known - nobody would believe Vasylissa as 'stop trying to dirty a HOLY man's name, he is ABOVE things like sex! >:(' .Granted, she didn't really want to talk about THAT herself either.

5) Izzy I wrote as a female character originally, much later learning she has male name originally too (variant of George basically). I still haven't decided whether to just change the character to be a feminine man, to have an intersexual parents named a male name thinking she was a boy for not having much medical knowledge, or to roll with 'well mom/dad wanted a boy and thus raised me as one'. I will see which one of the three works better as time goes by, but the latter probably flows the best - let's me not change much, and gives cathartic value to her 'at last' using silly ribbons and flowers and other feminine things like she was denied, even if she is an adult and looks like a brute from violent past and wrestling too many bears with her bare hands. XD Last option just... explains my design of her that was created intuitively - a strong, big, scarred woman but with even childish feminine accessories! Looks like interesting psychological situation - and that design came randomly! In either case after beasthood insight arc the character uses he and she interchangeably! But bottom line, I decided against the option of using the fake name that stuck, it just feels better if her name is her name! Plus Patches already grabbed the 'using a nickname that stuck' card. Nobody calls their child PATCHES fhhhghnkg

#use later #notes #ASS you can see ive been fixing some plot holes and turns out some things were working out all along #i am always right even when i make a mistake!!!!!!

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alindae-anne · 3 years

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What Makes a Book?

I want to take a break from my novel and dive into a history lesson of books themselves. Why? Well first of all, I will be honest, this blog is for an assignment. But also because the way books have evolved over the last 5,000+ years is fascinating!

Of course no one ever really thinks about THE book, just the fact that the story within its pages--the mystery, the romance, whatever they happen to be enjoying--is a great read (or maybe not so great), but have they ever wondered what materials the book is made from? Who invented it? How the book has become one of the most common and most used items of all time?

No. Of course they didn't wonder any of those things. And if they did, they probably didn't take the time to research any of these burning questions, either.

How great, then, that I wrote this post?! Today is your lucky day! (Also, it is a good thing that Keith Houston, author of Shady Characters, decided to write a whole book about it (1).) I'm going to use the pages of a classic tale to explain some cool things you probably never noticed while reading a book before.

Gulliver’s Travels was originally published in London in 1726 by Benjamin Motte. The author, Jonathan Swift, used it to satirize London society and culture, poking holes at the social hierarchies and systems, basically making out everyone living in the 18th century to be fools--but mostly the wealthy and those who were obsessed with scientific progression (2). If you have not read it, I highly encourage adding it to your reading list, or at the very least there is a 2010 movie, featuring Jack Black as Gulliver, that you could watch. (It’s Jack Black, okay?)

This 2 page spread of Gulliver's Travels pictured above is actually found in The Franklin Library edition from Franklin Center, Pennsylvania, published in 1979. This is the first printing of this edition, and its pages, the way it is printed, and the way it is bound and presented, are all features of the modern 20-21st century book, plus some extra bells and whistles. The most interesting qualities come from the publishers themselves who specifically design their books to be very snazzy--meant for collectors’ editions! They include different kinds of leather binding, exclusive illustrations, and may be signed or part of a particular series specific to a certain author or genre (3). This makes the books published here very valuable and sought after.

Gulliver’s Travels is hardcover. Specifically, “fine leather in boards.” This means the spine and front and back boards (or cover) of the book are bound in leather. The leather is fine and and delicate and able to be decorated and engraved upon.4 Above you can see how fancy it looks with the gilt gold engravements. Even its pages are gilt!

This picture shows more clearly the binding, and of course the spine, which is “hubbed,” or ridged, for added texture.

At this point you may have notice that this version is much different than the original published in 1726. That is because over time, the materials involved in making books have changed slightly or the processes have become more efficient or cost worthy, etc. Either way, the anatomy of the book has not wavered. Keith Houston has dissected the book into certain components and we can see them in each book we read:

I have attempted to label it as best as I can, so hopefully you can follow along:

Chapter Number

a) this seems to be a description, more or less of the chapter, or the Chapter Title. b) “A Voyage to Lilliput” seems much more title-like to me, although this is technically called the “Recto Running Head.” The recto running head is a condensed or abbreviated chapter title, repeating on every right-side page to the end of the chapter.

Drop Cap. This would be the first letter of the first word of a chapter, which is usually exaggerated or embellished in some way.

Opener Text

Head Margin - the space between the top of the page and text

Foot Margin - the space between the bottom of the page and text

Folio - page number

It has taken quite a while for books to become so sophisticated. Because it was published in 1726, Gulliver's Travels is technically what you could call "modern" in terms of how long ago books began their journey to what they are today, but even between 1726 and 1979 the quality has improved. This edition published by Franklin Library is a perfect model for the modern book of today.

The 2 page spread we analyzed above is made from paper. But books were not always made with paper, or even in the book form, bound with anything at all, and they were not printed either. They were written by hand on papyrus.

Papyrus was the first material used as "paper" beginning in Egypt. The reeds were stripped, strung side by side and pressed together. Papyrus was durable and sturdy, and the water of the Nile was abundant in aluminum sulfate, which brightened it so that writing and scribbles could be seen better. There is no particular origin of when Papyrus had first been invented but it must have been around the end of the 4th millenium BCE (Houston 4).

Parchment is made from animal skin that has been soaked, scrubbed, dried, and stretched for days and days, creating a more flexible, yet still durable, material for writing. It was also thinner and could be made "cleaner" and brighter by chemical means. Religion heavily influenced its distribution; some parchment use was literally banned because the type of animal skin used to make it wasn't considered "holy" or "good." For example, the lamb or a calf was acceptable, but how dare you use parchment made from goat skin? What is wrong with you?

Besides the fact that parchment is kind of gross if you think about it (although to be fair, you can’t be too choosy in times right before the common era), it was also expensive to keep certain cattle only for paper making, and the reliability of having new cattle at the time you may need more paper was not very high.

Paper was first introduced in China. It is made from bits of cloth and rags soaked in water, and after breaking down into pulp, strained through a wire grate and pressed to dry. Fun fact-- the Rhar West Art Museum in Manitowoc, Wisconsin has held classes showing how to make paper using this exact process.

There is a trend here: the materials used to make paper (and papyrus and parchment before it) become scarce or too expensive, or they are just not “good enough.” People want their paper thin and smooth, but still strong and durable; crisp and bright, but still able to last years and years without crumbling. There have been times that processes used to ensure these preferred qualities of paper included using chemicals that ended up negatively affecting some other quality. For example, the paper would be white as snow, yet the chemical that did this broke down the natural adhesives which kept the paper intact.

Have you heard that paper grows on trees? Well, that is partly true since after rags and cloths were nowhere to be found (unless people were about to start donating the shirts off their backs), wood pulp has now since been used... the higher the demand for paper, the greater demand for those materials used for its creation.

This brings us to printing side of things. The first ways of printing weren’t of how we think of it now. Even before papyrus, people were still writing and making inscriptions on pretty much anything they could get their hands on. The earliest forms of writing were rather indentations or markings on clay tablets. Found across the Middle East, it is a cuneiform script of the Sumerian people from 3300 BCE (Houston 79).

Similarly, the Egyptians were also keen on developing their own writing system which today we recognize as hieroglyphs. A lot of these were found carved on the walls of tombs but also began to be used on papyrus in 2600 BCE (Houston 82-83).

The Egyptians celebrated their scribes and believed those who wrote with brush and ink on papyrus to be channeling power--that it was a gift from the gods--”wielded with respect and humility” (Houston 87). The hieroglyphs not only showed the intention of the writer, visually, but often the picture would be associated with or connected to certain sounds which emerged more formal use of letters as time went on.

The alphabet we use today can be traced back to the Phoenician alphabet (used by the Egyptians) which had evolved into the Greek and then Roman alphabets (Houston 91-92). At this point in time, scribes were using water based ink which was fine for papyrus, but during the transition to parchment they realized that ink smudges quite a bit. This led to the creation of iron gall ink that would darken and adhere to the parchment as it dried due to its chemical makeup in contact with oxygen in the air.

Jump ahead to 1400s and we are with Johannes Gutenberg and the printing press! One thing Keith Houston make sure to mention is that although Gutenberg invented the printing press itself, to help moveable type and mass printing, the idea of printing had not been new. Clay pieces used as stamps and similar objects had been excavated and dated back thousands of years before the clay inscribed cuneiform tablets were made. And a primitive version of a sort of printing press is mentioned being made by a man named Bi Sheng during the reign of Qingli from 1041-1048 AD (Houston 110). Obviously nothing great came from it, most likely because he was of unofficial position. Even so, movable type was still possible, although painstakingly slow with wooden blocks used as stamps. This was common for the next few hundred years in China.

Even though Gutenberg's press completely revolutionized the transmission of knowledge, it was still quite slow in comparison to the versions which came after, only being able to print 600 characters a day (Houston 118). From Gutenberg's printing press came other types of presses that improved the speed or efficiency of movable type immensely. These all came after the original publication of Guliver's Travels, starting in the early 1800s with the Columbian press, eventually the Linotype, and then lack of precision called for the Monotype, which could produce 140 wpm (Houston 149).

The 2 page spread above then, could possibly have been printed by the Linotype, but most likely, however, the Monotype, which is the more accurate of the two. Another possibility could be "sophisticated photographic and 'lithographic' techniques" or "'phototypsetting'" (Houston 151). Houston mentions that the printing press age has died and now faces a digital future.

I'm at my 10 image limit which means I better wrap this up with some interesting facts about bookbinding. On BIBLIO.com I was trying to see exactly what "fine leather in boards" meant which is apparently how Gulliver's Travels is bound. I didn't find any phrase that matched, but from my understanding, the leather is very supple and pliable, which is why it was able to be gilt with gold, and it was able to form nicely to the hubbing on the spine.

The website also explains that the first "book binding" was technically just putting the pieces of paper or parchment together and pressing them between two boards. Literally. Like just setting them on a board and putting another board on top of that. Eventually leather was introduced, first as a cord wrapped around the book to keep the boards in place. As time progressed, the practice was improved and perfected so it was less crude. This involved the creation of the "spine" where the pages meet together and can therefore open and close in a v shape without flying away.

This website helped explain some of the other embellishments and extra flair that can be added to a book's binding. It mostly goes over leather binding which is from most animal skin but there is a unique leather bound book that can be bound with seal skin. Some of the books on the website are so expensive because of the materials they are bound with and the effects that have been created in the cover, for example, Benjamin Franklin's observations on electricity, which has had acid added to the page, discoloring it for a lightning strike effect, and includes a key to represent his famous experiment.

Gulliver's Travels, although not quite so fancy, is still a very beautifully bound book with decorated endpapers, meaning the inside cover is laden with designed paper rather than boring white or some other neutral color.

I hope you found this journey of the book as interesting and as exciting as I did while writing this post! You must really love books because even my attention span isn't this long. I will admit I took at least 3 different breaks.

I'm back to my novel for now, thanks for listening😎

Bibliography

Houston, Keith--Author of Shady Characters, which I used extensively in my TikTok “history of punctuation” project--also wrote -> The BOOK - a cover-to-cover exploration of the most powerful object of our time, 2016.

British Library Website -> works -> “Gulliver’s Travels overview”

Masters, Kristin. “Franklin Library Editions: Ideal for Book Collectors?” Books Tell You Why, 2017 (blog).

BIBLIO.com -> “Leather Binding Terminology and Techniques”

#bookbinding #papermaking #printing #book history #keith houston

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