thickets

Haven't used this journal in centuries, but I needed someplace to put this, so here we are ...

I just returned from seeing The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey for the first time. I chose purposefully to see it in 48 frames per second. This is what Peter Jackson recommended and I was curious to see how it turned out. I have read many, many criticisms of the technique and so went in with those in mind.

I have to say I was very intrigued and satisfied with effect of the frame rate. I have a few quibbles with other aspects of the film (length/pacing -- though it wasn't actually too bad for this first part, I'm more concerned with how the pacing of the next two is going to be). But HFR? Honestly, I loved it for a number of reasons, including several specific to The Hobbit/LOTR, as well as a general "this feels like the future of cinema" feeling.

First, let me address the criticisms I've seen of The Hobbit's use of HFR.

1. It looks cheap and amateurish. I've seen it compared to news reporting, video games, soap operas, and the one comparison I actually feel is merited, a BBC stage set period drama.

2. It is not suited to a fantasy film, because it is too realistic.

3. It makes the CGI look crap.

( Read more...Collapse )

YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAH BUY CDS FROM MEEEE. Tomorrow I am going to Newbury Comics to try sell the ones I don't sell here. :(


NOOOO

They are $5 each, and if you buy 3 or more I will take $3 off the total :) US Shipping (first class) is $3.50 for 1-2 CDs $4.00 for 3+ and includes delivery confirmation. International shipping (first class) is $4.00/$4.50 but no delivery confirmation :(

BJORK The Music from Drawing Restraint 9
BJORK Volta
BRIGHT EYES Cassadaga
BRIGHT EYES Fevers and Mirrors ($4 - NO SLEEVE NOTES)
CHARLOTTE MARTIN On Your Shore
CLAP YOUR HANDS AND SAY YEAH s/t
DOES IT OFFEND YOU YEAH? You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into
GOGOL BORDELLO Super Taranta!
THE GOTHIC ARCHIES The Tragic Treasury
LADY GAGA The Fame Monster
THE MAGNETIC FIELDS 69 Love Songs Vol 2
THE MAGNETIC FIELDS 69 Love Songs Vol 3
THE MAGNETIC FIELDS Realism
THE MARS VOLTA Frances the Mute
MARTHA WAINWRIGHT s/t
MODEST MOUSE The Ship Even Sank
NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL On Avery Island
OF MONTREAL Skeletal Lamping
THE RACONTEURS Broken Boy Soldiers
SILVERSUN PICKUPS Swoon
THE SHINS Wincing the Night Away
YEAH YEAH YEAHS Fever to Tell
YEAH YEAH YEAHS It's Blitz!

ALSO SOME ORPHANED CDS WITH NO CASES FOR $3 ... I'll put them in a blank case ....

ANI DIFRANCO The First Album
ANI DIFRANCO To The Teeth
COLDPLAY A Rush of Blood to the Head
OVER THE RHINE Drunkard's Prayer

Every time I update this I have grand plans to organize it better but I'm quickly overwhelmed. So it's still a monkey mess.

( Index of my FanworksCollapse )

PLEASE BUY BOOKS FROM MEEEEEE



THANK YOU

Most of these are books I bought and never read, because I have a serious problem, or books I inexplicably have more than one copy of (both of these situations occur easily when you are in grad school), or that I have read and no longer need/want. I have helpfully divided them into categories which probably only make sense if you are me. Most of them are paperback but if they're hardcover I've noted it.

I'm not really sure how to calculate shipping, but let's try: start at $3 for US shipping for one book, add 50 cents for each additional book? Does that seem fair? For international I have to think about it a bit.

Whatever I can't sell here I guess I will try to sell on Amazon or in person for whatever I can get. D:

ALSO if you have any questions about any of these books (more details about the condition, if it's a collection of essays or a monograph) please do ask.

( MEDIEVAL WITH A TINY BIT OF RENAISSANCECollapse )

( CLASSICSCollapse )

( General Academic StuffCollapse )

( FictionCollapse )

( Non-Fiction (and non-medieval)Collapse )

CONCLUSION: I HAVE TOO MANY BOOKS

I still have to go through the rest of my DVDs, not to mention my books. D: ftw302 suggested I try selling them here before I go and subject myself to eBay or selling them to stores that'll give me like 50 cents per album phhhhht

I'm selling these for $6 $5 each, with $2 shipping. They all have cases and sleevenotes, some of them are still in plastic, unopened, because I have a problem with buying things. -_- Email me if you are interested~ gyabou @ gmail

Bright Eyes - Cassadaga
The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
Sigur Rós - Ágætis byrjun sold pending
Bjork - Volta
Bjork - Drawing Restraint 9 (This is the score to a Matthew Barney film)
Silversun Pickups - Swoon
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell
Martha Wainwright - s/t
Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping
M. I. A. - Kala sold pending
Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah - s/t
The Shins - Wincing the Night Away
Modest Mouse - The Ship Even Sank
The Mars Volta - Frances the Mute

The Mighty Boosh
x 16 Noel & Julian

( which one will you choose, oh!Collapse )

Sorry, it's another post about Umineko. But this time I'm not just talking to myself about it. XD So, obviously, I passionately love this series -- almost as much as I love the Boosh. It has a powerful hold over me, and has pretty much everything I love about a series - magic! humor! mind-fuckery! wonderful music! It's had a big impact on me and my writing (not just "Life on Mars" which is directly inspired by it, but "Anamnesia" as well.)

However, I've never seriously attempted to get my friends to play this game. I would love it if people did, but the reason I never bugged them about it the way I might with other things is that it was really just too difficult to install the game for me to feel like it was okay to encourage it.

This however has changed. :) It is now possible to easily and legally download and install the game and the patch in just a few steps. And SO NOW I MAKE MY MOVE ... to convince you to give Umineko a try!

FIRST OF ALL, you can try out the game by downloading the free demo. The demo is, in fact, the entire first episode, "Legend of the Golden Witch". Umineko is an episodic visual novel series. Each episode is about the length of a 400 page novel. It's longer than Harry Potter. :/ The eighth and final installment is due to be released in Japan this month, though it will take longer to translate.

The demo and its translation patch can be downloaded here. It's about 350mb and there's a PC and a Mac version. You extract the game and then put the patch in folder named "umineko". (I tried it out this morning. It's that easy.)

Okay. Now that that's out of the way, behind the cut here is some information about what Umineko is and what's it about.

( The witch invites you to try to solve the mystery, if you canCollapse )

I can't really make much more of an argument for this game -- it's a hard story to sell. I might say "watch a few episodes of the anime" but honestly, despite having better art than the game, it really is a lackluster adaptation which leaves out far too many clues to make the mystery engaging, and often misses the point on some of the story's most moving aspects.

JUST ... GIVE IT A TRY! On some rainy day, when you want a good mystery to dizzy your head with, or a magical world to get lost in -- you'll find both in Umineko.

I've been meaning to make this for a few days but it still makes me so sad. :( I really can't believe. But I just read a full translation of his last letter, which was posted to his official site after his death from pancreatic cancer was announced, and oh my god, it made me bawl. So horrible.

http://www.makikoitoh.com/journal/satoshi-kons-last-words

The part about his unfinished work especially killed me:

My biggest regret is the film "Dreaming Machine". I'm worried not only about the film itself, but the staff who I was able to work with on the film. After all, there's a strong possibility that the storyboards that were created by (our) blood, sweat and tears will never be seen. This is because Satoshi Kon put his arms around the original story, the script, the characters and the settings, the sketches, the music...every single image. Of course there are things that I shared with the animation director, the art director and other staff, but basically most of the work can only be understood by Satoshi Kon. It's easy to say that it was my fault for arranging things this way, but from my point of view I made every effort to share my vision with others. However, in my current state I can only feel deep remorse for my inadequacies in these areas. I am really sorry to all of the staff. However, I want them to understand, if only a little bit. Satoshi Kon was "that kind of guy", and, that's why he was able to make rather weird anime that was a bit different. I know this is a selfish excuse, but think of my cancer and please forgive me.

I haven't been idly waiting for death, even now I'm thinking with my weak brain of ways to let the work live even after I am gone. But they are all shallow ideas. When I told Maruyama-san about my concerns about "Dreaming Machine", he just said "Don't worry. We'll figure out something, so don't worry."

I wept.

I wept uncontrollably.

Even with my previous movies, I've been so irresponsible with the productions and the budgets, but I always had Maruyama-san figure it out for me in the end.

This time is no different. I really haven't changed.

:(

I was listening to the soundtrack to "Millenium Actress" (which seriously, after Fritz Lang's "Metropolis", ranks as my second favorite film of all time) while I was studying, and when "Actress in Time Layers" came on I had to stop because I couldn't stop picturing that incredibly intense and amazing scene from the movie, probably some of the coolest 8 minutes ever animated.

(Spoilers for the movie)

I stumbled across this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/article/A-Letter-From-a-Graduate/64889/

The content of the article itself isn't really noteworthy -- basically it is a PhD student's response to the message "don't go to graduate school in the humanities!" which is increasingly being spread. To be honest, her response is quite naive, particularly for someone who has gotten as far as a PhD -- but as Dorothea Salo said on her "Straight Talk about Graduate School" website, when you get deep into a graduate degree, a sort of delusion sets in. You get "grad school brain" and it's hard to think about the world without applying the weird way of framing life that you pick up in grad school to it.

No, the really interesting thing is the comments. OMG, it is apocalyptic, in some cases, literally.

Example 1:
Much as I wish it were true, #1, most graduates from my department never work in their fields, despite impressive resumes. Their searches included the broadest scope imaginable - public, private, online, corporations, non-profit enterprises, the works. Yes, they eventually got jobs of some sort, but nothing that required much above a bachelor's degree. In many cases, the PhD is actually a liability ("oh, we'd really like to hire you, but we know you won't stay..."). It's also very hard for unaffiliated people to publish and do research. Thus, a year or two out of grad school means that the chances of being part of the profession, let alone the academy, drop dramatically.

Example 2:
Yes please let's stop perpetuating the idea that librarianship will be the savior of academics looking for work. I hear this advice frequently. There will be no mass retirement of librarians any sooner than there will be of professors. Like laura012345 said - the American Library Association promised new graduate students a 'graying of the profession' when I began my program in 2002 and it is yet to happen. Furthermore, positions in academic libraries (where, I presume, many would-be professors would like to end up) are not proliferating. All this and the fact that being a librarian, while linked to other academic work, is vastly different that being a professor.

Example 3:
I can only say that Ms. Polak has little idea of what awaits her. As to whether there are alternative careers open to Ph.D's in the humanities. The short answer is no. It is not a question of the qualifications or the welcome interest that Ph.D's in the humanities would have for non-academic work. The reality is that no HR Office and no one outside of the University has any interest in giving any Ph.D in the humanities any opportunity. By the time Ph.D's earn their degree they are off the career track for most entry level positions. In addition, universities refuse to consider Ph.D's for the many staff positions that do not require Ph.D's in academic affairs and other support services at the university. In fact, many of the staff positions that require no teaching and no research pay much more money than adjunct positions.

Example 4 (my favorite):
It's quaint that people are talking about the future as if it's going to involve anything other than universal famine, misery, and warfare. Peak oil, climate change, and water depletion are coming to a head at the same time, and any one of those things on its own is enough to decimate food production.

It might have escaped general notice, but at this very moment we're in a mass extinction event at least as bad as the one that ended the dinosaurs. The idea that we're going to carry on in the midst of all this and continue to argue about Lacan is ludicrous.

(Oooh Crikey!)

( Example 5 is very good but quite long, so it's going behind a cutCollapse )

While many of these are quite melodramatic, there is at least kernel, if not more, of truth to them. I do wish I had never gone to graduate school. At times I've thought "I wish I had least gone for something normal, like an English MA" but let's be honest here: I should probably not have gone, at all. I am more or less a casebook study of what many of these comments talk about, right down to getting outdated advice from a trusted mentor from a more halcyon generation.

Perhaps going to Library School right now is just delaying the inevitable, but at least there will be a delay, and maybe I will manage to find a boring but paying job during that delay! It ain't happening right now, that's for sure. Hell, Danielle just told me on Twitter today that, for example, Barnes & Noble doesn't like to hire people with MA degrees, not because we're "overqualified", but because they prefer to hire kids in undergrad whom they can more easily mold to ascribe to their corporate philosophy, rather than bring in dangerous new ideas or independent thought. And I never thought about it that way, but of course that's the case. Of course.

Title: The Dark Wizard's Castle
Fandom: The IT Crowd
Characters: Richmond, OCs
Rating: G
Warnings: Semi-spoilerish for one bit of 04x06
Word Count: 470
Disclaimer: IT Crowd belongs to Graham Linehan
Notes: In honor of tonight's episode, I bring you a tale from Richmond's childhood.

( Aren't you going to build a moat?Collapse )

Title: The Last Parting
Fandom: Nathan Barley/Mint Royale (Fast Fuse universe)
Pairing: Dan/Sasha, Jon/Neil mentioned, past Dan/Jones!Neil
Rating: PG
Warnings: Erm ... het pairings? Imaginary Cornish towns?
Word Count: 2700
Disclaimer: Nathan Barley belongs to Brooker and Morris. Mint Royale belongs to Edgar Wright. The Fast Fuse universe is on loan from eggnogged.
Notes: OKAY let me explained the complicated background of this fic: it is a sequel to my fic "Stolen Hearts, Vintage Souls" (and to thirstyrobot's companion fic, "When the Whistle Blows"). It also takes place about 10-15 years after Nathan Barley and Fast Fuse, several years before eggnogged's FF futurefic "Both Sides".

I'll be posting it here in my LJ, and linking to it on fast_fuse_fic, and probably on nakedskillsclub, but I don't think I will post it to BSH, as the primary pairing IS Dan/Sasha.

( Over time he's come to think of him as purely fictional, like an imaginary friend he has outgrown.Collapse )

Today at the historical society I made a pretty awesome discovery. I started organizing the vertical filing cabinet. It's basically full of these insane files of clippings and pamphlets, filed in the most ludicrous fashion, with dumb subject headings, duplicate files, bad cross-referencing, etc. So I'm going to clean it up. There's also a lot of stuff that shouldn't be in there. Well, one of the things I found wasn't even in a file, it was stuck between two files. It was a 19th century (there wasn't a date on there but I'd guess between 1870-1900) catalog for womens' mourning fashion, from a store called Peter Robinson's Mourning Warehouse, on Regent Street in London. I don't know why we had it here, in Kingston, RI, but it was fascinating. Had a lot of old water and mold damage, but I took pictures of almost all of it anyway and then we put it up in the work room for safe keeping.



From what I've learned via Google, Robinson's Warehouse was one of a number of huge emporiums devoted to mourning clothes for ladies. Obviously, in the Victorian era it was expected that women dress in mourning clothes for months to a year after their husband's or relative's death. So there were all kinds of dresses for many different occasions.

( The mantle, costume, and millinery departments are being continually supplied with the latest Parisian novelties in black, grey, and the newest neutral shadesCollapse )

Title: The Secret of Sound
Fandom: Nathan Barley/Death Note
Characters: Jones, L, Mello, Dan, Watari
Rating: PG
Warnings: SPOILERS for Death Note up to Chapter 59/Episode 26
Word Count: 4150
Disclaimer: Nathan Barley belongs to Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker. Death Note belongs to Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata.
Notes: Written to fulfill MY OWN (DX) booshbattle Crossover Scuffle prompt, "Nathan Barley/Death Note, Jones was an orphan at Wammy's House."

For Nathan Barley fans: You shouldn't really have too much trouble with the Death Note references. I tried to make it pretty easy to understand in the context of the story. There will be a few notes at the end.

For Death Note fans (on the off chance any of them read this): Er, I think the only thing I can say is this is Jones. As I said on Twitter earlier today, he basically looks like an Obata character come to life. XD He reminds me of Matt in some ways, actually. I think I like Matt and I like Jones for pretty similar reasons.

( He took things apart, things he wasn't supposed to take apart because they were precious. And when they were in pieces, he still didn't have any answers.Collapse )

A long long time ago, pretty soon after I got into Boosh, I downloaded an emulator so I could play Oregon Trail on my laptop. Naturally, I named my party after some familiar people. I always mean to post it, but never got around to it. I mentioned it on Twitter today and liljfrostbite made me do it. :P

So I present to you ... The Boosh Trail!

Note: I don't know if people outside of the US ... or younger than their 20s ... are terribly familiar with Oregon Trail, but it was an old 8 bit educational adventure game which pretty much every school in America had in their computer labs in the early- to mid-90s. I think it ran on the Apple II.



( Join a humble carpenter's family as they journey across America to the legendary land of ... Oregon!Collapse )

I got caught in a GoogleLoop today and wound up spending a huge amount of time searching for and saving Boosh images. Some are common, some I hadn't seen before, but many of you guys have probably. But in case you'd like to spend some time gazing at them anyway, here is this picspam. It's in more or less chronological order, with an emphasis on Vintage Boosh.



Let us whistle. Stop! The time for whistling has passed.



( 30 imagesCollapse )

Hello, I am here today to tell you about a lady named Margaret Cavendish.



This is her! She lived from 1623-1673, she was a Duchess, she designed her own clothes, and she wrote science-fiction!

...I am not Covetous, but as Ambitious as ever any of my Sex was, is, or can be; which is the cause, That though I cannot be Henry the Fifth, or Charles the Second; yet, I will endeavour to be, Margaret the First: and, though I have neither Power, Time nor Occasion, to be a great Conqueror, like Alexander, or Cesar; yet, rather than not be Mistress of a World, since Fortune and the Fates would give me none, I have made One of my own.

- Introduction to The Blazing World

I've only just started reading her writings but they are pretty fascinating. In The Blazing World the heroine is kidnapped by a lecherous merchant, but the ship he has her own drifts far to the north and winds up passing into another world that is joined to ours at the North Pole, where there are walking, talking bears and geese, and humanoid people whose skin is bright purple and blue and green. She ends up marrying their emperor and is worshiped as a goddess, ha ha. Where I am right now she's learning about their culture and government. I understand that later on she'll lead an invasion through the poles back into our world in proto-submarines. XD

She's an interesting lady. I think a lot of her contemporaries thought she was nuts. She was extremely, painfully shy. She once had dinner with Thomas Hobbes (she read and wrote a lot about philosophy and science, as well as fiction) and was struck dumb with anxiety. She married a man 25 years older than her and they never had children (he had kids from a previous marriage), but he seems to have completely adored her. There's a really lovely sonnet he wrote in honor of her at the beginning of The Blazing World.

Note: Posting this here this time because LJ's all fucked up and I can't get it into the moderation queue at BSH, I keep getting error messages. BUT IT MUST BE POSTED NOW I CAN'T STAND IT ANY LONGER. D:

Title: Interference, or a Shaman’s Guide to Quantum Mechanics (6/12)
Pairing: Howard/Vince pre-slash, Jack/Adair (AU doppelgangers) established relationship
Fandom: Boosh/Half-Life 2
Genre: Sci-Fi/Horror/Adventure/Romance
Summary: Vince Noir, Zombie Slayer.
Word Count: 7150 (this chapter), +30,000 (total)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence, ALIENS, ridiculous pseudo-science.
Disclaimer: Boosh belongs to Julian and Noel and Baby Cow, Half-Life 2 belongs to Valve.

Author’s note: I’m so sorry this is so long in coming! It’s actually been more or less written for … months, but not ready to post, and I was distracted by schoolwork, writing other things, etc. But here it is. And chapter 7 is not finished but is about halfway written, and hopefully it won’t take as long as this one did.

Previously: Chapter 1: London / Chapter 2: City 14 / Chapter 3: Tesseract / Chapter 4: Lambda / Chapter 5: Arabelle

Since the story's getting a bit complicated now and there's been such a long time, last time we saw Vince (in Chapter 4), he'd teamed up with Adair, Roxanne, and Tessler, and they'd discovered something unpleasant in a supply depot in Elephant & Castle.

Chapter Six: Mort
( 'Capable' wasn't a word used to describe Vince Noir very often.Collapse )

I've been wanting to write a proper post about Durarara!! for awhile now, but it's such a complicated show that I'm not sure if I can adequately describe just how awesome it is. But this article made me want to try.

Created by Narita Ryohgo, the same guy who created Baccano! (and set in the same universe, though in a very different location and time -- modern day Ikebukuro, a district in Tokyo). Like Baccano! it's a melange of different genres, with a huge cast of characters whose strange network of connections slowly becomes more apparent as the story develops.



The central character, if there is one, would be Celty, "the Headless Rider" of Ikebukuro, an Irish Dullahan who works as an underground courier/occasional equalizer while searching for her stolen head. (Yeah, if that doesn't pull you in ...)

( Because the world isn't as cruel as you take it to beCollapse )

You can currently watch the show streaming, subbed, for free (legally!) at Crunchyroll, though non-members have to wait a week for the new episode to appear. 11 episodes out of 26 have aired so far.

So Kate Beaton posted an AMAZING Jules Verne comic today, and despite the fact that I am not very good at making icons, I decided to break my self-imposed prohibition and make some (I'm also posting the Nathan Barley icons I made awhile ago). Because <3 oh lord I love you Kate Beaton.

Also is it just me or is there something about the squid that makes you think of the Moon? Must be his vacant smile.

☆ 07 Kate Beaton
☆ 04 Nathan Barley (from accio_arse's picspam)
+ Crediting me is unnecessary, but please credit Kate for her artwork.

Preview:



( au secours!Collapse )

Title: The Moon Who Fell to Earth
Author: thickets
Pairing: The Moon/The Astronomer, Howard/Vince
Rating: PG
Word Count: 4600
Warnings: Anthropomorphized celestial bodies & other weirdness, some Darkplace references
Disclaimer: Boosh belongs to Noel, Julian, and Baby Cow.
Summary/Notes: Answers the_reverand's booshbattle prompt, "Mighty Boosh, The Moon, he becomes a human". Thank you to everyone who gave me advice on this one. :)

( I done all sorts of new things today. I wore boots. I rode on a bus. I ate a cupcake.Collapse )

"... it would be a disservice to define a poem as a 'short collection of words organized according to some principle.' Not only is the definition sterile, but it is ultimately inaccurate because it fails to take into account the subtle interaction between the poem and the emotions that it evokes in the reader ... The French mathematician Henri Poincare expressed it even more frankly when he wrote, 'The scientist does not study Nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If Nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if Nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living.' In some sense, the equations of physics are like the poems of nature. They are short and are organized according to some principle, and the most beautiful of them convey the hidden symmetries of nature." -- Michio Kaku, Hyperspace

Counting-out Rhyme
Edna St. Vincent Millay

Silver bark of beech, and sallow
Bark of yellow birch and yellow
Twig of willow.

Stripe of green in moosewood maple,
Color seen in leaf of apple,
Bark of popple.

Wood of popple pale as moonbeam
Wood of oak for yoke and barn-beam,
Wood of hornbeam.

Silver bark of beech, and hollow
Stem of elder, tall and yellow
Twig of willow.

Posting it here for now because it's too long to post in comments. :P

Title: The Value of Nothing
Fandom: Nathan Barley
Pairing: Dan/Jones, a tiny tiny bit
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2600
Warnings: None
Summary: Jones comes into some money, and tries to make everything better. Answers the booshbattle prompt, “Nathan Barley, Jones, inheritance.” Um ... I wasn't sure if the prompter meant it literally, but that's how I decided to take it. :)

( He felt like he was in a Frank Capra film.Collapse )

I just wrote these in about forty-five minutes. XD I miss you so much, Death Note fandom!!!

So here are three 100-word drabbles in honor of Mello's birthday today, each inspired by a Ladytron song, and also by my favorite piece of Japanese fanart that I no longer have access to -- some of you may remember it, but it's young Mello hitchhiking. If anyone still has it, please post it.

Title: 1) I'm Not Scared, 2) Runaway, 3) Burning Up
Characters: Mello, mention of Matt and Near
Rating: PG
Warnings: Bucket o' wangst
Summary: It's hard to start over again.
Word Count: 300 words (100 words per drabble)
Disclaimer: Death Note belongs to people who are not me.

Dedicated to my old capslock_dn posse. :P

( I'm Not ScaredCollapse )

( RunawayCollapse )

( Burning UpCollapse )

Happy birthday, Mihael.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about Prospero. It was one of the first projects Valve started to develop, along with the first Half-Life game, which at the time was called Quiver. I first read about Prospero in "Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar" and I was immediately fascinated by it. It wound up being dropped as Valve focused all of its energy on HL, and parts of its storyline and game concept were recycled later on. So maybe it's unlikely it will ever resurface, but I can dream. One day.

The game emphasized exploration, an intricate storyline, and combat via "psionic" powers. Influences would have included the video game Myst and the works of Jorge Luis Borges.[1] The protagonist of Prospero (known as "The Librarian" or "Aleph") underwent a series of design changes during the early development of the game. One iteration relied heavily on the use of psionic amplifiers to augment her innate abilities.

As the design of Quiver started to take over some of Prospero's initial goals, Prospero evolved into a massively multiplayer game. It was also intended to be distributed with a mix of official and user-created worlds that could be accessed through an in-game library, and each game would be running on its own server. Online distribution, server browser, a friend finder, user-created content and other concepts initially conceived for Prospero would eventually find their way into the Half-Life series, Steam, and Valve's support of fan-made modifications.

Who wouldn't want to play a game where the heroine was called "The Librarian"? Really. It just sounds so trippy and weird and different.