New Toledo

I think enough in GURPS format, especially for Andalusada, that it struck me recently that I could show off and back up a great deal of this by posting it here. Towards that end, and as a test of concept, I posted a writeup for the UCNA's capital city, New Toleto (or however it's spelled; I'm honestly not sure yet.) As of 1930, a tentative writeup falls below the cutoff.

The logic of Andalusada and playability

Yes, yes, I've neglected this for the last two weeks. I'm lazy, and I've had a full week of excuses. Now, where was I? Ah yes. Writing about how Andalusada's been shaped by being inextricably tied up with GURPS.

Most alternate history writing makes a point of prizing plausibility. Andalusada does too, or tries to; it's why I went from this thread to this scrapbook-blog, which gets more attention than this. But because it was first GURPS, and only secondly a serious alt-history, Andalusada has another value that many TLs don't: playability.

The logic of Andalusada and GURPS

On Monday, I started writing about the reasoning that guides and shapes the formation of the Andalusada universe. Last night, the first identifiable force in Andalusada was sloth. Tonight, it's something that I've touched on before but never seriously discussed: GURPS.

The logic of Andalusada and sloth

It's been a long time since I did anything that merited the tag "regular writing." The most I can say is that I've reliably posted weeks in review for Andalusada consistently - that I've been writing on the Scrapbook rather regularly indeed.

I mentioned that I started a standardization campaign on Friday. It's sent me looking back over dozens of former pages, editing them to fit my new standard policies - and rereading them, because I usually haven't thought about any of them except to look them up for links. And it's left me wincing a lot, because of how awful my writing can get over there. And how inconsistent.

There's one thing about it that's managed to routinely get my attention, though: the times when I stop to explain why I wrote Andalusada the way I did on that point. Those side notes are fascinating to me. And since this is (alas) a vanity blog, and Andalusada is what I'm thinking about at present - and since a lot of those notes are going to get obliterated in the great reformatting to come - I'm going to start discussing the overarching forces that have shaped my work as a Demiurge.

The first of these forces, and it's a shameful one to admit, is sloth.

Andalusada regular blogging

It's no secret that I write more on the Andalusada Scrapbook than I do here. (In three months, its hit count is rapidly closing with this one's in its entire existence.) Andalusada is my folly and my vanity; I can write whatever I want there, whenever I want there, however I want there, confident that pretty much nobody's going to actually read it.

It's why so much of it's so utterly irrelevant: because on a lot of days what I think is interesting to write about is stuff like, say, hats, or liturgical minutiae, or why Polish-Ruthenian zubrowka isn't considered vodka - and not bigger stuff, like, say, the existence of Poland-Ruthenia. I know a lot of broad strokes already, and it's more interesting for me to fill in the small details rather than the big ones even though the big ones would make the entire thing more accessible and complete.

So last week, somewhat grudgingly, I sat down to start writing what would eventually become my introduction of the Takasagonese people. And something occurred to me.

This week in Andalusada blogging

This week has been an extraordinarily busy one on Andalusada.

• I've introduced two kings.
• I've had a few moments of linguistic geekery, which are always enormously fun for me.
• I've begun the lifelong process of de-Eurocentrizing the blog, in space and in time.
• And I've started writing about writings.

It's been a pretty good week.

Andalusada principles and practices

This is a cross-bloggage. The original was posted here.

IRL, Islamic Spain ended around 1250, with the collapse of the Almohads. Andalusada is the story of how that civilization never died; how its death was, in fact, derailed before it could begin. Even more importantly than that, however, Andalusada is the story of how that derailing (and the survival) changed the world beyond recognizability into uncanniness.

I'm not purely making things up as I go, though. There are some rules of thumb. Here they are.

Because dilletantism knows no bounds or timelines

Tonight's cross-blog whoring is of an extended rambling about music in an alt-history.

It's rather illustrative of the kind of thoughts I have about the timeline as a whole - the random fluffy details, because if you live inside the world people are sensate as much as traditionalist.

It also says the most about the verse ca. 1930, of all my posts so far. Which is predictable too.

Saints and sinners.

Just another Andalusada update:

Today it's all saints and sinners.

Fathers of the Reformation

In a single go, I have posted character sketches of Andalusada's foremost *Protestant reformers:

Johan Georg Günther, and Oliver Farrell.

Cross-bloggage has never been more fun.

Saint Sakura

A classic trope of yuri manga is that (Japan being blissfully ignorant of the ways of Christendom) our lesbian couple usually meets at a Catholic girls' school. This school is traditionally named after Saint Engrish, something feminine-sounding that's not actually from any Indo-European language.

Never is it a Japanese name.

Saint Sakura is chosen to stand that on its head. And you can read about her here.

Introducing Andalusada

Why haven't I posted on this blog in the last, oh, year?

Because I've been busy with other stuff instead. Like Andalusada.