#edwin a abbot

[emaya-chan-the-potato-headed]

referring to this? 😁

flatland ocs would be so confusing to someone who has NO idea about flatland

Like its like "hey this is my oc thomas he witnesses the horrors" and its literally ju

like do you see what im getting at like????? sir thats a polygon....

I MEAN THIS IN A /POS WAY!!!!! I LOVE THE LITTLE SHAPE PEOPLE YOU GUYS MAKE!!!!!!! DONT SMITE ME

[dipperpines-kin]

I just spent way too much on Ebay, Guess now I really won't be able to buy anything from the Bad Egg Kickstarter now. AND i still gotta buy con tickets in Feb... *sigh*

[rjalker]

Martha Wells is less progressive than a cis white man from 1884

imagine if book 2 of The Murderbot Diaries was called "Artificial Condition" because slavery and oppression are artificial conditions upheld solely through violent means because without the violence there to uphold them they'd fucking crumble away into nothing because they're not fucking natural no matter how many times to people commiting the violence try to tell you it is.

She's literally less progressive than The Purge movies.

Because she is literally one of the people pretending that the violence is natual

so the title "Artificial Condition" is not about how slavery and oppression are unnatural and false. No it's.

It's a reference to some useless quote even the book admits is fucking uesless about "fear being an artificial condition"

which also has absolutely fucking nothing to do with the plot of theme of the book. It's literally just thrown in there to justify the crappy title that exists for no other purpose than to seem "cool" and "scif-y" but it's completely fucking meaningless. Which is why 99% of fans wouldn't even be able to guess which book number it is if you held a gun to their heads. which is not their fault. The titles are literally just to sound scifi-y and don't actually have anything to do with what's in the book. They're impossible to tell apart because they're not actually meant to communicate anything besides "Doesn't that sound cool and techy"

Like. Literally she is one of the people arguing that the violence used to uphold white supremacy and patriarchy is natural.

[chatdae]

I find Flatland's portrayal of sexism fascinating, so I thought I'd post my thoughts here instead of in the tags (Sorry to ramble, OP)

The author of Flatland, Edwin Abbott Abbott, wrote the narrator as bigoted to satirize his contemporary English society. So, the book contains terrible bigotry and is from 1884, but it doesn't support these beliefs.

Abbott has the Square interpret everything through a bigoted lens, while also including details that make it clear to the reader that the Square is interpreting things incorrectly. For example, the Square criticizes his wife as overly emotional and irrational. Yet, his description of his country tells the reader that the laws of Flatland rob women of education to prevent them from exercising their autonomy and challenging the social order. The above quote demonstrates the Flatland belief that angle size is equal to intelligence, which Abbott intends his reader to identify as propaganda made up to prevent people from saying, "hey, maybe women and Isosceles only seem 'unintelligent' because we dont let them go to school."

In the second edition of Flatland, the introduction responds to readers calling the Square sexist and classist. So, yes, the Square's bigotry is distasteful to present-day and Victorian readers alike! I'll include this section of the introduction:

I gather that in the course of an imprisonment of seven years [the Square] has himself modified his own personal views, both as regards Women and as regards the Isosceles or Lower Classes...writing as a Historian, he has identified himself (perhaps too closely) with the views generally adopted by Flatland, and (as he has been informed) even by Spaceland, Historians; in whose pages (until very recent times) the destinies of Women and of the masses of mankind have seldom been deemed worthy of mention and never of careful consideration.

Basically, Abbot is saying:

1) the Square's bigotry is excessive, yes, but it's similar to the bigotry demonstrated in our real-life history books. The narration of this satirical book is extreme only so that we might recognize the flaws in the non-satirical books around us.

2) the Square has done personal reflection while in jail and has changed some of his views. This is a way of saying, "Even someone as bigoted as the Square would, hopefully, come to see that their sexist and classist beliefs are baseless and wrong."

Fun fact: Charles Dickens published a book ten years later, called Hard Times, that makes similar criticisms. The book, funnily enough, begins with an English schoolmaster---that's the job Abbott had!

okay flatland, what the fuck

it was published in 1884 but STILL WHAT THE FUCK

[giulliadella]

Speculative Biology of Euclydians (and Bill Cipher) part 1

Part 2

We're doing this, babies!

This analysis is based on two assumptions:

Before Bill Cipher became a demigod, he was a biological, living organism and so were the rest of his species.

Even after Bill Cipher became a demigod, he still retained some physical characteristics of his biological form.

I will clearly specify which of his abilities are innate abilities of his species, which ones are definitely his divine abilities and which ones could be both.

This is part one. This analysis became VERY long, so I'll separate it into FIVE parts:

Part 1: What is Euclydia and what are Euclydians?

Part 2: How Euclydians function as animals? (This is where I explain how are they built, what their organs do, how they feed, move, speak etc.)

Part 3: Reproduction NSFW (this one I separated because it's NSFW. It'll be nothing explicit, but I doubt your boss would be thrilled if he found out that you're reading about how triangles fuck in your office)

Part 4: Growth and development (here I will also talk about Bill's deformity and Euclydean society)

Part 5: How Bill Cipher destroyed Euclydia and got his god like powers?

SO, without further ado:

What is Euclydia and what are Euclydians?

I'm gonna drop a bomb first.

Euclydia IS NOT a flat two dimensional plane. Before you load your shotguns, let me explain!

There are many proofs both in the Gravity Falls show and The Book of Bill that Euclydia isn't a flat plane like the imaginary two dimensional world from Flatland by Edwin A. Abbot.

The first one is actually Bill himself. Bill's species has complex camera lens type of eyes. Such eyes are possible in 2D world, but not on the front, like Bill has. He was born like that, so that is proof that Euclydia isn't 2D.

Next, when Bill is talking about his home in Weirdmageddon part 3, he shows an image of his home planet:

This planet has RINGS. That is COMPLETELY impossible in 2D. Even if the planet was completely flat, the rings would go through it. They would never be able to actually encircle this planet. So, if Euclydia was two dimensional, Bill's home planet would not be able to exist.

In the Book of Bill, we see image of Bill as a baby. In that image he's standing on some kind of field with grass and you can clearly see that there's grass in front of him and behind him, and that's impossible in 2D:

(also sorry for the shit quality of this pic)

But the best proof is that image from thisisnotawebsitedotcom.com that you get when you type VALLIS CINERIS in the computer. It shows Bill Cipher as a child with his parents. The parents are holding him in a manner that is completely impossible in 2D:

The image quality sucks, but you can clearly see that his parent's hands are IN FRONT OF him and he is also IN FRONT OF his parents. The position of "in front of" isn't possible in two dimensions and yet on this image the overlap happens many times. (I circled his parents' hands in red where they overlap with Bill and I circled him in blue where he overlaps with his parents. Bill's bow tie is also in front of him.).

With all that being said, what is Euclydia?

Well, just like Bill said, it's a flat world. Not two dimensional, but flat. The third dimension of Euclydia is limited somehow. Basically, in 3D, creatures are defined by 3 axis:

x axis is left and right (width)

y axis is up and down (height)

z axis is towards and away from (depth)

All three dimensional objects have both width, height and depth. Two dimensional objects have just width and height, so just x and y axis. And Bill has depth. It's a very limited depth, but it is depth nonetheless. So he's not really a triangle, more like a very thin pyramid. This is his side profile lmao:

So Euclydeans have some depth, but for whatever reason, they can't move on z axis. They can only move left, right, up and down. They also can't turn around.

This is how thisisnotawebsitedotcom.com explains Euclydian movements:

Two dimension to and fro, you always know which way to go. If you're lost, don't be afraid, in Euclydia you've got it made. Run too far right to right of frame, you'll appear on left again. Jump too high don’t cry or fret, pop up from the ground I bet. In this place, there is no fear, loved ones will be ever near. Roles and rules always flea/clear. Euclydia, we hold you dear.

So, if they move too far left, they'll come from the other side. This is actually something that in possible ONLY in non-euclidean geometry, which means that Euclydia, ironically, is a non-euclidean place. It's actually a sphere (or a similar elliptical body).

In non-euclidean geometry of the sphere, there exists something that sounds paradoxical: a straight line is actually a circle. But it's actually very easy to understand with this example:

Imagine that you're flying a plane in a straight line. You feel like you're going in a straight line, but your plane is actually following the curvature of the Earth. If you manage to fly around the entire Earth, you will appear on the same spot where you started flying. You were flying in a straight line, but because Earth is a non-euclidean sphere, you were actually flying in a circle. And both of those are true!

The plane is very very small compared to the size of the Earth. So, to the plane, Earth's curvature is so negligent that we could say that in a small radius around it the Earth is actually a flat plane. So, for example, houses, neighborhoods, even cities are built relying only on euclidean geometry (the geometry of a flat plane) because the Earth is so goddamn big.

And Euclydia is actually a whole fucking dimension. Let's say that our dimension is our universe. Our universe is approximately 93 billion light-years wide. So let's say that that's the size of Euclydia. How tiny is Earth compared to the Universe? That's why planets and everything else in Euclydia can be treated as a flat plane: every object is so small compared to the size of this giant sphere that the curvature could be completely omitted from the equation.

Now this is my theory, but I imagine that Euclydia looks like a giant soap bubble. Soap bubbles are made when two thin layers of soap molecules trap a thin layer of water:

Euclydia is the water - that thin layer is where all the planets, stars and living beings on them are located. That's why movement on z axis is so limited. The soap molecules are membranes that separate Euclydia from the other dimensions, one inside the bubble and one outside.

Since Euclydians can't move across z axis, they have eyes on their sides that can see only left and right. Their vision is limited to one dimension. But Bill's eye is located in a spot that allows him to see both left and right, but also up and down. He can see two dimensions, just like us! Here's a diagram I made, so you can understand better:

(there are stars outside too, but I didn't want to clutter this image more)

So, now that I've spent SO MUCH TIME explaining what is Euclydia, let me tell you what are Euclydeans.

Euclideans are animals (or their equivalent in their dimension). Animals are defined as multicellular heterotrophic organisms with an internal digestive tract. This basically means multicellular organisms that eat.

Euclydeans have to be multicellular because they have extremely complex structures such as: camera lens eyes, teeth, fingerprints, exoskeleton and so on. These traits cannot be achieved by a unicellular organism. And they definitely eat their food, we've seen Bill do it. So they are (their dimension's equivalent of) animals.

And how they function? What type of animal are they? Well, see you at part two, if this didn't bore you to death already!

Thank you to @forseenconsequences @extremereader and @ok1237 for asking me to do this. Hope you like it, guys!

[achromaticegoist]

THE BOOK OF BILL TINY RANT (SPOILERS)

STOP. I CAN'T DO THIS TUMBLR. okay okay, I GOT IT DELIVERED LIKE 3 HOURS AGO AND I COMPLETELY FINISHED IT 😭😭😭🙏

I ACTUALLY CAN'T DO THIS ANYYYMOREEE. I SWEAR TO GOD I WAS GIGGLING, KICKING, SCREAMING MY HEAD OFF THE ENTIRE TIME READING THIS STUPID THING.

Did ALEX LIKE, *SCROLL* through FANDOM while making this entire thing BECAUSE WHY DID SO MANY PEOPLE LOWKEY EAT WITH THEIR OLD HEADCANONS? SUPPOSED TO BE THE DEATH OF ALL OUR HEADCANONS RIGHT??? EVERYONE PREDICTED AT LEADT SOMETHING LMFAOOOOO.

AND IF ANY OF YALL FOLLOW GRAVITY FALLS : AMBER SKIES BY JOZLYN MOON, THE POST WEIRDMAGGEDON SCAR THING BEING A PREDICTION IS FUCKING *CRAAAZY*

AND THE FACT THAT THEY KEPT COMPATING HIM TO THE DEVIL AND SHIT, LUCIFER REFERENCES AND "FALLEN ANGLE?" MY GUYYYYY the actual BALLS it takes to write this because I GASPED SO LOUDLY AT SO MUCH SHIT.

AND I WAS SUPER DAMN EXCITED ABOUT THE HENCHMANIACS ONE

GUYS THEYRE SO FUCKING STUPID 😭😭😭😭😭😭🙏 WHY ARE THEY ALL SO STUPID 😭😭😭😭 IM DYING OF LAUGHTER

SO MANY PEOPLE LOWKEY GOT SOME KIND OF BEEF WITH PYRONICA?? WHY ARE THEY SO INVOLVED WITH HER??? THEY HAVE A GROUPCHAT OH MY GOD THEYRE SO BESTIE CODED

Again I'm STILL FREAKING OUT ABOUT JHESELBRAUM THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I WILL SURVIVE ON THESE CRUMBS SO DAMN MUCH

TIME BABY IS A FUCKING COCOMELON ENJOYER 😭 HELPPPPPPPPP

GGGGGUYYYYS? WHAT? OH MY GOD?? WHAT THE FUCK?? IM SCREAMIGN. NO NONONO YOU CANT DO THIS TO ME THE ANGST.

AND NO. THE WAY BILL AND FORD HERE WERE FUCKKKK THATS SOME GOOD FUCKING TOXIC BILLFORD. DUDE NAH IM LIKE GASPING FOR AIR RIGHT NOW BECAUSE HOLY SHIT SOME OF THE STUFF HERE IS SICK BUT I CAN'T HELP BUT LIKE

AND THE

IM FREAKING

AAAA

FORD DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER THOSE PAGES MADE ME TEAR UP A LITTLE 😭😭😭🙏 NOOOOO

AND THOSE *SCRAPS* OF BILL'S BACKSTORY. GUYS CHAT NO I AM SCREAMING. SILLY STRAW CHILDHOOD TRAUMA LOWKEY WENT HARD AND HIS FAMILY AND THE *FUCKING SPECK OF HIS HOME DIMENSION*.

THAT ONE LITTLE TV SCREEN WITH THE EDWIN A ABBOT FLATLAND DIAGRAM IN THE BOOK THOUGH NAH CUZ FANDOM ATE WITH THAT ONE.

AA. AAAAAAAA. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AND WHAT THE FUCK 😭🙏🙏 DIPPERS HISTORY WAS SO FUNNY I COULDNT STOP LAUGHING BRO ALSO WENT THROUGH THE GREEN MNM STAGE

AND IM NOT EVEN GOING TO TALK ABOUT THE COLLEEN BALLINGER***** APOLOGY REFERENCE THAT SHIT WAS SO DAMN FUNNY.

ALSO THE ENDING??? WHAT THE--THERAPY? NO BRCUASE THIS IS ACTUALLY SOME MESSED UP THERAPY SHIT. That is NOT how you try and heal someone holy fucking hell. Guy is getting more and more broken

CHAT I AM SOBBING AND SHAKING AND CRYING AND READY TO IMMERSE MYSELF FULLY IN THE GRAVITY FALLS FANDOM RN, STILL VERY MUCH ACTIVE IN HAZBIN HOTEL BUT GOD MOTHERFUCKIN DAMMMMMMMMNNNN THIS IS SOMETHING TO UNPACK.

[monstrousproductions]

Impromptu book club! What have you all been reading lately? Anything wonderful? Anything terrible? If you've been swapping presents this week, were any of them books? I got a lovely edition of Pride and Prejudice and the complete Sherlock Holmes short stories, as well as a copy of The Standard Life of a Temporary Pantyhose Salesman by Aldo Busi - a book I know nothing about but whose title and author name have already delighted me.

Currently Reading:

The Philosophy of Love by Rebecca Ryan, a surprisingly heavy rom com that manges pretty well as it balances a profoundly silly premise with some really strong character stuff as the female lead realises her ex was abusively controlling. I'm also relistening to Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, performed by Simon Prebble, for the millionth time. It's still good, who knew!

Recently Finished:

The Sunless Sea by Erin Morgenstern - Badly needed editing, from a story level (there was no plot! Kind of a big deal for a book about storytelling!) right down to a basic sentence level (the line, "A dim light shone above, not bright" stands out as an example. You already said it was a dim light, Erin. I know it isn't bright. I'm beginning to worry you aren't, either.)

Gods of Jade and Show by Silvia Moreno-Garcia - I had so much more fun with this than I expected! The writing wasn't particularly strong, but it was a lot of fun and I liked the blending of 1920s Mexican culture with Mayan mythology. Could have done with a bit more pizazz for the 1920s stuff but overall, I had a blast.

Flatland by Edwin Abbot (audiobook performed by Kevin Eldon) - For a book about geometry, again, I had way more fun with this than I might have thought. I enjoyed the satire of Victorian society, but audiobook maybe isn't the best medium for a book that apparently includes quite a lot of diagrams.

Meet Me in the Margins by Melissa Ferguson (audiobook performed by Talon David) - Absolutely god-awful. No idea why I finished this. It fell into that pitfall that so many hetero romances do, of trying to have a protagonist who is simultaneously "sooo relatable" but is still a wish fulfillment. Cut to the protagonist calling herself "a whale" because she's... a US size 6 (UK 10) 🙄

Tread of Angels by Rebecca Roanhorse (audiobook performed by Dion Graham) - A tidy wee novella that makes me want to read more by this author. Dion Graham's voice is simply too delicious for words. I liked the world created here - essentially a demonic sort of wild west - and that it didn't outstay its welcome.

Binned Off:

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson (audiobook performed by Kate Reading and Michael Kramer) - I know he has a million fans, but I couldn't be doing with that much guff about the magic system in the face of so little characterisation. Also, maybe he unpacks the whole "this group of people are naturally suited to slavery" thing later in the book/series, but I wasn't in the mood to give him time to try.

What about you? Anything you want to shout about - for better or worse? Tell me everything 📚✨

[ranmagender]

Reading the news in the morning:

[ID: a scene from the good place of a man leaning against a poster. the poster has been covered up with the cover of the novel Flatland by Edwin Abbot. The subtitle reads "Oh Edwin Abbot, we're really in it now." with Edwin Abbot looking added on top in impact font END ID]

[scotianostra]

Today is the anniversary of the death of St Cuthbert, who died on 20th March 687AD.

St Cuthbert was a monk, bishop and hermit of Lindisfarne who lived in Anglo-Saxon Northumbria. A wee bit geography for you, during St Cuthberts time, the area that is now Scotland was divided into three areas: Pictland, a patchwork of small lordships in central Scotland, the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria, which had conquered southeastern Scotland; and the kingdom of Dál Riata in western Scotland. Anglo-Saxon Northumbria stretched from on the East coast, the Humber, where it got it’s name, on the west from the river Mersey, up the the Firth of Forth, and what is now Dumfries and Galloway in the west.

Cuthbert was born (perhaps into a noble family) in Dunbar, now in East Lothian, at the time the region was still largely Pagan, although King Edwin of Northumbria was spreading Christianity having been converted about ten years previously. Incidentally some claim that Edwin might have given Edinburgh it’s name, but it is generally accepted the name derived from the area being known as Eidyn, from the time the Roans left, into the dark ages, the name Eidyn itself’s origin is not known.

Back to oor Cuthbert, he is known to have grown up in what is now The Scottish Borders, we know that he tended sheep on the hills above the abbey at Melrose when he was older.

t seems, from stories about his childhood, that he was brought up as a Christian. He was credited, for instance, with having saved by his prayers, some monks who were being swept out to sea on a raft. There is some evidence that, in his mid-teens, he was involved in at least one battle, which would have been quite normal for a boy of his social background.

His life changed when he was about 17 years old. He was looking after some neighbour’s sheep on the hills. (As he was certainly not a shepherd boy it is possible that he was mounting a military guard - a suitable occupation for a young warrior!) Gazing into the night sky he saw a light descend to Earth and then return, escorting, he believed, a human soul to Heaven. The date was August 31st 651AD - the night that Saint Aidan died. Perhaps Cuthbert had already been considering a possible monastic calling but that was his moment of decision.

He went to the monastery at Melrose, also founded by Aidan, and asked to be admitted as a Novice.

For the next 13 years he was with the Melrose monks. When Melrose was given land to found a new monastery at Ripon, Cuthbert went with the founding party and was made guestmaster. In his late 20s he returned to Melrose and found that his former teacher and friend, the prior Boisil, was dying of the plague. Cuthbert became prior (second to the Abbot) at Melrose.

In 664AD the Synod of Whitby decided that Northumbria should cease to look to Ireland for its spiritual leadership and turn instead to the continent the Irish monks of Lindisfarne, with others, went back to Iona. The abbot of Melrose subsequently became also abbot of Lindisfarne and Cuthbert its prior.

Cuthbert seems to have moved to Lindisfarne at about the age of 30 and lived there for the next 10 years. He ran the monastery; he was an active missionary; he was much in demand as a spiritual guide and he developed the gift of spiritual healing. Cuthbert was said to be an outgoing, cheerful, compassionate person and no doubt became popular. But when he was 40 years old he believed that he was being called to be a hermit and to do the hermit’s job of fighting the spiritual forces of evil in a life of solitude.

After a short trial period on the tiny islet adjoining Lindisfarne he moved to the more remote and larger island known as ‘Inner Farne’ and built a hermitage where he lived for 10 years. Of course, people did not leave him alone - they went out in their little boats to consult him or ask for healing. However, on many days of the year the seas around the islands are simply too rough to make the crossing and Cuthbert was left in peace.

At the age of about 50 it is written that he was asked by both Church and King to leave his hermitage and become a bishop. He reluctantly agreed. For two years he was an active, travelling bishop as Aidan had been. He seems to have journeyed extensively. On one occasion he was visiting the Queen in Carlisle when he knew by second sight that her husband, the King, had been slain by the Picts doing battle in Scotland.

Feeling the approach of death he retired back to the hermitage on the Inner Farne where, in the company of Lindisfarne monks, he died on on this day in 687AD.

His body was brought back and buried on Lindisfarne, well for a time anyway, after long journeys escaping the Danes his remains "chose", as was thought, to settle at Durham, causing the foundation of the city and Durham Cathedral. The St Cuthbert Gospel is among the objects later recovered from St Cuthbert's coffin, which is also an important artefact.

Pics are depictions of Cuthbert, the second featuring his incorrupt body from the Life of Cuthbert, a 12th century manuscript.

[opencharacters]

Can you tell us your favorite stories using public domain characters either ones that came out latley or older ones? :o

Lately I've been into Edwin A. Abbot's Flatland about two dimensional beings, their fascist society and a square being exposed to the third dimension. Here's the ebook but I listened to the audiobook on youtube, here. My friend @rjalker also made a translation made into more modern english you can find it here.

As for more modern uses of public domain characters, I really enjoy the work of Phillip Jose Farmer and his Wold Newton universe where he connects a bunch of public domain characters in a family tree, its interesting albeit some of it is off just because of it being made in the 70s by a white guy who gave himself the middle name José to standout and that he didnt like his "feminine" middle name he was given at birth, that being Josie.

By that I mean ya know things like views on race and what not, the whole superior gene from a meteor thing is a bit of a red flag but i generally enjoy some of his stories if i keep that in mind. the idea of a shared public domain world is neat, which is what inspired my own take on the concept with the land of elcarim.

If you're interested you can find more info here

[mysteriesofmarcy]

Bill's Origin

I'm posting here for posterity's sake. Because even though I've already found the Book of Bill and am only days away from opening it, I still want to catalog this.

When I finally get to open the Book of Bill, I'm looking forward the most to learning about Bill's origin story.

In his AMA, Bill said that Edwin Abbot Abbot, author of Flatland, "has a decent idea" of his origin.

Flatland describes a society in which, surprise surprise, everything is flat and 2 dimensional, and all the characters are shapes.

In the journal, Ford says that he "mistakenly believed" Exwhylia (the 2D dimension) to be Bill's birthplace. In this society, a circle is described as "upper class" and a triangle is described as "lowly."

This corresponds to the social hierarchy in Flatland: the more sides a shape has, the higher its social status. A circle is considered to have infinite sides, and is thus the highest ranking shape. Meanwhile, a triangle has the fewest number of sides out of shapes that don't curve, and so takes the lowest rank on the totem pole.

In Weirdmageddon 3: Take Back the Falls, Bill tells Ford to "imagine living in the second dimension." He describes it as a flat place, with flat minds, and flat dreams. He says he "liberated" his dimension, which I take to mean he tried to destroy all the rules, but ended up destroying the whole dimension in the process. Possibly, this dimension became the Nightmare Realm -- the "in between" space -- the dimension between all dimensions.

But I'll find out soon enough.

[rjalker]

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, by Edwin Abbot Abbot, published in 1884, is public domain. That means it has no copyright, and belongs to everyone.

This post will have links to as many versions and adaptations of it as I can find, and will be updated whenver I find new links to add.

Feel free to copy and paste this whole entire post and make it a new post for your own blog too!

None of these links are piracy, because you literally cannot pirate what has no copyright. Anyone who tells you you must pay to read the original Flatland is scamming you.

The only time you should be spending money on Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, is if you find a cool physical copy that you want specifically.

Check the original post before reblogging to look for updates if you are seeing this post days, weeks, or months after I originally post it.

____

Visual books:

Public domain:

The Original Novel:

Read online or ownload the original book in multiple formats from Project Gutenberg

Read or download from Standard Ebooks

Read and download from the Internet Archive. This also includes a computer-generated audiobook.

_

The 2024 translation:

Read online or download the 2024 translation in multiple formats from the Internet Archive. This also includes a computer-voiced audiobook.

Read the 2024 translation here on tumblr @flatland-a-2024-translation

-

The 2024 Summary:

You can read and download this from the Internet Archive in multiple formats, including editable documents. Or read here on tumblr.

You can also buy a physical copy here, or purchase the files from Itch.io.

___

Audiobooks:

The original novel:

Listen to the original book on the Internet Archive, read by Ruth Golding

Listen to the original book on the Internet Archive read by David "Grizzly" Smith

The 2024 translation:

Listen and read-along with the lazy audiobook of the 2024 translation on Youtube

(no audiobook available for the summary....yet)

___

Free visual media with full stories:

Here’s an animation from 1965. Contains some flashing lights.

Here’s a stop motion film from 1982 in Italian with English subtitles

Here’s an animation from 2006

The 2007 Flatland film by Ladd Ehlinger is free on youtube. Unfortunately Ladd Ehlinger is a virulently racist and misogynistic conservative who thinks feeding school kids is the same thing as slavery. His film is filled with almost constant flashing lights and spinning cameras that cause headaches, motion sickness, migraines, and seizures.

Here is a link to timestamps for these if you still choose to watch it.

The film ignores all of the politics from the original novel because the creator of the film agrees with the bigotry the novel condemned. You are much better off watching another visual adaption or reading the original or translated book.

Especially if you suffer from photosensitivity or motion-sickness, this film will make you want to throw up.

___

Shorter visual media:

In-universe

Part 4 of a Korean animation. from 2010. Haven't found parts 1-3 yet.

A short animation from 2020 showing an Equilateral being taken away from his Isosceles parents

Flatland Heist from 2013, A short animation from 2013 where the Narrator and Sphere team up to rob a bank :)

Flatland a Romance of Many Dimensions Alternate Timeline (without audio yet) 2024 Here's the version with audio

No Nonbinary Door 2024

A Visit to Lineland 2024

Up, Up, and Away 2024

Meta:

A short TED-Ed summarizing the math parts of Flatland from 2014

Another short animation explaining the math of Flatland from 2012

A long presentation (38 mins) about the math in Flatland. from 2017

Youtube Shorts:

A very short animation about the narrator meeting the Sphere

___

Related books by other authors, in publishing order:

Public domain:

An Episode of Flatland: or How a Plane Folk Discovered the Third Dimension. With Which is Bound Up an Outline of the History of Unæa by Charles Howard Hinton. (1907) Public domain, unlimited reading and downloading. It's terrible. But you can rewrite it to make it not terrible.

The 4D Doodler, by Graph Waldeyer. Also on Youtube as an audiobook.

Other copyright:

The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics by Norton Juster (1963) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. A short....poem? Nothing to actually do with Flatland.

The Incredible Umbrella by Marvin Kaye (1980) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. I have not read it yet.

Sphereland: A Fantasy About Curved Spaces and an Expanding Universe, by Dionys Burger. (1983) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. It's racist. Was intended to be a sequel to Flatland, but the author's racist and failed every lesson Flatland tried to teach.

“Message Found in a Copy of Flatland” by Rudy Rucker (1983) free to read online from the author.

The Fourth Dimension, by Rudy Rucker (1984). Can be read for free online from the author. I have not read it yet.

The Planiverse: Computer Contact With a Two-dimensional World by Alexander Keewatin Dewdney (1984) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. Good 2D worldbuilding, nonexistant plot and boring abrupt ending.

Flatterland: Like Flatland, Only More So by Ian Stewart (2001) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. it's useless crap that unironically defends the bigotry against Irregulars from the original novel by pretending it's just natural selection that's totally natural and not at all artificialy and violently upheld to uphold the supremacy of the Circles.

Spaceland by Rudy Rucker (2002) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. I have not read it yet.

VAS: An Opera in Flatland (2002) by Steve Tomasula. no copies donated to the internet archive yet. I have not read it yet.

A 2024 Summary of Flatland. Buy a physical copy here. Buy a digital copy here.

__

Neopronoun short stories:

The Breaking Point, a short story of a Line and Isosceles in another country of Flatland, attempting to deal with an abusive officer of the military who's invited himself into their home. Almost 4k words.

First Day of School, a young equilateral has zov first day at school, and discovers that the "specimen" they're supposed to be studying is someone zo knows.

Gaining a New Perspective, a short story of the Sphere contemplating everything that's happened after throwing the narrator of Flatland back down to his plane. Almost exactly 5k words.

Other short fiction:

[link me your stories and a short summary to go here!!]

__

Please feel free to add more links and I'll add them to this original post.

Here's the first masterpost I made which has fewer links.

[nancy-drewdles]

Nancy Drew recent timeline

December 19, 2019 — Temperance tries to open the Veil; the date is seen on Ryan's death certificate.

January 19, 2020 — Nancy visits Ace at his new apartment; the date appeared in HB Ledger. Sometime after that, she gets a mysterious call about eight missing bodies.

In 4x01 Nancy mentions that she's been looking for the corpses for 5 weeks, so the date is most likely February 24 or 25. The episode takes place over two days.

The events in 4x02 all happen in one day. 4x03 is two days.

In 4x04 Nick mentions that it's been over a week since Judge Abbot's accident. The episode spans two days. The possible date is March 12, I think.

Episode 4x05 and Nancy and Ace's final break up happen on March 19. (Thank you, Edwin George Chen, for doing god's work and writing the date on your check to George, we love a helpful father.)

There were no clues or mentions of dates in 4x06. Chunky bites Ace at the end of it, and he's still wearing a band-aid in the next episode, so one can assume that 4x07 happens a few days later at most.

4x08 is the episode with Kate's death anniversary. She died on the night of Nancy's last winter formal. I wonder if they are retconning it or if it is expected in HB for winter events to happen in March.

Episodes 6, 7, and 8 all definitely occur between March 19 and April 7 since the events of the Passover Seder episode will happen on April 8, 2020; it's a set date. I'm convinced it's episode 4x11, but who knows.

[goosesartblog]

and btw... What is this flatland art you draw about? ik it's from that novel tho

FLATLAND. there’s many who can explain it better than me but here’s a rundown:

flatland, originally, was a book by edwin a. abbot written as a political satire and criticism of society! it’s public domain by this point so you can find it pretty darn easily, most everywhere. there’s also a couple audiobooks out there, if that’s what you’d prefer!

it was later adapted into two movies, the more popular of which- and the one most flatland art is based on -being free to watch on youtube! both movies lose a lot of the commentary that the original book has, they’re nonetheless very worth the watch. i love them all

thumbs up! the book is fairly short, plus there’s a translation into more casual english, so i couldn’t recommend it and the movies more :]

[ratcandy]

hhey clam i’m totally not biased but i think you’d like flatland (edwin a. abbot). the protagonist is like if zote was worse

love that the way u pique my interest is through dangling zote in front of me on a stick

but Hm 👀 I will perhaps give a Looksie

[agentoli]

Tagged by @chorusan

Last Song: Fine by Lemon Demon

Favorite Color: Mustard Yellow and Pastel Yellow

Last Book: Flatland by Edwin A. Abbot [i still haven't finished it, because i can only read a chapter or so at a time before overloading my brain. It is v good tho]

Last Movie: Dogma (1999) [was a rewatch bc i genuinely love this movie so much <3]

Last Show: 2 Broke Girls

Sweet/Spicy/Savory: Savory, imo. Can never have too much and plus it always makes me feel like the omnivore i am :)

Relationship Status: As of October 27, me and my boyfriend have been together for a full year!! I love him so dearly and want nothing more than to hold his hand and watch the world pass us by.

Last Google Search: tall as she is wide [with tits to match. Wanted to make sure i was quoting the meme correctly]

Current Obsession: The big one is obv RvB, but also a bit of Halo, Arcane, and marine biology.

Looking forward to: Graduating, going to college, just gotta make it till the end of this school year! [The words of a tired aspiring marine biologist]

Tagging: @joltning !! Have fun friend!!