Ellsyx and Aimi’s Trip to Seabreeze Shoal
Posted on 01/06/2025 by Ellsyx
Hi! I’m finally writing this post Amherst said I should write. Things have been crazy here at the Institute since Aimi and I have come back. Aimi’s preparing for something we’re VERY excited to debut next week on the site, and I’ve been thrown into the constant chaos that is my day-to-day job.
But I’m not here to talk about that! I’m here to talk about our vacation.
Aimi and I took last week off to go vacation in Seabreeze Shoal. I’ve stayed in Strinarre for… practically my whole life, and Aimi grew up in the southern part of Berelyse. She’s been in Strinarre for a decade or so now, but neither of us have been to the western edge of the continent before.
Most of you probably don’t know this, but when Amherst took over as Director of the Institute and brought me on, he made a lot of changes. One of which was creating an actual archive of all the work our Benefactor has tossed at the Institute over its history. Amherst brought on a Project Archivist to shape things up, and while she was here, we became friends.
She lives in Seabreeze Shoal, and offered to show Aimi and I around if we ever found ourselves in the area. We hit her up, and spent the week seeing all Seabreeze Shoal has to offer.
Seabreeze Shoal isn’t entirely unrecognizable from the place described in the exhibit, but it’s different. The village square is still standing, but our guide kept us away from it for the most part. It’s kind of a tourist trap, and the best places to shop are found just outside of it. Aimi found a lot of stationery she liked, and we both came home with a few clothes we thought were cute, all in Seabreeze Shoal’s iconic nautical style.
Of course, we saw the lighthouse. Our guide even helped us get a tour of it. She’s never done the tour before, but she thought it was really well-done. I’ve heard and read so much about the lighthouse, and walking through it felt so surreal. I know its history inside and out, but it’s different hearing it from someone whose entire job is to hype up how amazing it is.
Aimi and I could still feel the magic lingering within the lantern room, even after all this time. Aimi said she thought she heard someone singing while we were climbing a staircase, but no one else on our tour did.
The lighthouse has been decommissioned for basically forever, but it gets far more foot traffic nowadays than it ever had while it was working. It’s also kind of a tourist trap, but it’s more than that, too. To a lot of people, it’s a symbol. A light to guide our paths forward. A light to bring us home.
I’m personally a little disillusioned, but… you know, I kinda get it.
After our tour, Aimi, our guide friend, and I all sat outside the lighthouse so Aimi could paint. She mostly painted the cliffside, but after I whined at her enough, she included a little bit of the lighthouse, too. I don’t think it’s appropriate to post on the website, but maybe I’ll see if she’s willing to post it to our social media…
Anyways, it was a great trip. If you ever visit Berelyse, you should of course come to the Institute. But if you’re willing to take a long train ride, take the train to Seabreeze Shoal. It’s worth the visit.
Ellsyx
The Institute’s Social Media Strategy
Posted on 09/05/2025 by Amherst Pounce
Our social media strategy is, to put it bluntly, a work in progress.
We have multiple social media accounts, all of which can be found in the footer of our site. Ellsyx and Aimi both have tried, and mostly have not succeeded, multiple times, to explain to me what each platform is meant for. I’m beginning to understand this “Bluesky,” and while it’s simple enough to take those posts and repeat them onto… to be honest, I’m not sure what exactly its called. I’ve heard different names and I’m not sure which is correct. Do you all understand what I mean if I say, “The website with the black letter logo”?
We have other accounts that frankly, I have never accessed. Ellsyx and I have agreed to split running the social media accounts between the two of us, though if I’m being honest, “agreed” is a strong word to use. Ellsyx has come to terms with the fact that we are the only Institute staff who have either the time or the ability to run the accounts, despite her insistence that we should really bring on an additional team member to run these accounts for us.
What came as a relief to her is that for the time being, we are going to focus our energy on specific accounts. I’m beginning to wrap my mind around this “Tumblr” platform, though “Instagrab” and “Clocktok” are still completely foreign to me. As such, we’re going to delay using the latter platforms until our gift shop is open to the digital public, which we expect to happen in the next month or so.
Bluesky will, for the time being, continue to be our main platform. Posts there will be cross-posted to the Letter Website, and soon you will begin seeing posts on Tumblr as well. You are welcome to follow us on those platforms. If you wish to contact us, our messages there are open, though personally, MY favorite social media platform is email.
Ellsyx says that our digital audience is incredibly used to the internet and all of these social media platforms, but it’s novel to myself. The vast majority of Strinarre does not have internet access, let alone the rest of Berelyse. If not for our Benefactor, we would likely not have this privilege either. Our goal is for our work at the Institute to reach more people than just those who visit in-person, and apparently, social media is an excellent way to make that goal more attainable.
Thank you to everyone reading this announcement, and I hope that you continue to visit our website in the future.
Amherst
Welcome!
Posted on 12/04/2025 by Amherst Pounce
A letter from Amherst Pounce, Director of the Berelyse Institute of Cultural Illumination:
I know, I know: this has been a LONG time coming.
First and foremost, thank you all for bearing with us. I am proud to announce that the Berelyse Institute of Cultural Illumination has finally joined our contemporaries across Berelyse in the digital age. Our digital home is now berelyse.org, a website that you (hopefully) purposefully typed into your browser intending to find us.
It was nothing short of a miracle that we were able to secure that domain. I know some of you must be thinking that it’s a little presumptuous for a single organization, let alone one as small as ours, to claim a domain name that should really belong to all of us. Trust me, I understand. I was personally in favor of securing BICI.org. We ran into two issues with that domain: first, that it was out of budget, and secondly, that our primary Benefactor insisted on our current domain name. And as you all know, what our Benefactor wants, our Benefactor gets.
Patrons of the Institute who have visited us in person will know that we maintain a small archive, managed by a small staff, with just enough floor space to display a single exhibit at a time. As such, we try to keep our exhibits focused around a central theme, and are highly judicious in what items we display from our archive that may best serve patrons’ understanding of the overall exhibit. What’s exciting about our new digital home is that we are no longer limited by physical spaces. Long time visitors to the exhibit will recognize many familiar works. They’ll also see never-before-seen works, displayed to the public for what may be the first time ever.
As you peruse the digital exhibit, you may notice that we do not display full texts in their original forms. After much deliberation, we have decided that, in the interest of wider accessibility, we will provide transcripts of all written works. Visitors to the exhibit will know that all written works have an accompanying placard nearby. In addition to the placard, visitors are welcome to ask Institute volunteers for help understanding a particular piece of the exhibit. Those of you in the know understand that there is one particular author, whose name starts with an S and ends with pica, who has lovely handwriting that is absolutely awful to read for long stretches of time.
That, and many of our works do not lend themselves well to crisp scans, despite our best efforts. Rather than digitally enhance every letter of every word in a particular work, we’ve opted instead to display all text as plain text on our website. A scan of the original work is provided for reference at the top of that work’s webpage.
While of course we respect the intent of our sources, we also must respect the needs of our audience. In order for the past to survive, those of us in the present must be willing and able to experience their stories. We strive to make that experience as smooth as possible for all visitors.
With all that said, I’m thrilled for you all to be able to experience the exhibit in a brand new way. While The Last Lighthouse Keeper should be a story many of our in-person patrons are familiar with,I hope the intimate nature of our exhibition allows everyone to glean something new from the stories told here.
This was not a lone effort. I’d like to give a big thanks to all of the staff at BICI — see what I did there? (-; This project required all hands on deck to pitch in. A special thanks, and an even more special apology to Ellsyx, who accidentally volunteered herself to become the website’s main administrator. She’ll continue to upload additional pieces of the exhibit weekly, or at least until she teaches me how to upload exhibits myself.
We hope you stay with us, and continue to check in as the site evolves.
May you all be wrapped in warmth and light, today and tomorrow,
Amherst