The Rook & The Raven

CHARLES RAFFERTY The Problem with Early Warnings People don't like to leave a party unless the house is actually on fire. Even then, if the flames are far enough away to be pretty, they'll finish their drink, take one more pass at the hors d'oeuvres. How things happen has always been unclear. Hurricanes begin in a place where no one lives. Agents of the government start to wear masks. Fascism is a word my neighbors won't use yet. They are following the law, they say, and the sirens are coming for someone else.

This hit so fucking hard today.

The third episode of our Blue Prince series is out now!

youtube.com/watch?v=mEdb...

Blue Prince Episode 3 is live! Enjoy our second teaser here and be sure to catch the whole series over on YT

youtube.com/watch?v=mEdb...

The latest episode of Blue Prince is up!

youtube.com/watch?v=mEdb...

If you sell anything to anyone in the EU, don’t forget that the GPSR goes into effect on Friday!

We have set up a super low-cost “responsible person” service so that small makers and artists who are outside the EU can satisfy this requirement!

Check us out at corvocattivo.it

With shipping times as unpredictable as they are, we can’t guarantee your books will be delivered before Christmas anymore, but a fresh notebook is a great way to ring in the new year!

therookandtheraven.com

*blink*blink*

We’ve sent out *quite* a few updates since that one, as kind of a lot has happened in the last 13 months

The suspension unfortunately means that even once we are finally able to get our workshop delivered to us, we still won’t be able to ship packages to the US until it’s lifted

Translation: Suspension of shipments to the USA. From August 23, 2025, Poste Italiane will temporarily suspend the acceptance of shipments containing goods destined for the United States, following new US customs regulations in force from August 29, 2025. Check here to see which products are affected.

Hiya!

If you are waiting for a handcrafted discbound order there are two likely culprits:

1. Our entire discbound workshop, incl. dozens of orders already packed to ship, has been stuck in a warehouse 700 miles away for 11 months

2. Italy’s postal service temporarily suspended shipping to the US

Hiya!

It’s no bother, and it’s something we’re both very aware of and also very annoyed by

We are working to get performance back up where we want it, but in the meantime the next time you have an issue uploading or removing documents, please reach out via email so we can try to help more promptly

First chess.com game in a while and it’s comforting to know that some things never change

As a beginner *theoretically* facing comparably-skilled opponents, it is so discouraging to lose nearly every game I play.

I would expect the margin of error to be razor thin at the higher levels, but as someone low ranked who only started playing a couple months ago, this is exhausting

Today’s chess.com vent post includes 1 win, 1 draw, and 2 losses… can you guess which one was the draw?

As I look back through all of these posts, one thing that stands out to me is that I’m actually consistently playing a lot better than it feels like I am

I may not win most of my games, but I’m obviously making my opponent work for their win

Coming back to our YouTube channel after a short break, I was surprised to see that we are only ~40 subscribers away from hitting 1k!

Anyone not already subscribed willing to help push us over the top?

youtube.com/@therookther...

Just can’t catch a break 😤

Good news to my EU followers! I have reopened shipping to the EU courtesy of Corvo Cattivo’s services.

Since this is apparently what it takes to maintain rank in the 500’s bracket… this is quickly changing from a fun way to pass the time into a full-time job as a chess student 😰

Every game as a now-500s ELO on chess.com — maybe someday I will be able to play every game at a 1500 level so I can advance back up to the 600s bracket

I won one!! Oh happy day 😅

First game of a new day! 😭

Is anyone else seeing this or do I have some kind of Wheatonesque curse?!

Even when I have an exceptional game as a 500s ELO, my opponent has an even more exceptional one 😣

I’m just documenting it at this point. I did have a single game today against an at-level opponent that was a lot of fun, but now we’re back to busted

What makes it so frustrating is that based on the game review, more often than not, I’m playing well above my rating, but in order to raise (or even just maintain) my ELO I literally have to play 2.5x-3x my actual skill level in practically every game I play 😖

Is it like this on other platforms? This was against a 400s opponent

I’ve literally forgotten what it’s like to face a sub-1100 player — as a beginner this is extremely demoralizing

Am I the only human on the platform? Or are the ELO rankings there actually that busted?

two men are dancing in a living room with the words dungeons and dragons written on the screen . ALT: two men are dancing in a living room with the words dungeons and dragons written on the screen .

#booksky #gamedev

Do you love D&D and hate Amazon?

In the summer of 2023, Amazon lost an entire shipment of our books

Two years later, they found the missing shipment, but we don’t want Amazon to profit from it

So we’re on a mission to re-divest the books by giving Amazon’s cut to you at therookandtheraven.com

Do you love D&D and hate Amazon?

In the summer of 2023, Amazon lost an entire shipment of our books

Two years later, they found the missing shipment, but we don’t want Amazon to profit from it

So we’re on a mission to re-divest the books by giving Amazon’s cut to you at therookandtheraven.com

Another day, more of the same

I’m beginning to feel personally cursed by the matchmaking algorithm

One non-early-abandon win in the last 48 hours and another loss — both ranked around 515 ELO 😖