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I'm excited to devastate people with Apeiron's next chapter on Monday >:3c

#ramblings of a weird person

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i feel like a lot of people need to hear this lately but. you gotta stop taking numbers so seriously on the internet

take it from someone who went through that shit first hand. when i was on twitter, the numbers culture there utterly consumed me. it came to a point where no matter what kind of attention i got, it was never enough—because it never compared to “that one time.” i became an asshole who was constantly asking people to retweet, to share, to comment, because i was always chasing the same high from times where my work “blew up.”

it genuinely makes me sad to see so many people falling into the same trap i did. it’s okay to enjoy feedback on something you worked hard on—i’m not saying it isn’t. what you have to be careful of, though, is perceiving low numbers as failure.

just because a piece gets low notes, doesn’t mean your work is bad. it also doesn’t mean people don’t care, or that they aren’t doing enough to help you share your work around. sometimes the algorithm just fucks you over. sometimes the time of day is wrong. sometimes the subject matter is just too niche to catch people’s attention.

i guess what i’m trying to say is give yourself some grace. try and pull yourself free of the mentality of always needing more than you have. your worth is not in the numbers you get, nor are your abilities. this kind of mindset fucked me up for years, and i just hope that some of what i’m saying helps people

#very true #numbers are only good so long as they motivate you #once they stop doing that you can trash em #rights and issues tag

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まどマギ by 華野- [pixiv] [twitter]

♡ reprint permission was granted by the artist.

#daaaamn #Madoka Magica #fanart

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Deadline White House Correspondence Breakfast with Netflix's "The Diplomat"

Rufus Sewell and Keri Russell speak onstage at the Deadline White House Correspondence Breakfast with Netflix's "The Diplomat" held at the Residence of Ireland on April 27, 2024 in Washington, D.C. A tradition of each White House Correspondents’ Association dinner is for media outlets to invite a guest list that includes politicians, government officials and celebrities. pics by Getty Images

#how cool is this! #Rufus Sewell #Keri Russell

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You won't reach a point where you don't need references anymore 😭

Even artists who freedraw regularly still do studies, refer to their past work, keep character sheets at hand, etc

Please don't impose that expectation on yourself just because of a live demo, tiktok, or timelapses especially

#art

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some of my favorite replies to this tweet. happy lesbian visibility week!

#rights and issues tag

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thing i noticed: alan's typewriter is an 'igniatti lettia 23'; lettia is a name for a type of owl (collared scops owl) and overall it's a reference to the real life 'olivetti lettera 22' typewriter

#holy SHIT the attention to detail #Alan Wake 2

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#oh my god I think these might be the ones I had #just 2 I think 1 was Venus #Sailor Moon #childhood

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Saga Anderson, and Nordic rep in Alan Wake 2

Early on in Saga Anderson’s exploration in Alan Wake 2, she runs into Ilmo Koskela. Fiercely proud of his Finnish heritage, Ilmo gregariously makes note of Saga’s Nordic sounding name and the familiar design of her knitted sweater. Perhaps a fellow Finn?

Alas no, Saga’s mom is Swedish she informs him. Immediately Ilmo’s face falls. I’m not sure if it’s actually just the animated character defaulting to his resting face, but either way the timing is too perfect. Cue uproarious laughter from me. People in the Nordics are on friendly terms of course, but we gotta have the tiniest bit of… scornfor each other. All in good fun of course. It’s traditional.

Now, I’m Danish, not Finnish, but still, I feel right at home in the towns of Bright Falls and Watery in Alan Wake 2. All of the little nods to Nordic culture and mindset feel so wonderfully familiar to me. The melancholia, the irreverent sense of humor, the affection for the Finnish and Swedish quirks of the characters. The game feels all the stronger in tone and narrative for Remedy embracing the Finnish roots of the studio.

Which is exactly why it sucks that I almost immediately saw the charm of those narrative decisions weaponised against Saga.

I first watched the scene between Ilmo and Saga on a lets play when I was trying to figure out if I should finally dip my toes into survival horror and buy the game. Delighted by the writing I took a look into the comments to see if people were vibing as hard with it as I was. They were. But I also saw a comment that made me frown.

Paraphrasing, it basically went, come on, like hell a guy like Ilmo would make the assumption that a black woman is Finnish. There are a multitude of reasons why I think that person was wrong, mainly that Nordic people love it when we run into each other in other countries, but it also just made me sad.

Saga being black does not negate her Swedish heritage. Formally, she is American, sure (I assume, not sure how that works in the US), but she’s raised by her single Swedish mom, of course she’s going to identify heavily with that part of her herself. It’s a profound and essential part of who she is.

But hey, I’m a white potato Dane, so I’m not gonna argue that I know much about the experience of being biracial. I’m gonna stick to what I know, which is that Saga is a very moving and beautiful example of something that I’m actually not used to seeing much of - a story about connecting with your Nordic heritage and roots. And it’s part of why I love her so much.

When Nordic people show up in big, international productions, it’s usually as Vikings, and sure, it’s fun to see our wild ancestors, but contemporary questions of Nordic identity and heritage is not something I often see explored. Not even in our own productions.

So much of Saga’s story is about family. Fighting for her current one, Logan and Casey (and sure, David too, lol), and rediscovering her first one. Tor and Odin.

Her discovering her ties to Tor and Odin is profoundly moving and made me teary-eyed several times over. And sure, a lot of those ties are fantastical in nature, but they still feel very much grounded - and what makes us Nordic if not the ties to our myths and legends that Tor and Odin have made themselves the living avatars of.

While Saga’s mom, Freya, had good reasons for leaving the Anderson seer magics behind, seeing them as part of what made her family fucked up, she also cut Saga off from the fullness of her capabilities. It is only through Saga reforming her family, healing its scars and fully embracing the Anderson heritage that she becomes as powerful a parautilitarian as she is at the end of the game. That’s beautiful.

And in fact I think Saga being black only deepens the richness of those themes rather than negate them or make them irrelevant. Because yes, Saga’s story would have been moving if she was a white character too, but I am very well aware that a lot of biracial people of Nordic ancestry can feel alienated from that part of themselves. Not least because questions of who gets to claim a Nordic heritage can get pretty ugly around here. There are most definitely people who share the racist mindset of that commentator. It adds an extra dimension. Which is why seeing Tor and Odin’s eagerness to claim Saga as part of the Anderson heritage is all the more moving. Through her magics, she’s just so obviously an Anderson, and they’re so damn proud to call her theirs and fight alongside her. Because they all got that wild Viking blood in them. They’re part of her and she’s part of them.

Roger Ebert, the film critic once called movies empathy machines. I think games, when they’re at their best, can be an even more intense variation of that. Which is exactly why it baffles me that some people can play through Alan Wake 2 and still think Saga is a stunt-woke character rather than someone fully and beautifully integrated in the narrative. A narrative which, at its most basic level – in my opinion – is about the mystical bonds we form with each other and the rest of the world through art and love and blood and family and heritage. All the great horror doesn’t negate that either, it amplifies it. Kind of like that clicker.

#absolutely 100% love this #Alan Wake 2 #Saga Anderson #Alan Wake 2 spoilers

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20 Questions for Fic Writers

I wasn't technically tagged in this but it popped up in one of my old ship tags so close enough!

How many works do you have on AO3? 18, I'm not very prolific haha

What's your total AO3 word count? 60,598 (again, not very prolific lol)

What fandoms do you write for? It changes over time, depending on what I get inspired by. Back in the old days (not on AO3) it was a lot of Pokemon and Gundam Wing. On AO3, it's been mostly Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (yes I know lol), Victoria (ITV), and Remedyverse. You may notice 2 of those 3 feature Rufus Sewell in them. :D

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Autumn Hearts, my first big fanfic; To The Rescue, which was written for a friend; Christmas Lights; Compass Rose; and Winter Hearts, the attempted sequel to Autumn Hearts that I ran out of steam for. 4 out of 5 are for the ship Vicbourne from Victoria, a fandom I was very active in at the time. (Hopefully one day a Remedyverse fic will pull into that lineup!)

Do you respond to comments? Yes, just about every one! Sometimes I don't if it's been multiple years since I wrote the thing and I don't have much to say back, since I figure some people don't necessarily want the author to respond anyway.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Uhhh maybe Dreams of Zanarkand, but it could tie with a couple others depending on how you look at them. I don't tend to write angsty endings in particular, more just one-shots or chapters.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Autumn Hearts, for sure. It's akin to a fix-it fic.

Do you get hate on fics? Not really. I had someone harassing me via comments some years ago, but despite what they said, it wasn't really about the fanfics.

Do you write smut? Yep, sometimes.

Do you write crossovers? I used to, a looong time ago, but not anymore.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? I don't think so.

Have you ever had a fic translated? No, but that would be cool!

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes, though not in a very long time.

What's your all-time favorite ship? Whatever my current one is. :D Haha but seriously, aside from a few pieces that I wrote for friends, you can pretty much tell what I'm fixated on by what I'm writing about.

What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Honestly, Winter Hearts was never intended to be finished because it was just going to be something I chipped away at when I felt like it and had ideas, but it would have been really cool to have the full 4 seasons of titles. I tend not to post anything unless it's finished, these days, because having them sit there unfinished saps my motivation.

What are your writing strengths? Dialogue that flows and sounds natural and in-character, I hope. If nothing else, I want to get the characters right, even in AUs. Most of my stuff is character-based rather than plot-based, anyway. I also love leaving little crumbs from the source material in my writing, like exact phrases or motifs used in different ways. Not sure if that counts as a strength.

What are your writing weaknesses? Supplementing dialogue with action or prose. I often like letting the reader draw their own conclusions, but I think that can make things a little sparse or unclear. And long plots are hard. And I'm just a rather concise writer in general, so nothing gets particularly long, even when another writer might have the same thing be twice as long.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I don't really do this because I don't have occasion to, but there are various ways to do it. If it's substantial and you want it to actually be understandable to the reader and aren't relying on, say, language puns or something, then just mentioning they're speaking another language and putting that dialogue in italics can work.

First fandom you wrote for? Pokemon, so many years ago! I actually wrote a story with my friend by passing notes in class, kind of like roleplay but before I knew what that was. I copied a lot of it into a little notebook that I still have. I didn't even know to start a new line for each character's dialogue back then!

Favorite fic you've written? Autumn Hearts and now Apeiron. They're my most ambitious. Though Autumn Hearts will always hold a special place for me because it taught me I could finish something that long.

I'm tagging @wondrouswendy @pintsizeninja @residentvampp @zoi-no-miko @ryanthedemiboy and anyone else who sees this that wants to! No obligation to those I did tag, of course.

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Taking on a limited number of commissions

We’re in the negatives and need to get out so I’m going to take on enough commissions for that and then close them again. I also will take emote commissions, but I haven’t made a graphic for it yet. Just ask and I’ll figure out a fair price.

We still have a lot of other expenses, though, so any donations are appreciated. Groceries and gas are a lot more expensive out here.

See More of My Art

Paypal

Ko-fi

Cashapp: $theskycriestoo

Venmo: @/theskycriestoo

#signal boost!

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unsung benefit i think a lot of ppl are sleeping on with using the public library is that i think its a great replacement for the dopamine hit some ppl get from online shopping. it kind of fills that niche of reserving something that you then get to anticipate the arrival of and enjoy when it arrives, but without like, the waste and the money.

#rights and issues tag

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Reblog for larger sample size. Feel free to indicate in the comments your generation, approximate region of residence, your length of experience with fan fiction, or when/where you first encountered these terms.

#wtf do you mean the genders #who's saying that #it's called the Citrus Scale cuz it's a scale of smut #fanfiction #probably heard it first idk over 20 years ago now

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Pets love to show up like Hello i am Mystery Wet :)

#pets #cats

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#:)))))))

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*accessibly cutlery like for example those with specially designed wide handles for easier holding, stabilizing spoons/forks, or anything else thats specifically designed as a disability aid. i.e., im not just picky bc "ohhh heavy and small feels nice", but stuff like "they will literally fall out of my hand otherwise"

inspired by the group chat being at times either horrified or delighted by the various cutleries i have been considering (want to buy myself fancii new ones)

#I have my favorite spoons and my disliked spoons in my house ye #and I prefer using plastic forks for eating salad?? #but like I'm not gonna be too bothered about it if I can't use what I like #especially if I'm not at home I'll use whatever

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What exactly happened in the 70’s

I’ll start with The Poet and The Muse. I’ve written about the real Thomas Zane being a poet already, but left out this piece of evidence (not at all on purpose, truth be told), but I want to discuss it here, since it goes well with the point I want to make.

In the song we learn the story of a Poet living happily with his Muse and telling her stories about treasures beneath the waves. Then one morning the Muse goes to the lake and drowns. The Poet at some point realises that something happened and comes to the lake, calling for the Muse, but to no avail. Whole day spent in search, and in his desperation, he swears to bring his love back. He writes a story and succeeds to some degree. The husk of the Muse comes to him in the night, possessed by some dark force. The Poet takes her in, but in trying to fix his mistake, vows them both to silence beneath the lake. The story concluded with the peculiar:

Now if its real or just a dream One mystery remains For it is said on moonless nights They may still haunt this place

Now, what exactly the boys of the Old Gods of Asgard are hinting at here (aside from the existence of the Dark and Bright Presences) I can’t tell for sure: they might just toy with all those who have that buzzing question of “who wrote whom”, but I will treat the story of Thomas Zane the Poet as a true story, that happened without any help of tortured writers. Although I will use the manuscripts as well as every other source of information.

Prepare for a long read, since firstly, I would like to present all the bits and pieces that I’ve managed to collect, and then tie them all up in a version of events, I believe, happened in July 1970.

First, the dialogs.

Tor and Odin (whom I cannot stop lovingly call “the boys”) say this:

“Tom’s just lost, is all. Baba Yaga got to him too, the damn witch!” “She used us all, taken from all of us. Took my thunder, the witch.” “And my ravens, what was...what were they? Memory and Thought! The hag.” “She took something from you too, didn’t she? That’s what she does.” “Oh, we’re better off. This place, the lake, it gives you power. If you’re a creator.... An artist, a god!” “Nightmares shifted in their sleep in the darkness of the lake...” “Heh heh, yeah, that’s the one. She makes sure it comes out twisted and wrong. Just ask the Lamp Lady. She knows what happened to that other writer.”

 Cynthia Weaver tells us:

“I knew them both. Tom and Barbara. I had such a crush on him...such a beautiful man. I was jealous. There was a part of me that was maybe a little glad when she had the accident. And then Tom started writing and woke the darkness up.... He tried to bring her back...but you can’t do that. There are no free rides like that.” […] “The witch looked like her, but it wasn’t. Barbara was sweet. He didn’t understand until it was too late. He tried to undo it, wrote himself, her, everything he’d ever written out of the world.”

We have Samantha’s dream in “This House of Dreams”, that gives us even more details:

“The diver told me that a dark presence had taken over his girlfriend (the woman in the photos). He’d tried everything he could think of to banish it from her, but everything had failed. In the end, he finally understood what he had to do, finally understood the true nature of the dark place that was hidden under the waves of the lake where they lived. The lake was an opening to dark place that was much bigger than the lake itself, in fact, much bigger than the whole universe we live in. He wrote one last poem, his masterpiece, a secret poem, a hidden poem, a poem that’s not among the poems I’ve found in the shoebox. And he took his girlfriend for one last dive. Together they sank down into the depths, far deeper than he had ever dived before.”

Then we have the manuscripts, that expand on the story:

More so, we have the dates and newspaper articles:

The last one is cut awkwardly, but, really, all I needed from it are the dates of publishing and of the seismic activity.

So, what really happened during this week? On the morning of 10th July Barbara went for a swim and drowned. As Cynthia notes in her article, Barbara was quite a swimmer and her death does seem odd. At the same time, we have another article (that I will put in the very end for those who are curious) about a writer visiting the area and encountering Taken — Robert “The Colonel” Hambleton dated 6th July 1970. Thomas even makes a snarky remark about not ever hearing about him and calling him “an uninvited guest”. All hints that with all the artists in the area: the boys of Old Gods of Asgard, Thomas Zane, Cynthia Weaver and Barbara Jagger, the Dark Presence still pounces on every other creator unfortunate enough to choose Bright Falls as a place to visit. Might’ve been because it could not make the gang mentioned above do its bidding?

The Dark Presence might be of a very different mind, alien to humans, but it’s cunning. As stated in one of the manuscripts, when it senses Alan, “all he'd need was a little incentive.” For Alan it had to drag Alice to the pier and into the lake; for Thomas it might’ve used the help of its ravens or some other means necessary to overwhelm Barbara long enough for her to drown, as at the time the Dark Presence had no physical body (but there might’ve been some other Taken swimmer around). And after Thomas spent the whole day searching for his lover, succumbing to desperation more and more, he got that incentive, the Dark Presence needed.

In the night Thomas wrote a poem to bring Jagger back. The Dark Presence plan worked and it was now in the world, almost free, wearing Barbara’s skin. But it was still constrained by the story Thomas wrote, and in his story he surely wrote something along the lines of them being together and in love again, therefore we see that the Dark Presence cannot do anything to Thomas as he ties it to the chair, carves its heart out and writes countless pieces to undo his mistake. It just couldn’t get out of the role of the loving Barbara, who would never hurt Zane. It had to go through the story in which, probably, Thomas and Barbara lived happily ever after and died on the same day, to be completely free. Which doesn’t mean that the very, pardon, presence of the Dark Presence in the world was not affecting Bright Falls at the time, the Taken might’ve been multiplying and awful things happening during this week. Yet, unlike Alan, Thomas didn’t go into the woods, fighting for his life, he searched for a solution at the cabin, armed with his typewriter and the (kitchen) knife.

The only solution he found in the end — one last dive. To bring this darkness back to where it came from.

There are still a few mysteries left:

in the guide for the first game we can read excerpts from the book “Taken by the Dark Presence” found in a shoebox that has no author, but has initials of T.Z. and J.Z. on some pages, apparently written in the late 1960’s. And, oh boy, I have lots of questions for this one!

the Bird Leg Cabin and the Diver’s Isle, that might or might not been retroactively removed by the eruption under the Cauldron Lake.

the extent of Thomas’ writing powers, since as much as it is stressed a lot that he wrote himself out of reality, Barry, with a little research, is still able to find out about his existence, yet Alan in one of the “Writer in the Cabin” TV’s claims “A story is a beast with a life of its own. You can create it, shape it, but as the story grows, it starts wanting things of its own. Change one thing, and you set off a chain reaction of events that spreads through the whole thing.” The chain reaction here never happens: we have hard evidence that both Thomas and Barbara existed.

But those are theories for another day. This is already a long enough read to throw those into the mix.

And here’s the article about Robert “The Colonel” Hambleton (spoiler alert: there is another one, confirming that he died):

#oooo #Tom Zane #Alan Wake