A Few Loading Screens That I Made) I Hope You Enjoyed It - I, Like The Whole Team, Did My Best To Keep

Research the Nephilim, you said. It's just another Biblical topic, you said...

Seriously, the number of conspiracy theories, whacky rabbit holes, and outright colonialism/racism I've had to wade through on this subject is WILD 😰 Tread with care!

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What Happens When Evil Wins?

If you’re feeling overwhelmed and in despair right now, this might help <3

Fanfiction is great because you can see so clearly how people learn to write.

Some people, it's clear, learned almost entirely through absorbing the world around them. Grammar and punctuation will be all over the place, spellings are approximate, but the voice of the narration will come through so clearly. You can hear the dialect of the people around them as of they're telling the story. It's not a written story, it's a transcription of how they talk in their day to day life.

Some people learned through reading a gazillion books as a kid. Grammer and spelling will be rock solid, formatting occasionally based on the single tab of physical books rather than the double tab of online scrolling, but dialogue is often stilted and overly formal. You might notice a lack of contractions and very rigid rules they made for consistency that actually have a lot more flexibility than they think. They tend to have a fantastic grasp of sentence flow, though.

And other people formally learned how to write. This could be anywhere from taking school classes seriously because they enjoyed writing stories as a kid to literal certifications and jobs in the field. Grammer is flawless. Punctuation is triple checked. Foreign words are in italics. Characters have distinct voices. But their self indulgence is tempered by perfectionism. They know precisely what they want from a fic. Authors notes often feature mutterings about their happiness with the chapter. Kaomojis often appear! They seek a style to their writing, and it makes for some wonderfully clever plots! These are the ones most likely to get fun with formatting!

And some people.... Some people examined it all. They dissect dialogue, people watch, cross reference behaviours and compare characters to people irl. You can tell almost immediately who had formative experiences with Terry pratchett and/or ghibli, because it's these people. While others see writing as fun, expression, craft, they see it as art. Plain and simple. Sure, the grammar is occasionally sacrificed on the altar of creative freedom, and the occasional sentence might miss a full stop, but these people seem to self reflect on themselves as part of the art making process. On occasion, these people have the most masterful grasp of dialogue and invocation and hand sewn characterisations. Formatting is pretty standard because all the focus is on the actual words. These fics can be edited to the moon and back!

All of these can vary wildly in forethought and quality, and betas can often catch individual problems before they hit post, but just. Isn't it so cool? What's that one Oscar Wilde quote about every mask just being another fragment of yourself?

Did you recognise yourself?

gen z has to reckon with its radicalization problem. you are not a morally pure and superior generation of youth come to save the world, your men and boys are radicalized at an unprecedented level and you ignore it because it’s too hard to address but you have to. these boys are in your classes, they date your friends, you know them and you cannot continue to pretend this is an “old white guy” problem

Slow progress is still progress, dammit

It's been a hot second (i.e. an ungodly amount of time) since I posted anything to do with my third and final AoD-sequel novel. Suffice to say I'm genuinely uncomfortable talking about the progress – or lack thereof – of WIPs, especially when they've been WIPs for so long they've started sprouting little purple tendrils and have knotted together into a Lovecraftian horror under the sink.

This is in no small part because of my ongoing health issues. Privacy is very important to me, but it's also no secret that I'm disabled with multiple chronic conditions. I'd hoped, back at the launch of Path of the Black Alchemist in the summer of 2023, to have wrapped up this project and published the final book by Christmas. Or at least spring 2024. Or the next Christmas for certain.

Life, of course, has had other ideas...

The important thing is that the third book IS coming and I AM making progress – even though at times it feels so unbearably slow that it's in danger of being overtaken by hibernating snails. It's no coincidence that part of Lara Croft's arc in this story is about coming to terms with her limitations and accepting/offering help; a huge part of my own life's journey has involved deconstructing my internalised ableism and learning that it's okay – even necessary – to embrace support from others. We're so conditioned to be perfect little self-sufficient, independent individuals that reaching out during hard times can automatically make us feel like a failure.

In reality, nothing could be further from the truth... as Lara finds out the hard way.

Another factor of this challenge is trying to reach out more online. To connect and grow with other creative minds. Hence, this post. Fatigue/energy limitations are a HUGE part of my daily life, so setting spoons aside purely for this is a Big Deal (TM) for me. Tumblr feels like a safer, more welcoming place to write more of these long-form musings than other SM platforms, so we'll see. It's counterproductive for me to make grandious promises about posting every day, or even every week, but it'd be cool to reach out more and try to open up a little after so long retreating into myself these past few years.

I'm also considering (but haven't yet committed to) sharing my works over on AoE. On the one hand, it's more work in the short term. But on the other, I'm seeing a lot of engagement and encouragement in the AoE community even here on Tumblr. Those of you who use it regularly: what would you recommend?

Bon chance xxx

2 days baby!

Art: Me (ixcato)

Software: Clip Studio Paint

So yesterday I started playing the remasters starting with Tomb Raider 1 and this popped up...

"The games in this collection contain offensive depictions of people and cultures rooted in racial and ethnic prejudices. These stereotypes are deeply harmful, inexcusable, and do not align with our values at Crystal Dynamics."

“Rather than removing this content, we have chosen to present it here in its original form, unaltered, in the hopes that we may acknowledge its harmful impact and learn from it.”

Honestly, I don't understand what's wrong with the originals, what's so prejudiced and harmful? Like that's so disrespectful to Core! Why does Crystal Dynamics have to put their two cents in on a project they didn't even make at first!? 😞

It is a general disclaimer for those former products which contain some details that didn't age well, or can be called out, and rightly so, nowadays. As much as we love the classics, everyone knows that what Lara basically does in her travels is to steal cultural and historic heritage from other cultures and civilizations and take them to the First World without consulting the political/intellectual authorities of the countries she travels to.

Most of time she's not that covetous of the artifact itself but of the thrill of getting it, that's why lots of times she just gives it away to museums or renounces to achieving it if the cost is too high and the consequences too terrible.

And there's the detail of having to kill the local habitants of these places most of times - even if in self-defense - to achieve it, so you add murder to the fact of robbing.

I think this is what this disclaimer is addressing. And for once, it's OK. That is what Tomb Raider was in the 90s. Today I'm sure it would be addressed differently, though I don't see many differences with the present reboot - Laraboot's manor is still full of plundered artifacts, even if coming from her father, or am I wrong?

Anyway, disclaimers are fine. Better than to alter the original product, which is what they've done til yet. But let's not allow this wander away from what is: acknowledging the original saga's shortcomings is not cancelling the whole product. And frankly I don't think Crystal either is having the high ground here anyway. I saw more horrid colonialist shit in LAU trilogy as well.