#work: fields of arcadia

[inkblackorchid]

You mentioned in your last answer that you can never really tell how much you have left to write for Embers because the length keeps getting away from you. Out of curiosity, what to this point would you say is the biggest offender as far as “this ended up longer than I thought”?

I’ve had some duels I’ve written end up longer than I thought because it was just too easy to write banter between each move so the characters hammed up an already long duel but it was too fun to cut, and I’ve also had minor characters I only included to fill out a scene suddenly inspire entirely new subplots because they were so easy and fun to write

Basically, in a simpler way: is the story getting longer because of things being longer in the transition from outline to actual writing, or is it longer because as you are writing you are getting inspired to add more? I know how the creative process tends to look for me and I’m curious what you tend to run into more

My biggest offender for "this got way longer than intended" is the entirety of Fields of Arcadia, lmao. I love that story with all my heart now, but the original idea I had for it was supposed to be one, at most two extra chapters at the end of Be Careful. But the fic completely got away from me because there were a lot of things canon left unaddressed about the Arcadia Movement that I desperately wanted to take a stab at myself, so the ideas kept coming and I kept writing. Then the initial planning stages for Embers began, too, and suddenly, I realised FoA was going to have to set that up, which ended up making it even longer. And now it's kind of a centrepiece of my Aki arc, which. Well! Didn't expect that when I was initially workshopping the idea.

That said, I absolutely relate to the other things you listed, too. Duels especially also have a tendency to get away from me because I love mixing banter and snazzy cardplay descriptions, and before I know it, the chapter is over 20k words.

As for Embers, it's a mix of two things: One is what you mentioned—the story gets longer as it transitions from outline to actual writing, because I love my outlines, but they're never so strict that I don't let the scenes breathe a little longer when I feel like it. Two ties into the first one—where big setpieces and especially action sequences are concerned, I'm a logic freak. I like to set situations up in a way that leaves very little room for questions of how or why. It's a personal preference based on how I interact with literature in my free time. I like it when things make sense. Well, turns out, often, in order to communicate to an audience that can't read my mind why something makes sense, I need to write more scenes for it. Embers is the prime example of this happening over, and over, and over. These are my main two issues with the fic length getting away from me atm. Which is not to say that inspiration doesn't play a role (in stories like FoA it very much did), but this particular story has a solid outline that doesn't feel like there's anything I need to add to it anymore.

So there you go!

[phoenixlevine]

so here's my take on @onyxonline's original Space Rider AU

Forgive me for my terrible grammar—I failed English.

This took three days since I play guitar, so please excuse me if the rest of her team isn't here yet. That’s also why I got too lazy to draw her wings every time.

Vaelion "Vael" Ignis (VAYL or VALE—yeah, I did the spelling on purpose) is a critter all the way from Arcadia, her home planet. [Sketches of it will come out soon!] Her entire personality revolves around unhinged urges of arson—not that she'd actually do it—sarcasm, chaotic playfulness, and coffee.

She's a dragon, and her skills rely on speed and agility. She often tosses enemies into the air, kicking them to the ground mid-fall, and mixes close-combat techniques with weapon strikes enhanced by bursts of flames. Besides her main traits, Vael also has two sides: the unhinged, calm one and the serious, no-nonsense one. She's an excellent strategist when her chaotic tendencies are set aside—her plans, as odd as they may be, always somehow work, much to the team's frustration. Despite everything, she’s kind at heart.

Arcadia, her home, is a moderately populated planet in the Leo constellation, known for its natural hot springs and breathtaking sights. It attracts tourists from all over the galaxy... including some unwanted guests. Fortunately, the Space Riders deal with them in "stealth"—or, as Vael puts it, "stealth" often involves half a field being lit on fire.

Hobbies: Making music (like playing guitar or something), flying—those wings aren’t just for show!

Powers: Pyrokinesis (obviously). To add a bit more spice, she has an extra skill called Hearts of Cinders, which allows her to absorb any fire- or physical-based attack and return it three times more powerful. However, this comes at the cost of a significant amount of her energy, often leading to mid-fight collapses. She can also use Hearts of Cinders on fellow critters to shield them! As stated in the first line of this post, the Space Riders AU belongs to @onyxonline, not me, and I'm in-love with the series btw, keep it up🫶🫶

[fatehbaz]

oh zoe schlanger, you don't even know 💀 by the way, have you read "bastard breadfruit and other cheap provisions" ?

Yo. Yea, actually, read "Bastard Breadfruit." Got references to and excerpts from Anya Zilberstein's work on the blog, including linking of the breadfruit scheme with appropriation of manoomin/wild rice here and here. The frustrating antihero botanists of Britain in the 1770s (including Joseph Banks, of course) were simultaneously working on projects to naturalize/appropriate both plants; just like how DeLoughrey highlights that the breadfruit scheme was spurred by British anxiety about cultivating cheap food crops to prevent rebellions and slave insurrections in the Americas, Zilberstein in "Inured to Empire: Wild Rice and Climate Change" shows that rebellions also factored into British fixation on cultivating manoomin. (For anyone unfamiliar, plantation owners in the Caribbean were scared about slave revolts 1770s-1790s, and they sponsored a major plan to have Britain's top botanists/administrators bring breadfruit from Polynesia to the Caribbean, so that they could "feed the slaves" and prevent unrest with the "exalted benevolence" of "colonial science." They, at the time, were explicit about this. Also, the British voyage sent to get the breadfruit had it's own rebellion--lol--the now-famous Mutiny on the Bounty.) I've got other references to Zilberstein's work here on British/Canadian fascination with, commodification of, and renaming of manoomin/wild rice ("cottage colonialism"; "names are not neutral"; how leisure tourism, portraiture, scientific field stations are implicated).

I share interests with her/her work ("history of science and empire," especially British imaginaries of landscape). Also encountered her work through her association with the journal Arcadia/Environment and Society Portal. The way she makes connections between spatially-distant centres of calculation in British administration (London, Nova Scotia, Caribbean, etc.) reminds me of Elizabeth DeLoughrey's similar tracing of the networks/routes of British and US ideas/material, especially the circulation of ideas about environment (so, appropriate DeLoughrey wrote about breadfruit).

Last year, read Zilberstein's book Temperate Empire: Making Climate Change in Early America. More on British fixation on "land improvement." In these cases, professional(ized) institutions are nodes in networks that bring peripheral ecologies "into being as objects of knowledge" to induct the colonies into imperial life.

Reminded me also of Kirsten Greer's work on British imaginaries of ecoregions, the division/dichotnomy of temperate/tropical, and the crafting of a kinda standardized "universal" idea/taxonomy of "neotropical, nearctic," etc. Like in Zilberstein's Temperate Empire, Greer also describes the social and ideological connections between British administrators in Atlantic Canada and Jamaica/Caribbean and how their field stations (and the professionalization of knowledge at metropolitan London institutions) composed ideas of "ideal" landscapes. If you're into ecoregions generally but ornithology or birds specifically, might like Greer's "Geopolitics and the Avian Imperial Archive: The Zoogeography of Region-Making in the Nineteenth-Century British Mediterranean," excerpt on my blog but also the article's accessible online. However, she's also got a recent book, Red Coats and Wild Birds: How Military Ornithologists and Migrant Birds Shaped Empire.

Linking the treatment of prairies and grasslands from Canada to Oceania, Zilberstein's work also reminds me of the writing on pasture grasses in Aotearoa and Australia. In Zilberstein's "Inured to Empire" and PG Andersen's "Grasses tame and wild" (both on manoomin in "Canada"), they discuss how Indigenous erasure and technocratic refashioning of taxonomy/landscape affected manoomin/agriculture 1900-1920. This reminds me of Brooking and Pawson in "Silences of Grass" ("grass built the British Empire"; Aotearoa will be "the Empire's dairy farm"), where they also focus on 1900-1940 and describe how sheep herding, dairy farming, landscape portraiture, pop-sci literature, technical science, etc. kept alive the earlier eighteenth-/nineteenth-century British fixation on "productive" land. (Excerpts here and here.) Very similar to Zilberstein's writing on "naturalizing" manoomin at field stations to make the rice into a commodity but also to make the idea of a "foreign" food plant "familiar" to European consumers, they discuss naturalization of other grasses as important tool of empire-building, both materially and imaginatively ("dreamwork of imperialism").

In all of these cases, there is British fascination with making "new" worlds into familiar, temperate, "improved" landscapes. Of course, a lot of "land improvement" has to do with commodification and profitability (plantations, monoculture, industrial-scale extraction), but it also has to do with imaginative control, too. This brings to mind Anna Boswell's writing on "anamorphic ecology" and Aotearoa specifically, where the "alien" ecologies of "strange" endemic species and "putrid" temperate rainforest provoked introduction of non-native species and installation of gardens, pastures, etc. This also implicates the role of gardening and monoculture lawns as sometimes-tools of British/US ways to bludgeon and re-make landscape in colonial settings. The garden makes them feel at home; they've transformed the unagreeable exotic ecosystem into a replica of an aristocratic English estate.

So it kinda makes the case that what some people might think of as "antiquated" old-school British/US imperial cosmologies (perhaps more overtly racist/militaristic/silly; "no way, do those old ideas/ideologies still permeate stuff today?") actually persisted as influential and continue to poison the well of contemporary imaginaries/science.

[moonchild-in-blue]

Even if it hurts me, even if I can't sleep, even in Arcadia

What if Eden was *his* (Vessel) paradise/ time of innocence before the cycle began/ fields of elation etc etc. And Arcadia is *their* (Sleep) heaven, the one they were cast away from, the one Vessel swore to bring down. What if he's there to fight Sleep in their home turf OR however else is there. The Gods above, the angels.

What if in order to break the cycle, he's heading straight to the source of all things and making them right. What if Sleep and Vessel are now working together again and teaming up against Their enemies (who are now Vessel's too)? Much to think about.

[randomfoggytiger]

It just occurred to me that in One Son, Scully is pissed because she is finally realizing that Diana is a B*.

She has Mulder tell her "stop" as she is confronting Diana after they have just been humiliated with that shower and they are in their patient garb while Diana is dressed to the nines, Scully and the boys try to explain to Mulder that Diana is untrustworthy but Mulder defends Diana and pushes Scully away to the point that she says she can't help him anymore, AND THEN when Scully calls him to tell him that she is going to pick him up to get Cassandra, HE IS WITH DIANA! Well, how did Scully not just lose it right there and then? Why didn't we get to see the conversation of "uh, Mulder what were you doing with Diana? After everything TLG and I told you, you rush over to her?" Sure, he could explain that he went to find some truths, but I want to see the explanation of how he convinces rational Scully to believe him. Did she roll her eyes so hard that she pulled an eye muscle and gave herself a headache? Was she so angry that she had to hold back tears? Did she give him the silent treatment? C'mon freakin' writers! This could have been storyline gold not just in terms of MSR but in terms of working partnership! Tie it back to Wetwired and Scully's internal worry of Mulder's betrayal. Ugh! I Hate that so many of these stories seemed to have been written in a vacuum. Even sitcoms tried to have some thread of continuity with their big episodes.

A missed opportunity, for sure.

It's hard to know how Scully and Mulder would have cleared the air (or did clear the air); but... I don't think it was, canonically, dramatic.

Having dug around the scripts in Season 6, there doesn't appear to be any intent after One Son to explore that (or a possible) rift-- except, possibly, Field Trip (and even then it was to examine Mulder and Scully's mutual conflicts and faults.) Anecdotally, both Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny have described Season 6 and 7 as "comedic" or "funny"; and both have stated, continuously, that the show is episodic-- i.e. The X-Files is most accurately explained by realizing nothing follows through. So: if the writers dropped that thread, and the actors' drew directly from the source-- i.e. working from the insulated scripts rather than carrying over lingering or bitter feelings-- then the characters themselves deemed that moment inconsequential to their progressive pace forward. (And by the time Diana shows up again, Scully doesn't jealously or enviously react to the other woman's presence: the matter, then, was already resolved, in typical, baffling MSR fashion.)

We can glean a few things from Agua Mala-- namely, that it is humorous and unifying. I wrote a fic about it here, but, in short: Mulder's aside to Scully in One Son was an acknowledgement of where he went wrong; and Scully, though still angry, sided with, not against-- or separate from-- Mulder to Kersh. They were a united front; and she, Agent Dana Scully, "wouldn't bet against him." From there, Scully follows him down to Florida (holding his arm and other tells, here) where they bickered (without malice) and quipped and continued, per their words and mannerisms, to display a united front despite a few human, wonky edges-- edges which tested but did not tear apart further. (Even Arcadia, which was originally slotted in as One Son's successor, is lighthearted: Mulder teases Scully, Scully teases back; he crosses a few lines, she does so in return; Scully passes up a private master bedroom to bunk in a smaller room adjoining Mulder's bathroom, post here; Mulder and Scully exhibit reciprocity in spite of personally confining circumstances; etc.)

Is it narratively satisfying? Perhaps not. But it is canonically consistent. I think it would also prove-- and did-- how little effect Diana Fowley had on Mulder's (then) considerations and happiness, despite her best efforts. And I think it fits with Mulder and Scully's unspoken pattern-- they express an extraordinary amount with exceptionally little communication, yes; but they are also conflict avoidant and prone to suppress rather than express their own vulnerabilities (while also pressing the other person to openly disclose his or her struggles....) Their silence and move forward, in that light, falls in line with past incidences (e.g. Never Again's "Yeah, but it's..." and Small Potatoes's "You're not a loser, Mulder" and Fight the Future's "But you saved me!" and Triangle's "I love you" and Dreamland's "Get out of the car, have something approaching a normal life" and HTGSC's "I wanted to be out there, too")-- there would be too much to admit to (i.e. feelings and emotions both were still dodging on some level) to have a thorough, freeing discussion.

But at the end of the day? Everyone's answer is going to change depending on their read of the characters and the show. Because so much is never built upon, it leaves moments like this open for interpretation and speculation-- which, while genius for many different reasons, is highly unfavorable to final, resolved definitives.

[shkatzchen]

Have you ever wanted to build an art gallery or museum?

Lamented having too many portraits and not enough wall space?

Wanted to hang a painting despite odd wall shapes?

Then perhaps the Hanging Chains are for you.

You can see the chains in use here, where I've used them with a customized version of the Arcadia Wall Niche to hang a painting in the niche.

These chains come in three lengths and allow (some) wall decor to be hung from the ceiling. The photo above is with medium height walls. The longest chain length does not work on the shortest wall height.

So what can you hang? Anything which is "ctnm compatible." What's that?

Well, that gets into how this particular object works. Once upon a time, qolygonal over at S4S made a mini-tutorial on how to add wall deco slots to items. These chains have that slot in between them. As such, objects which are designed to go in that slot, such as any item whose SlotTypeSet is 6FFE3FB4DB6337E0, will work.

Also tabletop TVs with 356D5A044DD97242 will slot. So you can have hanging TVs in places that wouldn't otherwise work with them.

Some of the paintings that I've shared (especially anything from the last few months) are marked as such. A variety of in game objects also work, though fewer than you would expect. However you can add this to many objects which don't have a SlotTypeSet, thereby making them work. Changing the SlotTypeSet to that number doesn't prevent them from also sticking to walls, it just gives them this handy little extra ability.

You may need to adjust the item's mesh to get it to connect where you want it to.

With the move objects cheat you can stack the longest and shortest chain lengths upon one another.

Without the move objects cheat you can stick them this close back to back.

Base Game Compatible. Comes in 3 lengths, and 3 swatches each.

Download the Merged file from SimFileShare here.

Need stuff to hang? Try these previously posted items:

Gilbert, Jeune Femme Lisant

Monet, Path in the Wheat Fields of Pourville

Payne, A Derbyshire Idyll

Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Clouds

Cole, The Course of Empire

Stillman, Love's Messenger

[whencyclopedia]

As You Like It: Learning to Love in Shakespeare's Forest of Arden

As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare (1564-1616), written in 1599 and likely first performed that same year. Indeed, it is thought to be the inaugural show performed by Shakespeare's acting company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, at the newly built Globe Theatre. Although its literary merit has been questioned by some scholars, who point to its lack of plot, As You Like It continues to be frequently performed today and features the character of Rosalind, often regarded as one of Shakespeare's greatest heroines.

Background

As You Like It was Shakespeare's attempt at writing a pastoral play, a literary genre that was popular with Elizabethan theatre audiences in the 1580s and early '90s. Largely influenced by Sir Philip Sidney's poem Arcadia, pastorals romanticized country life, specifically that of a shepherd living off the land. A popular example of pastoral poetry is The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, one of the poems of Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), which begins:

Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove,

That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,

Woods or steepy mountain yields.

It is quite easy to see why pastorals appealed to the literate and theatergoing crowds of London, many of whom likely fantasized about leaving the cramped, filthy, and often dangerous conditions of city life behind. In As You Like It, Shakespeare offers his own version of a pastoral paradise with his Forest of Arden, a magical place where snakes and lions dwell, bands of merry outlaws live off the land and pass the time with song, and young people can learn to fall in love (four couples get married at the end of the play, a large number even for a Shakespearean romantic comedy). The name of Shakespeare's paradise is derived both from his source, which takes place in the French forests of Ardennes, as well as from his personal life, as his mother's name was Mary Arden.

The story itself was adapted from the popular 1590 pastoral poem Rosalynd by Thomas Lodge, which provided Shakespeare with the basic ingredients for his own play – a heroine who disguises herself as a man, and the movement of the characters from city to country. Shakespeare expands the cast, originating the melancholic Jaques and clown Touchstone, and lowers the stakes, removing the more violent resolutions of Lodge's original work. Shakespeare's title also comes from Lodge, who, in the preface to his original Rosalynd, writes: "If you like it, so; and yet I will be yours in duty, if you be mine in favor" (quoted in Shapiro, 210).

Yet even as Shakespeare leans into the pastoral, he does not fail to criticize the genre's tendency to romanticize country life and love itself. The character Orlando, for example, enters the Forest of Arden lovesick for the beautiful Rosalind; indeed, he spends his time writing dreadful love poems and pinning them to trees. A classic Petrarchan lover, Orlando, has put Rosalind on a pedestal, something our heroine knows is an unsustainable form of love. When Orlando says he would die for his love of her, Rosalind – disguised as the shepherd Ganymede – grounds him with the words: "men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love". It is for this reason that scholar James Shapiro argues that the main conflict in As You Like It does not stem from the villainous Duke Frederick, who has usurped the dukedom and banished the protagonists, but rather from Orlando's own immature attitude toward love.

For this eschewing of the traditional pastoral ideals of poets like Sidney and Marlowe – and indeed of the intense kind of love found in Shakespeare's earlier work, Romeo and Juliet – Rosalind comes across as a special type of pastoral heroine, which is why literary scholar Harold Bloom considers her amongst Shakespeare's greatest creations. "I love Falstaff and Hamlet and Cleopatra as dramatic and literary characters," Bloom writes, "but would not want to encounter them in actuality; yet falling in love with Rosalind always makes me wish that she existed in our sub-literary realm…if Rosalind cannot please us, no one in Shakespeare or elsewhere in literature ever will" (204).

Read More

⇒ As You Like It: Learning to Love in Shakespeare's Forest of Arden

[saythatuwill]

yknow maybe to make myself feel better i should talk about some good things that have happened lately?

so for one i just got the okay for therapy twice a week, which i think is going to do WONDERS. PLUS im looking into extra treatment which is called TMS?? it's like some sort of magnet related thing thats said to treat/lower depression symptoms in like 93% of people.

it looks like i'll be getting treated for adhd and i feel like im being taken way more seriously about autism too. it's all really good, i've been making progress on my own but if i can really keep it up i want to.

bpd stuff is really hard. i think i'm getting a little better at keeping my head above water! bro if me last year could see me now man. what mood stabilizers do to a motherfucker!!!

EVEN IN ARCADIA IS REALLY SOON? that's not a me thing but that's like super fucking cool right? I AM PRAYINGGGG i get accepted for the listening party thing. i heard last time it happened vessel just sat there and stared at the camera the whole time. which like... me too brother.

my work is doing super well! i've never felt so alive in my inspiration! feels like home! i can't wait to share more with you all.

i just redid my whole resume and am job huntingggg! plus apartment hunting!!! i can't believe i finally have a chance to get out, live on my own for a change and really start making some progress that i feel i kinda can't due to my living situation. unhealthy home situations make trying to break some cycles hard.

i'm struggling a lot lately but in hindsight, i'm happy to be alive. i'm happy to make new friends and explore my passions and really figure out who sherry is. i think i like sherry so far.

where i'm at now, it feels like. running through a flower field. and sometimes there's thorns and sometimes it rains really hard. but i'm still here and maybe life is beautiful.

[esoteric-chaos]

Witchcraft Discord Server

Hi, I'm Juniper or you can call me June or Juni. I am a Maven on staff (researcher and writer) in this lovely Discord community. We offer many things from knowledge in our library, workshops, newsletters, astrology updates, daily check ins and even witchcraft services. You can find mine within. Come along I'll tell you more about it.

Scroll to bottom of page for link...lol

Want to join a great server community?

The Cobalt Athenaeum is a massive occult library on Discord! We have many branches of our libraries. As this is a library server, we absolutely do have lots of material that we have not written (and some of which we don’t agree with). We do our best to cite every source that we pull quotes or information from, but if you recognize writing that is not credited, please bring it to our attention and we will rectify the situation either by adding credit or removing the work. If you also notice something incorrect within the server please tell us! We will change and source accordingly as some information can slip through the cracks at times.

This server may be for you if

"You are a spiritual and/or magical practitioner, identify as a witch, are interested in our server topics and engaging with a community of like-minded individuals, are curious if this is the right path for you, or just to learn more about other cultures and beliefs. You are respectful and eager to learn, are comfortable acknowledging the fields in which you are uneducated and are willing to pursue rectifying that (or at least not speaking with authority on topics you are unfamiliar with), and are willing to comply with all of the rules and procedures of the Cobalt Athenaeum server network". - High Curator Ash

A bit about our library

Once you join the main Hub you can access our Sister Servers which are the branches of our library. You can find the channel for them all under #Sister-Servers. Here's some information about our servers written by our head staff.

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Black: Bacchanal (18+) Chat with other adult practitioners; we will discuss adult things of all kinds, witchcraft and otherwise. Here you can also learn age-restricted magic and practical psychology. This server is age locked and you will only be allowed in once you are no longer a minor. This is not negotiable for your safety and ours.

We have over 1000 channels across our server network, filled to the brim with information. Join our community if you are interested < 3 Dishboard Link and blurb: "The Cobalt Athenaeum is a Witchcraft and Spirituality information database server network linked through this social server. The Information provided is from witches who have been researching and practicing for years and mods here have a combined experience of 100+ years.

We wanted a place for witches of all skill levels to have access to good and reliable information. We also have submissions for those who have information of their own to contribute. We're always adding new info so If there is something that we don't have added yet and you'd like more information on, let us know and we will do our best to get that information out. We also have a study corner for those who want to listen to music or talk while they study and sift through all of our channels in our sister-servers!

We have live readings for those who want to practice their divination skills, and workshop classes led by mods and admins who are experienced in that given field.

Our Sister Servers contain the following information:

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an 18+ server for shenanigans and debauchery Within our server network we have over 1,000 information channels to choose from; you're bound to learn something new every time you take a look around!"

Discord Link:

[sourcherrieslatte]

INTRO TO MY AVENGERS REALITY.

— ABOUT ME;

NAME; arcadia stark

ALIAS; ultraviolet

BIRTHDAY; september 9th, 2000

PRONOUNS; she/they

— POWERS/ABILITIES;

* this isn't the whole, detailed list. more just a general overview.

ENHANCED STRENGTH ;

❝ The user can lift thousands of pounds to tens of thousands and perform any offensive action with the force of a massive vehicle. The user can lift cars, trucks, buses, small-moderately sized boulders, tall trees, and a few times the weight of peak humans. ❞

ENHANCED INTELLIGENCE ;

❝ Users with this power possess extreme levels of intellect, enabling them to memorize and calculate vast amounts of information with exceptional precision. They can handle and interpret vast amounts of information at a phenomenal speed, and use their mental capabilities to predict their enemies’ movements and attack trajectories with pure logic alone. ❞

REGENERATION ;

❝ Users possess a regenerative healing factor, meaning that they automatically and rapidly flawlessly heal and regenerate from any physical, spiritual, and mental damage, attacks, harm, assault, and injuries they take and get restored to their optimal and full health/state at an extremely fast rate. ❞

ENERGY MANIPULATION ;

❝ The user can freely create, shape, and manipulate energy. They possess complete control over energy, the capacity or ability to cause change or do work, one of the most basic quantitative properties of a system, such as an object or a field of energy. Energy can be transformed (converted) into a number of forms that may each manifest and be measurable in differing ways. ❞

ARMORED SUIT ;

❝ The user possesses and utilizes a special suit, costume, or article of clothing that grants them a variety of powers or other attributes. ❞

— BACKSTORY;

Now loading...

1% █▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒

...It wasn't a choice, really. When you're handed two evils, of course you're going to pick the lesser of the two. Even if you know it'll only lead to pain and suffering. At least this way, maybe one of you will survive to tell the tale...

25% ███▒▒▒▒▒▒▒

...My first impression of the world is that, to some degree, people must be inherently cruel. My second, is that they must also be inherently scared. I am unsure as of yet how these two things are connected, but I know they must be...

50% █████▒▒▒▒▒

...The newest arrival must either be incredibly stupid, or incredibly brave. The doctor seems inclined to believe it's the latter. I personally think this guy's liable to get us all blown up if he isn't careful. He is pretty nice to me, though...

75% ███████▒▒▒

...Tony doesn't want me to build a suit. Jokes on him, though, I know the passcodes to everything around here. Will I get some obnoxiously long lecture about not putting myself in danger for doing this? Probably. Am I going do it anyways?

Definitely...

100% ██████████

Complete!

— EXTRA;

GENERAL VIBES; neon lights, ripped jeans, mismatched socks, the smell of freshly brewed coffee, old notebooks, barely legible handwriting, messy doodles, loud music, faded tshirts, sour candies, bruised knuckles

MINI PLAYLIST; headlock - imogen heap // joyride. - kesha // the last of the real ones - fall out boy // what's up danger - blackway, black cavier // ain't it fun - paramore

[carryon-my-waywardcas]

I wrote this..

Even in Arcadia (You walk beside me still..)

Characters: Dean Winchester, Castiel (Supernatural), Bobby Singer (Supernatural)

Additional Tags: Hurt Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Castiel Loves Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester Loves Castiel, Bottom Castiel/Top Dean Winchester, Mutual Pining, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Eventual Smut, Dean Winchester Has Anger Issues, Post-Canon Fix-It, Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond, Castiel's Handprint (Supernatural), Dean Winchester in Heaven, Castiel and Dean Winchester Reunion in Heaven, PurGAYtory | The Inherent Homoeroticism of the Purgatory Arc (Supernatural)

Summary: After dying and arriving in Heaven, Dean expects peace—but instead, he’s haunted by the absence of the one soul he needs most: Castiel. The pain of Cas’s final declaration of love still lingers, not because of what was said, but because Dean never got to respond. He searches for Cas through Heaven’s quiet roads and golden fields, unable to let go, tormented by everything left unresolved.

AKA - These two idiots finally get their shit together.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/66695593

[inkblackorchid]

okay, I read Seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo (and it was 10/10) a few months ago but it was translated (and my brain connects the dots differently in different languages lol), and today I was looking at the reviews (because I am suddenly back on my goodreads spree) and one quote from one review stood out to me: "Intimacy is about truth. When you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can show yourself to them, when you stand in front of them bare and their response is 'you're safe with me'- that's intimacy."

Then I remembered (I think chapter 7?) from Fields of Arcadia, where Aki had a panic attack but where it was also underlined the importance of complete trust in her relationship with Yusei aka the shower scene.

I am *genuinely* so curious if it was inspired by this quote from 7HEH, and if it wasn't/if you have no idea about the book, then nevermind, but my curious ass got all like *leonardo di caprio pointing at the screen meme* *in the best way possible*

Ah yes, I believe you're referring to this passage?

"Though they were arguably less sensual, less laden with obvious gestures of affection, moments like these, for her, carried a weight with them that the deepest kiss, the most passionate night, couldn't. At the core of that weight was trust; the implicit faith that in a moment where she felt scared, weak, insecure, and sad, she could trust him to catch her, to receive her warmly, to help alleviate her distress however he could—and to do it so unselfishly that it made her heart ache. There was nothing transactional to his love, no expectation that he would be rewarded for his kindness, that she would give him something in return for his care, his affection. Though she shamelessly relished every kiss, every adoring gaze, every verbal reaffirmation of his love that was bestowed upon her, it was in moments like these that Aki felt this love all the way into her bones.

This is what real trust is. This is what it means to be loved. No facades, no lies, no lofty promises that only end up being broken. No transactions. This."

That was from chapter 7 of FoA, yeah! That said, while Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo sounds like a lovely read, I did not know that book before this ask! I might have heard the title before, but I've never read it. I absolutely concur with what Jenkins Reid is expressing, though, and to me at the time of writing chapter 7 of FoA, it felt like a very natural conclusion to come to? It's my understanding of love, at any rate, and so I put it into my work. If others resonate with it or even feel exactly the same way, never mind a published author, then all the better for it! It's a lovely quote you've sent me, at any rate. Who knows, maybe I'll pick up that book myself eventually. Generally speaking, I'm not shy to point out in the author's notes of my fics when I take some words or a specific turn of phrase from somewhere else, though! (See the Joan Didion quote that practically haunted Be Careful, I think, which I posted in one of that fic's A/Ns.) So if I did something like this, rest assured I'd point it out purely for the fun of hoping some people might get into the same things I read/watched, haha.

[spooked-skull-studios]

the fandogs I keep mentioning in our rp au posts, drawn back in October

i love these things I had a lot of fun designing them :>

AU RP rambling and original concept designs below the cut

Errrmmmm so yea these are Wesker's dogs,,,

Sutekh and Tyrant are "cured" (pose no risk of infecting others and are for the most part healed from infections) and Chris is currently being treated

Sutekh:

Twigs and I thought it would be funny if Wesker was a whovian (because we're British like that) so I decided to vaguely base his design on Sutekh during 'Empire of Death' but he was named after the god.

Sute is one of Wesker's first actual 'pet' dogs, having decided that the tall-looming blonde man that had been hanging around his area might make for good company (He followed Wesker around and fended off some opposition so Wesker thought 'why not' and brought him along.) (Timeline-wise he was taken in somewhere RE Afterlife. He avoids being killed on the Arcadia due to Wesker thinking better of bringing him along as well, after becoming oddly attached to the particular dog.)

After becoming more attached to Sutekh, Wesker refines a sample of Uroboros in hopes of stabilising the rot before the events of RE5 (He had already given Sutekh an antivirus after a while, however the leg and muzzle were too badly decayed)

Sutekh's face can split like the dogs seen in Apocalypse but can no longer spread infection.

Archie:

Archie (short for Arch-nemesis, though he would never tell) is a similar case to Sutekh in that she found a strange fascination towards Wesker leading to him taking her in.

Archie is a very disturbing dog, from her human-like, stare-into-your-soul eyes to her skull being partially visible. She's the most protective of the pack and isn't afraid to maul those she considers a threat to her brothers (she is especially protective of Chris and will often herd him if he stumbles in the wrong direction).

In regards to timeline, he took Archie in some time before RE5 but because he was unable to care for her during his time in the volcano, her infection progressed too far to heal without Uroboros though he didn't want to take the risk of her body rejecting the virus after his own original body was unable to survive.

Tyrant & Chris:

After reforming from Uroboros outside of the volcano, Wesker decides to lay low, returning to a safehouse and deciding to work as a connection rather than a main player in the bioterrorism field (aka he 'retires') on the condition that he will not test on domestic dogs (there was a whole thing in the RP). One such contractor. did not listen to this. He seized both dogs and left, destroying all research he helped to progress.

Tyrant was cured early into infection, though not before the virus mutated his face, permanently scarring him.

The virus burned through Chris leading to his eyes beginning to rot. While his sight will never be restored, his treatment is going well.

[hellsitedotcom]

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ OC Introduction : Helios ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

''I will be the spark that will light the fire that will save the Arcadians'' - Helios to [REDACTED]

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

Rarity : ✦✦✦✦✦ Combat Path : Remembrance. Combat Type : Fire. Weapon(s) Of Choice : Sycthe; summons a burning humanoid silhouette.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

— C O M B A T —  Since I have no idea how the numbers and multipliers in the game work, there ain't any numbers here for now. Also, I have no idea how the path of Remembrance works (yet), so this might completely change after the first Remembrance playables drop.

✧ Normal Attack 

– Executes a single strike dealing Fire DMG to an opponent. – When Memosprite is on the field: Executes a Follow-Up ATK to the same opponent, dealing Fire DMG, blasting the damage to adjacent targets.

✧ Elemental Skill 

– Upon triggering their Elemental Skill, the character’s Memosprite is summoned onto the battlefield as an additional ally that fights alongside its summoner until the Memosprite is killed. – After summoning the Memosprite, triggering the Elemental Skill restores the Memosprite's health by a set amount.

✧ Ultimate Skill 

– Upon triggering their Ultimate Skill, the character’s Memosprite - if not previously having been summoned - is summoned onto the battlefield as an additional ally until killed. – The character’s Ultimate Skill triggers the scenery to change in a cutscene, moving the scorching sun to be positioned right behind the character and their Memosprite, drastically increasing both their DMG before the characters execute a single-target attack and deal increased Fire & Crit DMG to the opponent.

✧ Technique Skill 

– When triggering their Technique Skill, apply the ‘’Sun’s Descendant’’ effect to the character, which automatically kills any low-HP enemy upon being struck; high-HP enemies will take a certain amount of Fire DMG upon entering the battle while the character’s Crit DMG increases for (2) turns. 

✧ Passive Talent

– For every enemy that gets defeated by the character, triggers a Follow-Up ATK by the summoned Memosprite to a random enemy.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

— L O R E — 

species: arcadian entity. age: 100 years old; appears to be in his late 20s/early 30s.

title(s): Arcadia's Sun, the Founder's Heir, Emanator of Remembrance, Messor's Successor, Neaera Reborn. fraction: the Arcadia Clan.

✧ Appearance

Helios is a tall, muscular man with deep orange eyes (hex, #c94000) and red-appearing pupils. He has long, dark brown hair (~hex, #120400) that he keeps in a messy bun and a visible scar across his right jaw.

He is commonly seen wearing black-brown armour of unknown origin (at least to the Arcadians), with scaled shoulder plates. Upon closer inspection, one can spot fine engravings on the armour that all seem to resemble symbols tied to each planet within the Arcadia System, alongside a sun in the middle of his chest armour. In the rare instances in which he is seen without his armour, he wears a lose-fitting shirt in a light brown color, and a pair of tight-fitting, black pants, along with black boots and gloves.

His scythe is made of the same colour and material, a sun symbol engraved in its tang. Both armour and scythe seem fire- & heat-resistant.

✧ Character Story I

During the last decade of Messor’s reign of terror, Helios had been but a young boy.He still remembered the faces of his parents, pale from worry and fear as they prayed each evening that the Keeper’s madness would come to an end.Back then, he did not understand much of what was happening. All he knew was that the supposed Guardian was harming the planetary system more than he was helping it. 

Then the day came, when the Arcadia clan rallied together to end the man’s reign. Helios was merely 20 years old - an age that meant nothing to a species like his, one that could live for centuries with enough determination. His predecessors lived up to 500 years on average. By the time Messor had died, his elders still considered him a child compared to their century-old souls.

The moment Messor had taken his last breath, Helios had felt something change within him.He had been roaming the deserts of Elisium when a sudden heat had taken over his body, burning him up from within, making him fall to his knees. He felt as if his body was on fire, engulfed by scorching flames.Yet when the heat subsided and he searched his body for injuries, he found that he was unharmed. 

The young man rushed to the nearest oasis, scanning the waters for his own reflection, only to lock eyes with a pair of glowing, orange eyes.His glowing, orange eyes, their previous color as if replaced, any trace of it completely gone. ‘’The eight Keeper has fallen,’’ the man thought, the realization settling in as he kept staring at his reflection, ‘’And a ninth Keeper has to rise.’’

Helios did not return home that night. He stayed by the oasis, constantly checking his reflection as if expecting all of this to be a bad dream or a hallucination from spending too much time under the scorching sun.Yet, when the next morning came and the man found himself still wearing glowing, orange eyes, Helios realized that he wasn’t dreaming after all. He had been chosen to become Messor’s successor and ascend to Guardianhood.

[more character stories...]

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

— V O I C E L I N E S —

✧ First Meeting

Greetings. I am Helios, the Keeper and Guardian of the Arcadia system, and successor to Helen Arcadia. It is a pleasure to meet you. 

✧ Greeting

I hope you are well-rested? You never know what one might encounter along the way. It is best to start into every day with a clear mind and sharpened senses, otherwise incidents are bound to happen. 

✧ Parting

I thank you for allowing me to accompany you today. Your trust means a lot to me, and I hope we will see each other again soon. 

✧ About Self: Arcadia clan.

For most of Arcadia’s citizens, I am not ‘’merely another citizen’’, but something…almost holy, one could say. The people hold the Arcadia clan and anyone related to Helen in high regards, which, of course, doesn’t come as a surprise given everything Helen and most of my predecessors have done for these planets. I just wish they wouldn’t look at me like I was someone special. I’d rather they treat me the way they treat everyone else than…this.

✧ About Self: Predecessors

As a child, I have always loved to listen to my mother’s stories about Neaera, the sixth Keeper. They were a hero, through and through, and now that I have become a Keeper myself, I strive to continue my predecessor’s legacies the way she did. Someone I’d much rather forget is my direct predecessor, Messor. I was still really young when he was at power. I can still remember the fear in my parents’ eyes whenever he visited Elisium…it is something I wish to never experience again.

✧ About Helen Arcadia

She was the first Keeper, and is considered the ‘’Founder’’ of the Arcadia System. Many people, including myself, hold her in high regards and still pray to her. She was, and will always be the best of us. No one will ever compare to her, no matter how much time has passed and how many Keepers have succeeded her.

✧ About Messor Arcadia

Messor was a tyrant. Nobody knows why he had been chosen to succeed the seventh Keeper. His rule is marked by chaos, destruction, terror, and tragedy. He is the reason behind the evocation of the cataclysm. I pray to Helen that there will never be another Messor taking on the role as Keeper ever again.

✧ About the Emanator of Finality

One can’t deny that anyone blessed by the Aeons is a special individual, but to catch the gaze of Finality Themselves? An impressive feat, indeed. I do not want to imagine what they must’ve done to catch Terminus’ attention. Alas, I have met them during their return to Arcadia alongside the Nameless, and I am quite relieved that they have chosen to return home, even if only for a brief time. Arcadia needs more people like them. People that will fight for what is right, even if their reasons have been selfish at the beginning of their journey.

✧ Added to a Team with Evelyn

Emanator of Finality, it is an honor to be fighting by your side once again.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

[saatmans]

Some time after the long-awaited release of Emergence, I can come here to talk about my feelings about this new song.

Discovering Sleep Token last year was the best thing that ever happened to me. It's the first time I've really felt part of something, part of a community, and I've said I'm a fan.

It's also the first time I've followed someone's work in the music field, previously only with literature.

Sleep Token has become a part of my life, a considerable part. 2024 was not an easy year, but it was possible because I had them and everything that came with them, including one of the best fandoms

When the first signs of a new album appeared, like everyone else, I was euphoric. And all the publicity was magical. It made me love the band even more. Vessel and the crew are amazing.

I love the fact that everything is connected and thought out down to the smallest detail. It's incredible.

Emergence is an amazing song. It's a new chapter that is directly linked to Take Me Back To The Eden. Right at the beginning Right at the beginning when the music started, I had the feeling of entering through a portal. It was as if I had finally arrived in paradise, but found it corrupted.

The song follows a melodic rhythm that is like a confession, a recognition of the imperfections of relationships. A memory of a perfect time that will never return.

I like how Vessel invites you to emerge into memories like hugs, while also fighting for freedom. It's not about fighting for the relationship to go back to what it was, but for it to be something new.

For me, the triumphant part of this song is the melody. It's very immersive, Vessel's voice is harmonious with the instruments. The bass is wonderful, the drums are like a beating heart.The guitar is a spectacle. The saxophone invites the listener to stay in that broken Eden and see what will happen.

About the saxophone, I remembered the same reaction I had when I heard the final part of The summoning (A curious detail is that Emergence and The Summoning are the second songs on their respective albums). A welcome surprise.

Emergence proves ST's potential as a legendary band. Within a milieu that insists on not wanting to move forward in the name of silly nostalgia. As I read a while ago: the ones who hate metal the most are metalheads.

I'm very curious for this album that has an Arthurian legend energy. Would Vessel be talking about finding his holy grail? Could he be looking for an Excalibur that will free him? Even in Arcadia sounds like a D&D-style heroic journey to me.

I simply loved the music and the new phase of my beloved band.

[chriscdcase95]

Until Dawn updated headcanons: + Unlife is Strange/Screaming Until Dawn

The following headcanons are included in my AO3 stories; Unlife is Strange and Screaming Until Dawn. Both fics are part of the same “verse”.

Much of these were written down before the remake allowed us to save Josh. Because of this, Josh becoming the Makkapitew’s new host is canon as far as this “verse” is concerned.

Grab your popcorn. This is whole world building.

1. First things first, this bit was something taught to me growing up about the wendigo. I’m not sure if it’s a widespread belief or a regional/local one — especially since details vary between bands and regions.

Anyways what I was taught was that if you  kill a wendigo without taking the right “precautions” — either burning their heart or cutting up their body and burying them at different locations — their spirit will fixate on you and actively haunt you out of revenge.

They will always know where you are and everything about you; your name, family, home; your fears and weaknesses; and they will use you against you. And there’s nowhere you can run where it won’t eventually follow. There's nowhere you can hide that they don't already know.

Enter the Makkapitew, an already powerful and vicious wendigo spirit which has possessed two people with grudges against the cast. Because of this, it holds a special grudge. Simply killing them just isn't gonna cut it. It's especially fixated on Sam, for so close to Josh and Hannah, and being the one who set off the explosion that killed it.

Following the events of “They All Live”, the Makkapitew spirit soon followed them from the Blackwood Pines and became a regular supernatural nemesis in their lives; either as a spirit or through Josh’s body. Sometimes the Makkapitew  is a genuine threat or menace, other times it’s a petty annoyance out to ruin their day. 

It’s like Eobard Thawne that way. 

In it’s first rampage the Makkapitew tracked them down to their hometown, and slaughtered several of their friends, neighbors and family members. Sam tried to reach out to “Josh”, and got non lethally mauled for her trouble — Sam has a few bite/scratch scars on her stomach, side, calf and thigh that haven’t quite faded.

After this, everyone save for Chris and Ashley came to believe Josh is well and truly gone.

2. Crossover Headcanon: Following the initial massacre, “The Blackwood Seven” are reached out to by the FBC (Control).

They are ultimately put into a witness protection sort of deal, with one of the catches being they’d do “Scout Work”; being civilian eyes and ears on a few ongoing cases. They were assigned to the Arcadia Bay case, soon befriending characters like Max, Chloe, Kate, Victoria and the vampiric Rachel Amber.

They soon become field agents, but during Screaming (set in October of 2016), Sam is taking a sabbatical to focus on college.  Because of their involvement, the UD cast are recurring/supporting characters in Unlife is Strange; and the LIS characters are recurring/supporting characters in Screaming Until Dawn. 

At the time of Screaming, Mike and Matt are taking an overseas assignment  —   something about containing a vampire nest in Iraq that was discovered in 2003, and now starting to leak; while Emily was coming back from working off the coast of Japan, looking into and covering up sightings of a  “sea dragon” near Odo Island.

She brought with her pictures that would make Nessie/Champ enthusiasts  “Mess their pants.”

3. Following the events of “They All Live” Josh is thrown under the bus by law enforcement and the media.

With the wendigo having been covered up during the investigation, the FBC and RCMP compiled all available evidence, which ultimately points at Josh as being a wannabe cannibal serial killer; going as far as to implicate him as being behind Hannah and Beth’s disappearance, with armchair psycho-analysts painting him as having an incestuous fixation on them. 

The nail in the coffin against him was Josh’s teeth marks and DNA found on the cops he slaughtered, and on Sam after her attack; Jack’s severed head, Beth’s severed head; a shrine for his sisters; and the traps he set up throughout the lodge; videos recordings of Ashley and Chris being caught in these traps; and Sam taking her bath. For this Josh was labeled as an inhuman monster by the public, and his parents disappeared from the public. As a result, Bob’s Hollywood career is up in smoke.

His friends could try to speak out for Josh’s favor, but were coerced into going along with the narrative by Director Zachariah Trench; who pointed out to Sam that publicly defending the guy who recorded her bathing, drugged her and physically assaulted her, is not a good look. He gave the same kind of lecture to Chris and Ashley, pointing out how they were the only other two personally victimized by Josh.

As a result, the Blackwood Seven never speak about the case publicly, only talking about it to a select few friends who they trust with the truth.

It’s because of this, most of Josh’s friends write him off as truly being gone after his possession. If there was a way to bring him back, it’s not like he had much of a life waiting for him. As another result, Josh’s case is often publicly compared to that of Mark Jefferson Nathan Prescott, due to the events of LIS occurring not too long before Hannah and Beth disappeared.

The comparisons are usually made by those overly sympathetic to Nathan, and overly demonize Josh. Ironically it’s because of these comparisons, the Blackwood Seven were assigned to the Arcadia Bay investigation.

Much of Screaming is gonna deal with the fallout of what happened to the Washingtons.

4. Shipping/sexuality headcanons: I write Jessica, Emily, Mike and Matt as being bisexual, and Sam as a lesbian.

Mike is still coming to terms with his bisexuality, which is ironic because he’s normally supportive of his bi/gay friends. At the time of Screaming, Jess and Emily have been trying to pair Mike and Matt up for a whole now, often pulling strings to get the Bureau to put them on field missions together.

While Sam isn’t dating dating anyone, as of this post has a regular “Friends With Benefits relationship with Emily and Jessica, though it’s transparent their actual feelings are more than platonic. But following the events of UD,  Sam took up a habit of casual flings and hookups as trauma cope.

She usually keeps it to consenting sapphic friends in her inner circle, with boundaries in place; mainly friends she made from Arcadia Bay. But her heart goes to Jessica and Emily. Sam, Jess and Emily are the main OT3 of Screaming Until Dawn. One of the inciting incidents is that the three are planning a “Girl’s Trip” together.

5. In this setting, Jack/The Stranger is not related to Jack Fiddler. While I’m not opposed to the Famous Relative/Ancestor trope, knowing the IRL history of Jack Fiddler, it was waaay too touchy. It helps that it’s not something explicitly mentioned in the game, therefore can be overlooked.

Here, Jack is a member of the Dibikad family, a minor but recurring Oji-Cree family I feature in my stories, and the last of the Pâhkwêkan (Night Owls) — a party of vampire/werewolf hunters formed during the Colonial era.

Their backstory goes that there was a vampire that lived in the Great Lakes Region for centuries, historically thought to be a Viking settler. For the most part, he was benign and left the natives alone, but when settlers started colonizing the Americas, they brought with them vampires and werewolves. 

This “Viking settler” began teaching the natives about these creatures and their weaknesses. The Pâhkwêkan was soon formed from these teachings. Unfortunately, the Pâhkwêkan were so effective in dealing with vampires and werewolves among the settlers, that Colonists used their “raids” as an excuse to really crack down on the natives.

By the 1890’s, the Pâhkwêkan were down to one faction in Alberta. By then, a young and overzealous Pâhkwêkan hunter named Maxwell Dibikad led a raid in Blackwood Forest; erroneously coming to believe that wendigo were a type of vampire. As recompense, the Makkapitew slaughtered all but Maxwell, who was left crippled and forced to disband the Pâhkwêkan lest it returns continuously for his family and community.

In the present day, the Dibikads' want nothing to do with the Pâhkwêkan save for Jack, and his niece Vanessa - another recurring character in Unlife, who became handler to the Blackwell Seven.

6. In Screaming Until Dawn, Sam is sort of an alternate counter to Kirby Reed. Their connection is gradually revealed when they experience glimpses of each other’s lives as “dreams.” In 2011, Sam has a dream of being Kirby during Scream 4; and in 2015, Kirby dreams of the events of Until Dawn from Sam’s perspective.

For much of the story, Sam and Kirby are gonna be seeing/experiencing more of their lives through each other’s eyes; starting when Sam gets calls from a Ghostface repeatedly calling her “Kirby”, and is now targeting her friends; and Kirby repeatedly being followed a presence calling her “Sam”.

I also considered giving also Jessica some ties to Scream characters, but I haven’t made any final decision on that.

Gif unrelated.

I also had a joke in mind where Mike similarly “dreamt” of being the MCU’s Grant Ward. Somewhere in the multiverse, Ward dreamt of being Mike.

7. Since Bob Washington was a Hollywood director, Screaming Until Dawn includes one of his most popular movies. It’s not plot relevant or anything, but there for world building and a running gag.

In 2002, Bob directed a horror/fantasy swashbuckling movie called Wittebane — based on the Connecticut folk legends of two witch hunting brothers. It’s not the first adaptation of the legend, but it was one of the more popular ones, for its subversiveness and its love story.

The movie put a romantic spin on one of the brothers, Caleb (Ben Affleck) and the witch Evelyn (Winona Ryder); and the brother Phillip (Mark Whalberg) being an outright villain were most adaptations portray him as a tragic failure protagonist at best. 

It was released by Disney and considered one of their riskier movies, like Pirates of the Caribbean or Haunted Mansion, it was one of those movies that are clearly written for a mature audience and given a PG-13 rating. But because it’s Disney, it’s marketed as a family film anyways, and a whole lot of kids bared witness to the eyebrow raising “waterfall scene”.

Said scene caused “childhood lesbian awakening” memes across early 2010’s Tumblr. Wittebane also had an award bait song called “The Piece of You (I Carry With Me)” sung by Michelle Branch. Basically an equivalent to “My Heart Will Go On” or “There You’ll Be”.

It was especially popular in the brothers hometown of Gravesfield, with there used to be yearly showings every Halloween. But after the events of Until Dawn and the controversy surrounding the Washington’s, it became a really heated debate of separating the art from the artist.  

As it happens, when the Blackwood Seven and co were conscripted into the FBC, they learned that Wittebane's original writer was a supposed practicing witch, who disappeared and reappeared from a place called “the demon realm” as a teenager in the 90's.

The FBC seemingly had the writer's memory wiped, and have been trying to access that realm ever since.

8. Pretty big lore drop.

In Unlife is Strange, Mount Washington/Madahee was previously nicknamed as “Chepaiyikumik” (“Grave”), being thought of as a mass grave with a dark history. Much of that history is intentionally covered up and lost to time, to the point it was mostly forgotten about by the Colonial period. 

Dating all the way back to “Fuck if I know BC” — estimated to be the time of giants, titans and the old gods — what would become Blackwood Pines was a hotspot “The Children of Ithaqua”. They were a cult that spanned across what would become North America and Eastern Eurasia, but has mostly reduced to a fractured memory. 

In a semi-related fic, Loves Sacrifices — Ithaqua is one of the Greater Scope Villains. The “human” son and mediator to the King in Yellow, Ithaqua taught humanity to follow his example in decadence and vice. There’s also a UD cameo where a character makes contact with Ithaqua’s spirit, and witnesses Jessica’s rant at the cabin from Ithaqua’s perspective.

Ut’s also implied he taught early humanity the concept of colonization. When his father is slain, Ithaqua was bound to another world and cannot directly interact with this one. Through his cults practices, it’s believed many cultural taboos were formed — EG, “Hey, this evil shit is what Ithaqua and his followers practiced. Yeah, let’s NOT follow their example, kay-kay ?”

Ithaqua’s present followers exist by the 2010's, but are hardly the apocalyptic threat they were way back when. They exist under the guise of Christian based institutions, including prosperity gospel/quiverfull preachers and televangelists — obsessed with making money and “breeding prosperity.”

They don't really believe in Ithaqua as an actual entity anymore, and more of a concept to live under. But as of Until Dawn, they are keeping an eye out for the Blackwood Seven.

And they're not the only ones watching...