cuckoo-on-a-string - Tumblr blog

[cuckoo-on-a-string]

[cuckoo-on-a-string]

You don't know the taste of your children's food dipped in your friends' blood, so don't talk to me about patience

From the Instagram story of Ebrahem Ateef, Palestinian video creator from Gaza.

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Yoshitaka Amano

Witch (1992)

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I did see your update post but I dint see any mention io you taking anything down ..because I cant find Civilian Assest, so I was just curious if you deleted it?😭😭

Heyo!

Thanks for asking. It's still up. It should be listed on the pinned post on my blog.

Hope this helps!

[cuckoo-on-a-string]

[cuckoo-on-a-string]

General Update

I know I haven't been around much, but as brutal as the past four months have been, I've been seriously improving.

I plan to get back to writing soon, but I'm also relearning how to not constantly hate myself/actually do the things I want, and I took a big step with that this past weekend.

I love you all and look forward to catching up with your stories!

My inbox remains open for questions and such. And I'm happy to message with mutuals.

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Jeremias Ritter - Nautilus Snail, c. 1630 (Nautilus shell, silver-gilt)

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Eartha Kitt photographed by Carl Van Vechten, c. 1954

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Fill, digital drawing.

This one was an exercise in using a slightly more monochromatic color scheme.

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-Orpheus-

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Southern resident orcas, also known as the southern resident killer whales (SRKW), are an exclusively fish-eating ecotype of orcas that live in and around the Salish Sea. They differ genetically from transient orcas as well as having different dialects and diets. © Rachel Haight - Orca Network

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I’ve been hearing about this recent-ish (to me) trend of “I filter for only completed fics” and ngl, skill issue, tbh.

my favorite fic that I’ve ever read, that I have multiple copies saved in various places just in case, my “break glass in case of the worst of my bad days” fic, was first posted in 2012. the last update was in 2018. it’s still not marked as completed, and from following the author, it might never be. that’s just how life is sometimes - people move on to new stories, or get caught up in the real world, and it’s no one’s fault.

but that doesn’t make me any less incredibly grateful for the time I got to spend in that story. I remember how excited I was whenever I got an email about a new chapter, how I would organize evenings around reading the update as a special occasion: getting home and having some nice snacks and curling up on the couch with the mood set just so, so it felt like an Event. I remember being devastated when I was left hanging at the end of some chapters, and wondering to myself between then and the next update about what was going to happen next, how it was all going to play out. Then when the actual next chapter would drop, I’d be thrilled at the parts I guessed right, or I’d see how the author took it in a direction I hadn’t expected, so I now had my own imagined version and theirs to think about as the waiting process started anew.

there’s also just the feeling of each new chapter being a celebration?? not just for you who gets to read it, but the author who’s worked to write and edit and post it! it’s a chance to celebrate together, and to be part of the journey of the creative process. watching a fic upload in real time is a one-of-a-kind, never to be replicated experience. you never know what will bring someone back to a story after a pause, whether it’s an update in canon, or a resurgence in the fandom, or something from IRL that fits the themes of the story a little too well. but also getting to be there from the very beginning, watching someone in the initial honeymoon stages of a fic where it’s all they can think about and they’re getting chapters out as fast as they can, then sitting with them as the story matures and they decide where they really want it to go? it’s a beautiful thing to witness.

idk, I’m sure this kind of mindset existed to some degree before streaming/content culture, but I can’t help but feel like that’s a not-insignificant part of seeing new(-ish) people say they only want to read completed stories: having things dropped all at once for people to consume almost thoughtlessly, then just move on to the next thing for instant gratification, has engendered some attitudes that I find really just counterintuitive and honestly detrimental to the process of good storytelling, which - shocker - can take a while. especially when the writer is a real human with a job and responsibilities outside of their writing, and is creating this thing out of their own free time and a labor of love.

there’s so much beauty in stories that aren’t completed yet. there’s a chance to connect with the person behind it on a real human level as you go through the process together. speaking from experience, I have comments on my own WIPs that I constantly remember whenever I get discouraged, and are probably one of the big reasons I want to continue those stories, so I can finally share that ending with them and celebrate with the people who have been with me the whole way.

people saying they only want to read finished works are not only depriving themselves of that, it just feels like another way fandom is being commodified/Content-ified. it just seems really shitty that readers expect writers to finish fics for their one-sided consumption without any interaction or encouragement during the process. it’s not a Good Look on the reader end, that’s for damn sure.

tl;dr: a fic is not a product for people to only engage with when it’s finished. human interaction in the process of creation is not only beneficial for the reader and the writer, it might be a big reason the writer sees the story through to completion.

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Fans' attitudes toward AI-generated works

Irina Cisternino, a PhD candidate of Stony Brooke University, is writing their research on topics related to technology, art and fandom. You can participate by filling out a survey and additionally, signing up for an interview. The survey is expected to last until at least the end of April, those, who signed up for the interview, will be contacted later. You need to be at least 18 years old to participate in either, be able to understand and speak English and identify as a fan.

After the completion of the research, it will be accessible as the dissertation of the researcher. If you have further questions, you can contact Irina Cisternino at irissa.cisternino@stonybrook.edu or Lu-Ann Kozlowsky at lu-ann.kozlowski@stonybrook.edu.

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Slow and steady. 40 New Limited Edition prints of this matching fella are now available at the link in my bio.