meanwhile alan "don't you have homework to finish?" wake thinks he's being nice by implying they can talk more about his questions later, but might also be coming off as old man going "don't you have homework to do??"
forgot that lucida console isn't a mobile-friendly web font (at least, not on my phone, idk others) and have been using it to keep visual consistency with the laptop info visuals.
wondering if i should switch over to courier since it's mobile-friendly
The whole arguing with Scratch on the network thing is really funny b/c re-reading Alan Wake Files, and there's this bit that implies that Alan was bad at social media (and honestly, if he did use social media with some form of regularly he probably would have ended up Not Allowed for PR reasons eventually haha)
Nightingale: Goddammit, just tell me where Wake is! Wheeler: Am I psychic? Do I have a map in my pocket with a big “X” on it? Does he post status updates? Hell, by now I wouldn’t tell you if I did know, because I think you’re batshit crazy. Believe me, I know crazy when I see it.
also wow she IMMEDIATELY likes him a LOT MORE gjfhd
so like when she tells Scratch 'I don't lie', she isn't kidding- she very consciously refuses to outright lie, which makes it. kinda funny when you try grilling her on a thing she knows bc either she can Tell you or like
rewatching this and actually thinking about timelines. so this was filmed for the press tour of The Sudden Stop, and Alan had 2 yrs writers block after that book was released, so since he's 31 when he goes to bright falls, he's likely 29 here
Errand Boy was written and published when he was 18, and the Night Springs writing gig came shortly after,maybe 19 or so wiki page mentions 1998 as prior timestamp to this, so 20?
so, from 19 20-22 he's doing night springs work before dipping into alex casey novels, maybe a year of overlap inbetween for the process of writing it vs publication and getting the big dollars before he quits writing for night springs (unless the show being cancelled happened before this and was an instigating factor for novel writing)
i couldn't find anything. anyway, since there's no year given between his night springs work and when the first alex casey novel was released, i hadn't really thought about how long he was probably there writing and so it's just nice to have a rough estimate and context
very sad this video memed during alan's time in the dark place b/c i think it would be a very funny meme for alan and miles to potentially bond over (was thinking up ideas for konbini starter)
VERY tempted to just say that he picked it up from the collective unconscious prior to ending up in ryslig, because it did go viral and the visions videos + control DLC establish that alan does have the ability to draw from people, places, and things that are happening in real time somehow
alan > miles this is so short compared to my other starters/tag-ins but I have been wrestling with this for so long that once i figured out what i was going to do i wanted to just keep it short
ᴹᴼᴿᴳᴬᴺᴱ
feel free to assume this is the same night as after everyone got out of the house, next day, sometime later in the week, whatever works alan would go somewhere that guarantees free coffee at 2am after going through the house ordeal so
alan > theo yeah I have only skimmed the chapter one excerpt of return to sender but a man gets crushed under a car and the description is pretty graphic so i gotta thoroughly comb it for CWs
also i love alan being like "people might not want to read them" internalizing all the 'everyone should get along and hang out and be friends w/each other' and reading it as people likely wanting to lessen the horrors and dark shit they deal with regularly, and then providing a further description that for the right people they'd be sold on it
anyway, making alan be like "maybe i'd come to book club" is a combination of the massive amounts of books in his apt holding hands with alan's attempt be open-minded about all of this and since he said he'd be better and everyone is saying "make friends!!" he will... consider it
i just wanna write my top levels but i have too many questions.... combing 12 pages of old faq comments on top of all the reading I've already done is so much... idk if anyone would have even asked about the things i want to ask....
so there's the general info about the day/night/fog gods and mention of lesser deities, but specifically I'm wondering what sort of published work or research would be available regarding cosmology and also secular theories if there are any regarding the origin and creation of the universe. branching from there, is there pop culture about these things?
is there archival footage of pop culture relating to these things or is it lost media? would there be mentions of pieces of media with these interpretation in newspapers or books or w/e like ads or analyses but the original media is lost so there's only speculative traces?
also are there recurring themes or stories in media that aren't origin myth-related but still hold cultural significance, like the phenomenon of retelling Aesop's fables or Grimm's fairy tales, etc?
essentially alan is gonna be doing Research! in the Libraries, so while it might not be significant for right now, depending on whether or not vin and i wanna propose a player plot I'm wondering what relevant to ryslig info there is to play with
network posts don't last past a week so alan will prob still make a network post to ask about people's personal accounts and such among other questions
so really the only thing remaining is whether or not there's pop culture essays/analysis/meta commentary that's been made in-universe since the setting faq says there's been an increase in monster rep in media
the history of the gods doc (which i hadn't realized was a thing until just now because there's so much everything everywhere) counts as the cosmological info that alan would be looking for for the most part
I might ask a question in the faq about whether or not there's been any documented scientific theories on the creation of the world that don't revolve around the gods and creation myth
alan > steven in which i have him ask one of my questions IC because I wasn't sure if I could ask an OOC question on the location page for the college or not
didn't write an alan feeding prompt bc i wasn't feeling it last night, and just justified it as him being a soup kitchen lad for at least the early half of the week, however i do want him to feed on at least one person during the event so i am considering tagging out to someone else's maybe
the rollercoaster of emotion that is alan's shame over the night springs job leading him to want to make ~art~ through novels, writing alex casey and ending up with a hit, riding the high and success until he hated it and wanted alex casey to end, trying to write something new and failing, writing departure, and then in AWAN coming to terms w/his work on NS
it's SO funny b/c in the scratch/katurian thread he's like "oh yeah~ i wrote a bestselling book series~ /pride" and meanwhile if alan even hints about his novels he's like "idk you can read them i guess, but they're dark"
idk if others have ever read it as intended but i always write them as a way that the other player can see and infer their character is watching the lost in ones thoughts process in real time, though i have wondered if perhaps it just comes off as useless internal babbling that doesn't give them something to work off of and react to
so anyway pls understand that if i'm writing this in a tag it's because it's to indicate the long pause, the eyes unfocused or gazing at the middle distance, etc
obviously in this context, alan has not even engaged yet with sherlock so it's not something he can react to directly, but it's part of the scene-setting
i considered omitting it in this case because of the lack of active engagement at that moment, but felt like the logic for alan piping up would not have been as impactful if it had been a more unflavored description of his actions and motivation for interaction
wondering if i should switch over to courier since it's mobile-friendly
Nightingale: Goddammit, just tell me where Wake is!Wheeler: Am I psychic? Do I have a map in my pocket with a big “X” on it? Does he post status updates? Hell, by now I wouldn’t tell you if I did know, because I think you’re batshit crazy. Believe me, I know crazy when I see it.
so like
when she tells Scratch 'I don't lie', she isn't kidding- she very consciously refuses to outright lie, which makes it. kinda funny when you try grilling her on a thing she knows bc either she can Tell you or like
a lot of the time she'll start to say something like 'it's okay', stop herself, and then go 'it isn't okay, it's this'
or similarly, 'I felt like this- no, not quite, it's more THIS'
which is...Very much what he just did!
'HEY!!! >:[' and in the meantime the other party gets to be smug gjfjfbf
Reira will now stab for uachievement unlockedalan > scratch S̸C̴R̴A̸T̵C̴H̵ feel free to assume that alan's projectile hits either a mirror or scratch, down for either haha
alan hitting scratch in the face with a hunk of plaster? hilarious
maybe 19 or sowiki page mentions 1998 as prior timestamp to this, so 20?1920-22 he's doing night springs work before dipping into alex casey novels, maybe a year of overlap inbetween for the process of writing it vs publication and getting the big dollars before he quits writing for night springs (unless the show being cancelled happened before this and was an instigating factor for novel writing)he will... consider it
A fingerprint of the soul that only you understand." may be the most Hotline Alan Wake thing I have written yetit begins