AWE posting 30.10.

[yvannairie]

(Crossposted on Tumblr)

(Spoilers for Alan Wake 2)

Wishing the Remedyverse fandom a very swift "embrace the fact that in the context of AW2 Sam Lake is just another actor and therefore it's morally neutral to thirst after the characters he portrays"

Like. Yes the autofiction doesn't help. But Sam Lake the character inside the game is not the same as Sam Lake the performer portraying those characters, just like Davey Wreden the character inside The Beginner's Guide doesn't equate to Davey Wreden the developer outside of it.

We've had this conversation already. It's okay. It's fine. Embrace that Bony Man In A Suit Hot.

Comments

[nonesensed]

I too am hoping for this for the fandom. The real Sam Lake who works at Remedy Entertainment and the fictional Sam Lake who is a professional actor famous for playing Alex Casey are definitely not the same person - they just share a name and a face. And based on what Sam Lake retweets on his social medias, he doesn't seem to mind people thirsting after him or the characters he plays.

My impression of Remedy Entertainment in general is that the people working there understand how fandom works and genuinely enjoy all kinds of fanworks being created, even if some should be kept within fandom, so to speak. I of course don't know any of them personally, and I'm not saying people should start sending NSFW art or fic to the makers of Remedyverse (that'd just be rude no matter the fandom), but I've been in fandoms where the Powers That Be didn't like certain kinds of fanworks (or fanworks at all) and Remedy is giving the exact opposite vibes from that - especially Sam Lake.

As you said, Embrace that Bony Man In A Suit Hot.

[yvannairie]

Yeah like. I don't frankly trust any Creator as far as I can throw them, and Remedy's team is quite large for me to chuck single-handed. I also think Twitter is a cesspool, and even if Sam is just trolling it's almost only a matter of time until some shithead spoils this for all of us by pushing his boundaries, y'know?

So I would rather get ahead of that and tell people -- Sam Lake is a constructed identity on multiple levels. Publicity Name Sam Lake is different from developer Sam Lake, and both of those are minimum two layers removed from Fictional Character Actor Sam Lake in the game, let alone the various characters he portrays.

[nonesensed]

Oh yeah, definitely. Unless you know the real Sam Lake personally, all you get is social-media!Sam Lake, like with any person you don't know IRL - social-media!us is only a fragment of anyone and will never give you the whole of a person, even if what's on there isn't necessarily lies. Same goes for the rest of Remedy.

I think it's wise to not fully idolize and/or trust any maker of any form of media (unless it's a personal friend making the thing, of course). What does reassure me a bit with Remedy though is that they appear fandom savy. They've got rules about fanworks up on their website, they've mentioned fanfiction and other fanworks in interviews as something they find positive, etc etc.

Basically, I think they're a company who knows that a vibrant fandom is good for their games, so whatever their true motivations are (which we of course can't know seeing as A) we don't know these people, and B) Remedy is A Lot Of People so opinions surely differ within the company) I think they're not the kind of company that will go scourged earth on the fandom even if someone decides to be an asshole and send Things That Should Stay In Fandom to Remedy's employees. And I have hope all Remedy people know how to block assholes and screen tags.

That said, I do also hope the fandom decides to stay in our lane. We've got a good thing going here, there is peace between Creators and Fandom, and I'd love it if we could keep it that way!