#ellipuukangas

[ruth-westside]

You've got yourselves a petition, laddies.

I don't know if a petition will ultimately make any difference. However, it certainly wouldn't hurt to show SSE how much interest there is in the books and comics if they ever find themselves in a position where they can rehire some people.

My reach only goes just so far and I'm still not that great at places like instagram or twitter. So if people would like to spread the petition around, that would be lovely. 💕🙏

For those who might be lacking context for all this, I linked it before but I'll do it again. Post 1 | Post 2

And as a reminder for who made what: The books, of which Helena wrote many. And the site Elli stored all the SSO comics on.

[ruth-westside]

Would it be silly of me to think that Tistow and Jaro share the same universe since they have the "coloring" magic in common, among other things? 🤔

My two shapeshifters. 🧡💚

[juliettefarbrooke-sso]

a piece i commissioned months ago from @ellipuukangas but never shared! juliette, daisy, and cato all taking a nature hike.

[knoockies]

commissioned this piece by the brilliant @ellipuukangas🫶

[foggy-milk]

Gunnar Thrymson - Galloper Thompson

Missing him

Dedicated to- @ellipuukangas 🫶 <3

[pixelhorses]

My Mc Ivanna and her Danish warmblood, Summer Rain, by the lovely @ellipuukangas

He was the first horse I bought in SSO In my head however, Ivanna already owned him before coming to Jorvik and he is a bit on the older side.

[jorvikcity]

Girlfriend reunion 💞🏳️‍🌈 by @ellipuukangas !!!

[amelias-hart]

Had the fantastic opportunity to get another commission from @ellipuukangas a while back. This is Mätane, my plant lady in my home game. She's our party wizard, is bankrolling the party from her potion shop, and unnecessary proof that the only romance plots I will engage with are one's where the more POV character is one-sidedly flustered about how much they like the other person. Her hair flowers also grow to reflect her mood and she's gotten away with it with her crush cause he doesn't know flower symbolism. I love her.

[jorvik-gazette-archive]

While making the star stable series comic trilogy sticker set for telegram, I must say @ellipuukangas​ is talented artist and i love Elli’s work

One panel, 4 reaction images

[ruth-westside]

SSO's Books + Comics petition - A small update

People will probably get a bit annoyed at me for doing this but I'm at a loss for what else to do and it would feel weirder if I did nothing.

Sagefeather, a player on SSO Amino contacted me a little while back with a desire to help try and get SSE to rehire Helena, Elli, and Christine. They also suggested reminding SSE themselves via customer support or as comments on their social medias the first Monday of each month.

Sounds good to me. Spaced out but persistent. And the petition is still pinned on my blog if people want to sign it.

For as much uproar as there was at the news that Elli and Helena got laid off, there doesn't seem to have been much effort put into trying to convince SSE to bring them back.

Maybe people think that SSE shouldn't bring them back, or the trio should turn the opportunity down because of the manner in which SSE laid them off in the first place. I wouldn't blame people if that's the conclusion they've come to, given the information we have.

But Helena and Elli themselves have expressed sadness and disappointment at the situation in an "I was looking forward to creating more content with the characters" sense for the most part.

Do I think the trio should take up the offer if SSE ever presented it to them? I don't know, but it's also not my choice to make. I just want to encourage the possibility of a choice.

Between asking SSE for more books and comics versus complaining about barn-scented candles, the former sounds like more worthy cause to put effort into so I'm going with that.

[regancastlelion]

along with rewriting soul rider lore, I've been considering kind of rewriting Jorvik lore. Like heavily base a lot of the rewrite on the comics from SSE's Instagram (shoutout to @ellipuukangas for the gorgeous comics) and if I get the books in the near future, any lore I find in those too.

But I'll be adding some more of my own stuff too, like what kinds of creatures live on Jorvik aside from the real world ones and the druids, witches, ancient warriors of destruction, etc.

SSO has so much potential with it, and as a writer myself, I think they could do with the help.

[ellipuukangas]

Piece for the lovely @pandoriasmostwanted ♥

Thank you so much! ^u^ If anybody else would like something similar, please do get in touch! You can either DM me here or pop me a message on Disc under the same nick (@ellipuukangas)

[juliettefarbrooke-sso]

i commissioned a character sheet of juliette and cato from the amazingly talented @ellipuukangas i highly recommend commissioning her if you ever get the opportunity!

[inkowl13]

According to the spoilers, Fripp and Avalon are in the library of Fort Maria. I wonder what they are doing there? Are they looking at the portal? This is kind of the second time in the story where Fripp goes beyond not only the Secret Stone Circle, but beyond Valedale as well. Speaking of druids. We (apparently next year or in a year) are waiting for the renewal of the Hollow woods and Valedale. Do the developers plan to update the druid model or at least the textures? Speaking of Avalon. I understand that, probably, the developers have a concept that Avalon, due to his faith and character, does not want to be different from the rest of the druids (outwardly). But in terms of design? Don't know. After all, we, unlike our character, know what he looks like thanks to the comics by @ellipuukangas. It is not necessary to change Avalon's cloak (or whatever this clothing is called), just remodel the figure, make a face, distinctive details (a bag with books and herbs, for example, or a belt with flasks with potions, or a distinctive ornament on clothes). In the end, you can give the druids masks, just Avalon during the quest and cut-scenes can remove it.

[inkowl13]

Oh, that explains a lot. Just in recent days, I wondered why they chose one of the most complex, specific, non-universal and, most likely, not something that would be cheap to transport a product out of the whole variety of goods. Candles are quite heavy and fragile if they are in glass or even plastic. There are many things that are much easier and cheaper to produce (with the exception of paying the artist or designer) like stickers, posters, enameled pins, t-shirts. At the same time, they cancel a bunch of their projects (I was told today that the Mistfall series was canceled), they fired the wonderful Helena Dahlgren and @ellipuukangas​. Apparently everything is so bad there, if they decided to go on the topic of AI.

sso's candle, and jumping into the ai bubble for publicity and investment

so yasmin told me to write about this bc not everyone might realise it. its a bit of a long topic so prepare. for legal reasons this is all my personal opinion :3

first off - the sso candle doesnt actually have anything to do with ai. i just wanna get that out of the way. i will come back to this later.

the sso candle ai promotional event is 2 things to me. one is, "probably someone at the company knew someone at the other company bc why else would this specific random collab ever happen" (and theyre not even a candle company? its a perfume company?)

but the other thing which is the main thing, is that we've entered the ai boom, or ai economic bubble. before this there was a crypto bubble, there's sort of been a mobile bubble, and we have the old classic dotcom bubble. summary of tech bubble is, a new shiny thing in tech makes ppl go OOOH!! I WILL THROW MY INVESTMENT MONEY AT THAT!! I BETTER HURRY AND NOT MISS THE TRAIN!! IM GOING TO GET FILTHY RICH BY INVESTING IN THE FUTURE!!! and many of these ppl dont actually understand the tech, and can therefore be exploited by startups or new projects targetting these investors, by just saying "we use the shiny thing that is the future and will make people rich".

just like the dotcom and crypto bubbles, everything that has "ai" in it is currently getting lots of attention both from media and from investors. things that are about "ai" are currently like "wow! youre using modern tech and this is the future!" and for all those ppl who dont know that much about ai or tech, or tech ppl who are easily influenced, it makes companies look cool and modern and forward if they include that current shiny thing.

what does sse achieve by making promotional vids and posts about an ai candle? attention from media and potential investors. the playerbase doesnt care. their target audience arent ppl who generally care much about ai, or even support its usage in creative fields.

they also count on that the playerbase wont be mad enough about it bc most players dont rly care or understand. which is prob going to be an accurate prediction. so they dont especially lose on it unless theres a genuine uproar, but even then, theres a lot of space in "genuine uproar" that still results in "no such thing as bad publicity".

so, thats my perspective on why sse did the ai candle thing. publicity for investors and the industry and media. it helps both sse and the little weird "ai" (side eyes) scent company who both get ai bubble points here. its completely unrelated to what players want or care about (and as many have said, players actually do want to buy things from sse - like plushies and other merch).

now to the last point. the candle isn't even ai, and it's really just an ai boom trending word thing for attention.

some ppl on ssoblr dont really understand what ai is or how it works, or how its already been in use for a long time. im not really gonna explain all of that but i do ask you to like... watch a video or read a wikipedia article or something and please educate yourself on what ai is and isnt. anyway,

supposedly this company feeds pictures into whatever ai model theyre supposedly using. the ai supposedly spits out things like "sunshine :) dirt :) chupacabra :)" from the customers phone pics and then actual perfumers mix blends based on what the ai supposedly told them from the pics.

idk if ur catching on here but, there are trained perfumers here who have seen the customers' pics with their own human eyes. they humanly blend scents based on the content of pics theyve humanly seen. (unless all perfumers at the company are also blind and the ai is their only way to find out whats in the pics, and if so, power to them, ofc.) and, at best, an ai has supposedly told them some generic image analysis terms, which are unlikely to be very helpful to the art of scent design.

there is absolutely nothing the supposed ai is actually doing here. theres no reason for it to be here. it contributes nothing to the process. exceeeeeppppttttt..... clicks!!!! articles. videos. wow! crazy ai scents! wow! ai horse candle!! thats crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so future!!!!!!!!!!

the scent company is a classic tech bubble startup (allegedly from my perspective in my opinion). they dont even use ai (allegedly from my perspective in my opinion). they want a quick buck for looking like a modern futuristic business to the FOMO investors who fall for this every single time theres new shiny tech (allegedly from my perspective in my opinion). and sse collabs with them for pretty much the same reason (allegedly from my perspective in my opinion).

[pixelhorses]

I would like to remember everyone, that during the pride comic (drawn by the lovely @ellipuukangas ) derek and Syntax clairly went on a date together and it is criminal how little content I see of them!