#i think this is so different from frontiers for me specifically because like

[ravioip]

new gaming blog post lets gooo

okay i finished sonic frontiers. wont elaborate, just know i Finished it. not 100%'ed it, but i did play the Entire game. no spoilies in this post, just know i loved it.

now me and my friend Lime have traded games pretty much. she started playing frontiers and i started playing sonic adventure 2, which was the game she had finished just recently.

im having an absolute blast. are the controls jank? sure! does the sound design hurt? yeah! but goddamn if im not having the time of my life with it.

this game is so fun and for why.(positive). like i dont even know how to describe it but im laughing over the smallest things and just smiling the whole time im playing. did i get a little lost in the two knuckles and rouge levels i did? yeah sure! but i still had fun, somehow. usually i wouldve gotten annoyed but i guess this game is just good at making me not take it seriously enough to get genuinely upset about it.

like yeah im trying to beat the levels, but im also just having fun with it. i know how the game ends, its been out for years, so im gonna have a good time playing it through!

i also definitely didnt read every single goddamn billboard in city escape.(sarcasm. i very much did. it was wonderful.)(tasty burger sub burger. 99⭐. if you even care.)

i also also definitely didnt spend 3 whole hours in the chao garden. shhhhh.(also sarcasm. i really did. and it was also wonderful.)

my chao are named Barnald and "ビンゴボプス" Bingo Bopsu. (spelt in katakana thanks to my brother bc their full name wouldnt fit lol.) theres a third unnamed child that the fortune teller wanted to name "dino" but i need to ask the council (my family who is watching me play the game) if thats an acceptable name or if we have a B theme going on.

all in all: having a great time despite not knowing what the hell im doing.

#ravio reacts (sonic adventure 2) #i think this is so different from frontiers for me specifically because like #with frontiers i was invested. i didnt know what was going to happen. i was loving it. #and also i only had set time i could play (had to avoid spoiling it for a family member. so only when they were at work.) #so it felt very.. idk. serious to me. #wheras this game is just for fun. it was 10$ on steam. i know the ending. nobody gives a shit if i spoil it because its from the 2000's #what im trying to hammer home is just: this game is great and i also dont have to take it 100% seriously. and im still loving it.

[antiqua-lugar]

Tumblr refuses to let me reblog a post referencing Wyll saying that as a child his father told him that their dead love ones were always watching over them and Wyll's reaction was to be scared. He thought he was haunted.

The idea of Wyll being genuinely scared of wide-eyed ghosts in response to what probably was his father's attempt to console him over his mother's death is. His loved ones not as a consolation but as a reminder, as an audience - possibly as someone judging him, because ghosts cannot move on until their unfinished business is resolved. Especially because his mother also haunts the narrative, in her own way? She's first defined by her absence, Wyll doesn't talk or think of her much because she died giving birth of him. Except he reveals that he has been thinking of her recently, specifically contrasting her to his father. He's been thinking about how his life could have been different had she been there. Wyll is always very adamant that he doesn't regret anything, he can't, because it means regretting all the good he has done and all the lives he has saved. Is his mother's death one of the things he is not supposed to regret, because had she been alive then none of this would have happened and he would still have been in Baldur's Gate with his family, not a hero but happy and whole...but then dozens of people would have been dead and dozens of devils would still be living? Are his good deeds, like his dead loved ones, haunting him? Especially since he keeps contrasting his father and mother, public vs private, duty vs personal happiness, throught the whole of Act 3, culminating with his romance scene in Act 3, where his mother's memory is directly tied to his proposal. I know some people said the writers just straight up forgot he never met her, but I just assumed he is simply recalling what his father used to say abut her, just like he always repeats his father words, which instead are curiously absent from the whole thing. We are never told why his father never married his mother while Wyll will marry the person he loves no matter who that person is - Bhaalspawn, vampire spawn , Great Liberator of the Githyanki people, former Sharran with a degree in torture and interrogation - and it would have been so easy to bring his fathers' words in his romance, to say anything at all about duty, but no, only his mother's words matter in his romance. I know this probably IS a result of the rewrite, but the complete absence of his father in favour of his mother in his romance arc, which is the ONE arc that is entirely all about Wyll's personal desires? Like The Blade of Frontier is a hero from the legends, Wyll Ravengard is someone who wants to be in a romance. It's perhaps his only indulgence, to have a love story as he wishes. On some level he compares it to his childhood dreams, and he says it's his greatest wish, as if the idea of the person he loves staying at his side forever cannot possibly be something he actually gets to keep. And not only then he does, but his romance scene only triggers after Ansur after he (in his good ending) has just refused his father and the world of politics to remain the Blade The themes in his arc. don't get me started on mizora being a dark mirror version of his mother

#antiqua plays bg3 #bg3 #wyll ravengard #bg3 meta #i am rambling. i have so many thoughts.

[transmutationisms]

Hi Caden don’t know if you listen to Ethel Cain but was wondering what u think abt her subverting the Americana aesthetic since I think she’s often compared to Lana, at least online. I do think she’s doing something different & to me more compelling than Lana, but I don’t really know how to articulate it.

yep i like ethel cain. i agree she and lana are doing very different things. like, i said before that lana uses american nationalism because she's playing off the fact that it makes/has an erotic appeal, and she places herself as the object of desire in that paradigm—tell me i'm your national anthem, etc. my read on ethel is that she's interested in the rural americana 'trad' aesthetic from a very different angle, where she's trying to connect the homestead and american rural social structures to the perpetuation of violence. there's some overlap here in the sense that lana is definitely also interested in sexual violence and sexuality-as-violence, but in her work the violent or abusive man is generally a specific figure who's aberrant from the norm, and a lot of the artistic interest for lana comes (i think) from her interrogating what it is about this man that's appealing to her and how she sees herself through his eyes. with ethel, on the other hand, she portrays violence as coming through the infrastructure of normal and normative social structures, like the family and the church, with abuse understood to be a feature of these and not a bug. family, church, etc are in turn understood to be part of the infrastructure of american rural communities, casting the critique she's making through the ethel character onto this entire social apparatus (& there is some implication here of how this is all a part of westward colonial settlement—which is a potentially fruitful direction to go in, the idea of expansion into the 'frontier' as a narrative of, or narrative prerequisite to, violence).

so for example this is partly why, for ethel, incest specifically is a mode of sexuality & violence that she continually uses and interrogates: she's invoking it as an intensification of the 'normal functioning' of the family, which means the whole family structure gets pretty ruthlessly questioned through the character of ethel and the violence she faces. she invokes the trad aesthetic and the idyllic family homestead, then shows you the brutality that creates and is created by them. for lana, the family is not a concern in this way and is not something she's questioning or challenging the way ethel does (the daddy/girl thing in lana's work is p far removed from even a pseudo-incestuous reading most of the time, even in her lolita references). there's a similar distinction with how ethel examines protestant theology and practice with the explicit goal of pointing out inherently violent aspects of it, whereas for lana, invoking god or christian imagery is generally more on the level of playing off the way that american nationalism resembles and uses rituals of religious worship. lana takes political phenomena like the appeal of nationalism, and expresses them through the erotic configuration of these relationships with older, dominant men. with ethel it's more that she looks at social structures and practices signified by the rural americana aesthetic, and pokes and prods at these structures until the violence inherent to them is glaringly obvious to listeners through the ethel character's story. it's a way of problematising these institutions and practices, not letting them hide in plain sight by presenting themselves as benevolent.

so yeah i can understand why people might want to compare these two artists, but i think they're actually doing very different things. i would probably not say either of them 'subverts' americana or signifiers of nationalism, which is not a criticism, i just think that concept is often poorly defined and less frequently applicable to art than people sometimes think lol. ethel uses her character's story to deconstruct and question the american aesthetics and institutions her work invokes; lana translates these aesthetics and institutions into explicitly erotic discourses and dissects them through the allegorical figures of the people and relationships in her songs. (this is not to discount the importance of erotics in ethel's work as well obvi but this post is already long :P)

#ethel cain #lana

[e-vay]

if it’s okay to ask, What are top 5 favourite sonic games and what is it that you like about them?

Mine are 1. Sonic Unleashed, 2. Sonic Adventure 2, 3. The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog, 4. Sonic Riders Zero Gravity, 4. Sonic Frontiers

Those are some great picks!

Mine are constantly changing, but my current top 5 as I'm typing this are:

1: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog. This game was so unexpected and it did not need to be as awesome as it was, but man they put everything into it. The art is GORGEOUS. The writing is HILARIOUS. The gameplay is actually fun! And Amy's (basically) the main character? An absolute treasure! I can only hope we get more like it!

2: Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. The game I think of when I think "Sonic." It's the perfect balance of great story and gameplay. It's heavy but it's also fun. The Chao Garden. The main storyline already has great replay value, but the individual challenges for each level were actually fun (and killer) and made you explore each level in a new way. I never get tired of playing this game!

3: Sonic Frontiers. This game is so beautiful not only visually but emotionally. I can't tell you how many times while playing I would specifically scale to the top of a structure just so I could enjoy the view. And every time it rains in the game it's breathtaking! I LOVED that we got a story with serious, heartbreaking themes. I cried multiple times (AND ESPECIALLY DURING EGGMAN MOMENTS!?!). Don't get me wrong, I think it's important for Sonic games to be fun too (and I had a lot of fun playing this, for sure) but I love when the writers aren't afraid to delve deeper and explore the vulnerability of these seemingly unshakable characters.

4: Sonic the Hedgehog 3. My favorite of all the classic Sonic games. I enjoy the graphics in this version the most and the music tracks and levels are peak in my opinion. And even though the bonus level drives me nucking futs, I actually love it (I'm a masochist I suppose).

5: Sonic Dream Team. I was not expecting this level of quality from a mobile game. The character models ARE SO GOOD I CAN'T TAKE IT. They're so beautiful??? Let me kiss them PLEASE. The levels are vivid and so detailed and really look straight out of a dream. There are VOICE LINES?! I constantly replay levels as both Sonic and Amy because I just love hearing them so much. I also love games that offer different gameplay styles depending on the characters you play (though obvi I prefer playing as Sonic and Amy). It's reminiscent of SA2. I just wish it was a console game and not limited to Apple Arcade. More people should be able to play it, especially on a big screen where you can appreciate it!

Thanks for the question!

#ask me #evayQA #sonic the hedgehog #tmosth #the murder of sonic the hedgehog #sonic adventure 2 battle #sa2 #sonic frontiers #sonic the hedgehog 3 #sonic dream team #sonic games #sonic trash

[tadpolebrains]

Love Language Headcanons BG3 (Pt. 1)

Love language headcanons for the male companions! Female companions will be in a part 2. Because I have nothing better to do :D

Astarion’s love languages revolve less around the specific type and more about the intent. He’ll listen to you spew thoughtless praise and such at him for hours, but it’s when you complement things that people don’t tend to notice that he’ll really melt. Because sure, he’s used to people calling him handsome and using his body to seduce people, but he’s not so used to someone pointing out, say, his fine skills with sewing. Or using words like ‘pretty’ or ‘beautiful’ instead of ‘charming’ and ‘handsome. It’s why he’ll get a bit shocked during the one mirror scene if you start pointing out smaller, seemingly inconsequential details, like the curls of his hair or his smile lines- he’s not used to people caring enough to look that closely. In the same vein, he also enjoys physical touch, but moreso anything non-sexual. Hand-holding, forehead kisses, hugs- any touch that has no ulterior motive behind it. It takes him a while to get used to, but once he does it’s like you can’t get him off of you. He’ll get all whiny about it too sometimes if he doesn’t feel like you’ve been touching enough, “Tav, darling, you’re simply neglecting me, holding that dagger instead of my ever so cold hand. Positively cruel.”

Gale defaults to acts of service at first. It’s what he’s kind of used to after Mystra, trying so hard to keep up with pleasing her again and again. Putting all of his self-worth into what he can provide for her. But after helping him work through a bit of that trauma and making sure he understands that he doesn’t constantly have to be doing something for you for you to stay, he realizes he simply enjoys just passing the time together. Quality time. Even if you two are in the same room doing entirely different things, he just finds it comforting to know you’re there, that he’s not alone, and that you’re not going anywhere. Of course, he’ll still go out of his way to do things for you, but it starts becoming more of a gift giving habit. He’ll bring you something from the market because ‘it reminded me of you, so you had to have it.’ He’ll get you books he’s read that he thinks you’ll enjoy. Tiny trinkets that he could go into hour-long explanations on why he just had to get it for you. Poems and little notes written and handed to you before he walks out the door. Eventually, you’ll have so many tiny little things he’s given you that you’re running out of space, but you’ll just have to get a bag of holding, because there’s no way in hell you’re getting rid of them. Later, when he finds out you not only still have every single little thing, and also remember when you got every single one, he’s so touched that he… totally isn’t crying, no, there’s just something in his eye.

Wyll is very much a words of affirmation man. He is the Disney prince of BG3, and can and will rave on about you for days on end. He’ll spin tiny things you’ve done and tell them to people like they were the most incredible things he’s ever seen. You could wake up with a bedhead and be the groggiest you’ve ever been and he’ll still tell you you’re gorgeous. He’s horrible at taking what he dishes out after Mizora changes him, though, especially at first when it comes to his own looks. He’s used to the praise people spew about the Blade of Frontiers, but less used to your little compliments about Wyll Ravengard. Many nights after the transformation, you spend them with him spewing sweet words about his new horns or idly tracing fingers along them to make sure he knows you’re not afraid of it. You still see him as a person, and that’s where physical touch comes in. Because your words and touch reminds him that he’s still there. Still human. And still loved. And of course, like the gentleman he is, he will always try to find some way to return the favor and attention later on. Will ask what he can do to repay you, and if you answer with a ‘don’t worry about it’ or ‘you don’t need to do anything,’ he’ll just find little things to do in return anyway. You mentioned liking this one specific thing from a town five days ago? Well, it appears on your pillow later that night. His acts of service side tends to come out during those times too. A minor inconvenience that you could easily handle? Oh, he’s got that covered. Don’t even try to protest it, he’ll start listing off all of the things you’ve done for him lately, and by the time he’s convinced you to sit back down the task could have been handled already.

Halsin is a very tactile person. With everyone. Physical touch is a natural need of the body, after all, and he is a man of nature. So even platonically, he will be setting a hand on people’s shoulders, or ruffling hair, or bumping shoulders- any of it. You initiating it, though, is very much appreciated. Maintaining prolonged points of contact, ie hand-holding, cuddling, hugs, etc, is really what makes him feel attached. And when he’s in bear form, he loves the feeling of gentle hands combing through the dense fur, and curling protectively around you when you’re both asleep. He’ll let you braid his hair with a chuckle if you ask, and if you have longer hair, will return the favor. He’s also a gift giver by habit; perhaps it’s the animal instinct. But he’ll bring gifts of foraged berries, or a catch from the river, or even random little flowers and leaves (and of course, will indulge any questions about the specific types of plants he’s bringing back). He’ll light up with any of those questions about nature, and it encourages you to ask more often, even if it’s just a simple “hey, Halsin, what’s this?” on the road. He gets this little twinkle in his eye. Long nature walks become a pretty frequent routine, and if your legs start hurting he’ll either carry you or turn into a bear to let you ride on his back.

#astarion #gale #halsin #wyll #baldur’s gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 headcanons #honestly this ended up being more rambling than anything #this game has me in a chokehold

[genderliquid-witch]

Do flowers bloom from walkers? (Radical optimism in The Walking Dead: The Final Season)

I remember playing The Final Season for the first time way back in October of 2022 and immediately being blown away by how polished the game was in comparison to its predecessor. I mean I had always loathed the visual style of A New Frontier, so this comic-book inspired look was a nice change of pace, especially once combined with the expert use of lighting that is present throughout the game. But what really took me off guard, more so than anything else, was the opening credits.

I mean, obviously; these games had never done anything like this before. And while I'm fond of the whole FADE IN TITLE ACCOMPANIED BY OMINOUS MUSICAL CUE, this was a welcome change. But there was one specific image that stuck with me throughout my playthrough: the decomposing walker (pictured above), painted in greyscale, with the only colour being the stark red background and the yellow flowers blooming from its corpse. I like to think that it was an intentional decision that ties into the game's themes and not just "Oh this looks cool, let's do it", but it weirdly never came up again. So I was kind of just left to play the game while it loomed in the back of my head, waiting for its moment to shine.

It wasn't until almost a year later where I'd figure out what the image represented, or at least my interpretation of it, and I settled on this conclusion: this decomposing walker is supposed to represent this apocalyptic world, and the flowers symbolise the people that attempt to build from it, in this case the Ericson's kids.

I've had this opinion for a while that if the first three games show the attempts and failures to re-establish the old world ideals of order and civil society, then The Final Season serves as a rejection of that idea. From the walker-ridden fortress of Crawford in Season One to the bureaucratic nightmare that was the New Frontier, it's an accepted fact that these attempts at returning to the methods of days gone is ultimately futile and will result in total collapse, largely due to the decisions of its rulers. While we could argue about which of these groups is truly the worst, they all originate from the same basic principle: a desire to return to normality. Crawford, Howe's, the New Frontier; these groups were formed by people who, while cruel and monstrous in their own ways, all had the admittedly noble goal of attempting to return order to this ravaged world, but failed due to their leaders' cruel and selfish actions.

Or did they? (Vsauce sfx)

There's this interaction Lee has with Katjaa in the very first episode of Season One that has stuck with me for a while. It's an optional dialogue so it's very easy to miss (I did on my first playthrough), but when Katjaa hopes that things can go "back to normal", Lee has the option of expressing resentment for this old world:

"But they weren't before? The banks, the politics, the--the crap--those things are gone. Hell comes in a lot of different colors."

Usually this "fuck the old world" sentiment is expressed by sociopaths who are excited to enact their sadistic desires onto other survivors, but Lee's resentment for society feels a lot more justified. The fact that Lee is a black man who's specialty is American history makes his criticism of wanting to go back to how things were feel more warranted; he's someone who understands how corrupt and unjust the societal structure of the past was, so of course he'd feel conflicted about longing for its return.

And while this is just a small interaction, I feel it plays into what I've been talking about. Crawford, Howe's, the New Frontier; did these factions collapse because of their evil leaders, or because they were emulating an inherently unjust and corrupt power structure? Their desire for order and stability allows them to see past the cruelties that came with building these hierarchical societies, to the point where they begin to mimic governments of the old world (Crawford, discrimination and the outlining of "undesirables"; Howe's, prison labour and terror; the New Frontier, imperialism and state corruption). So these failed factions force us to ask the question: is a return to order possible in this world?

It isn't until the The Final Season that the games give us an answer to that question: no, it isn't, but that doesn't mean you can't start something new.

When introduced to Ericson's it's made immediately apparent how different they are to any other group we've met before. While there's the obvious homage to Lord of the Flies with a group being made up of entirely children, I think this is more than just a "well it's the final game, best do something interesting". Children are a symbol of hope and optimism, but also of potential and, in a more abstract sense, the future. They are clay that has yet to be moulded, with infinite potential, a luxury most adults don't have. So I don't think it's a coincidence that the main group in this game, and the one that Clementine eventually settles with, is comprised entirely of children: it feels like an intentional choice to highlight how this group will be the one to survive on account of how they have the potential to create something new.

And it's not just their age demographic that makes Ericson's so distinct from the other groups in the series, but also their power structure. Following Marlon's death, their is no one person in control of the group. Sure, there are leaders (Violet takes the chair once Marlon's out of the picture, and upon her return Clementine becomes the one who's advising the group), but they feel like role models and advisors more than anything. When Violet takes the reigns it doesn't seem like anyone truly acknowledges her authority, and she doesn't even seem to enforce it either. Same goes for Clem; she doesn't really express any desire to control the rest of the group, instead preferring to make decisions in a more democratic manner as to include everyone's individual skills and expertise.

Ericson's vision of society more closely resembles that of an anarchist commune than any government that previously existed, and it manages to be the only group left standing by the end. It's through cooperation and an altruistic attitude that keeps them alive in the end; their concerns for the survival of the group far outweigh any desire to create "order". And I don't think it's a coincidence that a majority of the game's antagonists (Lilly, Minerva, and even James) are people who represent the past. Lilly is obsessed with the cruel lessons her father taught her and prides herself in her attachment to the militaristic level of discipline that she inflicts upon her subordinates. Minerva is essentially a ghost of the past, with her whole arc with Violet and Tenn serving as a lesson on the dangers of holding onto the past. James, while good natured and mostly kind, can't bring himself to accept the fact that the world has changed, and its these beliefs that either kill him or sever the only connection he had made in years.

To conclude, while Telltale's The Walking Dead is a series that is rife with conflict and tragedy, I also find it to be a story that is ultimately about hope. I always considered that Lee's greatest lesson to Clementine wasn't how to shoot a gun or to cut her hair, but instilling within her a radical sense of hope, the idea that things can be better, and you should always try your damnedest to make it happen. That even in the most desolate of circumstances, something profoundly beautiful can bloom.

Or maybe I've been wrong this whole time and flowers growing out of a walker just looks really cool.

#i didn't expect this to be so long but oh well #needed to rant about twdg so i chose this instead of the wall #twdg #the walking dead game #clementine #twdg clementine #lee everett #media analysis

[onwhatcaptain]

Spirk Meta: Connecting Star Trek SNW & TOS

I'm going to try to connect TOS and SNW's character arcs for Kirk and Spock's relationship with one another. This is part analysis and part prediction of where the writers are headed in shaping SNW into the TOS narrative.

With the most recent SNW episode, I think it's really fascinating that Spock is coping with the consequences of his attraction to Chapel and infidelity to T'Pring, while Kirk reacts to his attraction to La'an by showing a strong sense of loyalty to Carol.

I've been discussing with friends and they believe the two situations aren't comparable. However, I believe they're not only comparable, the writers completely intended them to be compared.

Spock has always served as a foil to Kirk. If you've seen TOS, you know this is true. Spock is logical, Kirk is unpredictable, and so forth. I don't really need to go into details about this, it's been explained to death. For me, it says a lot that in SNW E9, Spock is uncertain of who he is as a person and Kirk is uncertain of who he's meant to become as a commander.

Kirk has his mind on command, hence his discussion with Una, where he concludes that he needs to connect with people. That's the point of that song. Meanwhile, Spock's takeaway from his song is that he needs to specifically stop connecting with others on a personal level because it was a mistake to do so. It's a very internal-facing narrative, as it should be. But as we know, it doesn't work out that easy. For either of them. Ultimately, Spock does connect to people and finds himself emotionally compromised, and Kirk has trouble getting close to others. But Kirk is looking outward for answers, to other people, while Spock looks inward. To me, this extends to how they cope with difficult relationships, problems, and each other.

Kirk, like Spock, is attracted to someone he's not in a relationship with in this season. He clearly feels something with La'an but explicitly chooses not to pursue it seriously because he's in a relationship (some of the time) with Carol Marcus, who is having his child. Spock, on the other hand, says he wants to feel at this time. He doesn't want to let his relationship get in the way of experiencing something new with Christine Chapel, even at the detriment of his core beliefs. The really interesting thing about this is that these two characters arrive at the same conclusion even by making different choices. They both end up incredibly lonely, a major thematic arc for both men throughout TOS.

How they react at these crucial moments in SNW is a representation of their priorities in relationships, in life, and how they even become with one another. Kirk is married to the idea of command, costing him his relationships to other people. Spock is so deeply internally focused that he only has a few real friends by the time TOS rolls around, and can't accept that he cares about them, always couching it in terms of duty and obligation.

Spock essentially thinks, I need to not get close to people because I'll be hurt by those people. Kirk thinks, I need to get close to people where it matters, for command, but not so close that I'll hurt them. This ends up with both of them being painfully reticent to connect with anyone, to the point where in The Final Frontier, Kirk thinks he has no family.

MCCOY: It's a mystery what draws us together. All that time in space getting on each other's nerves and what do we do when shore leave comes along? We spend it together. Other people have families.

KIRK: Other people, Bones. Not us.

He eventually changes his mind by the end of the film, but you can see that this theme of loneliness goes all the way from SNW to nearly the end of their lives. Kirk's conclusion at the end of the film is that McCoy and Spock are his family.

But we see this idea of loneliness repeat so often that Kirk has a several ex girlfriends in TOS show up, all on good terms with him except one who we won't talk about here. Spock, on the other hand, has mostly closed himself off to relationships of all kinds by TOS, even shaming himself for whatever it is he actually feels for Jim, who is his best friend at that point. And they both fight this loneliness aggressively in TOS and the films. Spock insists he feels shame for his friendship with Kirk, Kirk feels like his ship owns him and he can't have anyone in his life. This excerpt from The Naked Time, which I abridged significantly since there was a lot of interspersed discussion about physics, is revealing:

SPOCK: My mother. I could never tell her I loved her. An Earth woman, living on a planet where love, emotion, is bad taste. I respected my father, our customs. I was ashamed of my Earth blood. Jim, when I feel friendship for you, I'm ashamed. Understand, Jim. I've spent a whole lifetime learning to hide my feelings. KIRK: I've got it, the disease. Love. You're better off without it, and I'm better off without mine. This vessel, I give, she takes. She won't permit me my life. I've got to live hers. I have a beautiful yeoman. Have you noticed her, Mister Spock? You're allowed to notice her. The Captain's not permitted. Now I know why it's called she. Flesh woman to touch, to hold. A beach to walk on. A few days, no braid on my shoulder.

They're both completely focused on their inability to love people. Spock is focused on talking about how he can't because of his identity, and Kirk is talking about how he can't because of his job. We even see Spock turn down an appeal from Chapel, as Chapel turns him down here. These two episodes have major parallels.

Just like in Subspace Rhapsody, Spock is thinking of himself, his faults, his issues, and Kirk is thinking about how he never stays in one place long enough to love someone. I think this sense of inability to experience deep love is actually setting up their friendship arc. Obviously, they eventually do love each other (in some way or the other). But it begins at what is clearly friendship, and notably, Kirk is eventually able to look past his marriage to command for Spock, and Spock is able to look past his reticence to relationships for Kirk (see Amok Time).

What's of interest to me is that we don't know how Spock and Kirk become close in the first place, but we will. It's clear they're very close friends by TOS, but in SNW currently, we haven't got an inkling of how that forms. My take on it is that it forms because of their respective struggles to connect with people. They're both struggling in precisely the same way: neither of them thinks they can or should get too close to people. For one another, they act as the only person they're able to completely let their guard down with. And that's possibly how they get close; that's the basis on which their relationship forms. They trust each other. Because they think they're not allowed to have or experience love, they end up more or less using one another as a stand-in for that need. In doing so, it brings us full circle. Kirk and Carol have a conversation about their relationship briefly in The Wrath of Khan.

KIRK: I did what you wanted. I stayed away. Why didn't you tell him? CAROL: How can you ask me that? Were we together? Were we going to be? You had your world and I had mine. And I wanted him in mine, not chasing through the universe with his father. Actually, he's a lot like you. In many ways. Please tell me what you're feeling. KIRK: There's a man out there I haven't seen in fifteen years who's trying to kill me. You show me a son that'd be happy to help him. My son. My life that could have been, and wasn't. And what am I feeling? Old. Worn out.

Kirk is terrified of aging. In this film, his past has come knocking, the same past SNW is exploring now. He's terrified of growing old and he's terrified he made the wrong decision when he was younger. I'd argue that that's because it's led to him feeling deeply alone, to the point where McCoy says they're treating his birthday like a funeral. Kirk not only feels like he belongs out in space because it's where he's meant to be, but because he doesn't feel so deeply alone, so much like a fish out of water, when he's out there adventuring. So he second guesses himself here: what have my choices cost me? Should I have not gone on to become who I am?

And the answer to that for him is no. This all ties together when Spock dies to save the ship at the end of this film. It's only in a few places in TOS and then finally here where Spock is able to talk openly about friendship and love:

SPOCK: I have been and always shall be your friend. Live long and prosper.

Kirk is devastated but while grieving, he can't help but feel young. And even then, feeling young isn't enough, because he can't stand not being in control, which we see in the next several films. He essentially can't handle life without command or without Spock.

SNW is attempting to bring us full circle on The Wrath of Khan and its cast. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that the character arcs we will eventually be given by the writers of SNW between Kirk and Spock is completely bookended by their feelings of loneliness, self doubt, and connection with others beginning from this episode through the TOS films. It's extremely interesting that they choose to do this on the SNW end by showing us where Kirk and Spock are both failing in their respective relationships with others and how they grow into that with one another, only to experience violent ups and downs throughout the films as they finally try to come to terms with who they really are as people, and who they really are as friends.

I'm interested to see how that will begin from season 3 onwards.

#star trek #strange new worlds #star trek strange new worlds #st snw #st: snw #snw season 2 #snw #star trek tos #st tos #tos #mr spock #spock #kirk x spock #spock/kirk #jim kirk #james t kirk #james kirk #star trek the original series #Spirk #space husbands #la'an noonien singh #christine chapel #subspace rhapsody #k/s #the premise

[frogletscribe]

I finished the main story of A:FoP last night and I have more thoughts but don't want to spoil anything for anyone who is not there yet so im putting them under the cut again lol. Also a lot of this gets into like general Avatar lore things and not always specifically A:FoP. I just have a lot of thoughts and not a lot of people to talk to about it lmao.

Warning: this is very long, i am apologizing now if you choose to read the whole thing.

Spoilers for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora under the cut

TEYLAN oh my god my boy. He scared me so bad when he showed up again but I'm so glad he had a hand in stopping Mercer. It felt like such a moment of growth for him finaly setting himself free of his abuser. Poor guy feels so guilty about everything that happened, and I'm very nervous about whenever Nor comes back in future DLC stuff because he still doesn't know that Teylan 'betrayed' them. Especially after everything with Alma.

Speaking of Alma, I have somewhat mixed feelings about her story? Obviously the Sarentu have every right to be pissed at her, I am pissed at her, she used them (and honestly is still using them) to ease her own guilt. What bothers me is the "You will never be one of us" rhetoric? Mostly because it makes me think of Jake and the Sully kids (Lo'ak and Kiri specifically) who all are/look more like Avatars rather than Na'vi. It makes me wonder how the Sarentu would react to them? The situations are very different, Jake gave up almost everything that made him human to live as a Na'vi where Alma has stayed human, albeit unhealthily attached to her Avatar form. Jake worked to earn his place with the Na'vi where Alma is trying to take it from this group of children she has been lying to from the very start.

But more than that, her still talking as if she was a part of their family at the end made me so mad. I don't think Nor had a good reaction to her by any means, stabbing her was definitely not good, and it leaves all of the other humans scared of him but like,,, i'm on his side tbh. His anger is justified, he's just not coping with it in healthy ways. Like at least the Sarentu did shut her down, Alma is not a part of their family by the end, but giving her the grace they did at the end i think was more than she deserved. Idk, I am glad that they are able to be the bigger persons (pun not intended lol) and move forward, I'm just not a fan of forgiving a person who was partially responsible for the murder of your entire family?

Back to Nor. He is such an interesting character to have next to Ri'nela and So'lek. His anger is palpable and it has nowhere to go. He refuses to connect to Eywa again because he feels he has been poisoned by TAP and humans as a whole and it colors everything he does. He copes with his pain by ignoring it until it becomes too much and he snaps.

And then there is Ri'nela, who is also clearly hurt by everything that comes to light about the Sarentu and TAP, but she is so much more reserved about it. She has a really lovely audio log about how she feels the need to set her own emotions aside so she can take care of others and their emotions. You can really tell how much pressure she puts on herself to be that emotional stability for others. Still she works through it and at the very least tries to talk with the Protag about it in a much more healthy way than Nor does.

Compare that to So'lek, who is similarly reserved in is emotions to Ri'nela, but less to protect others and more to protect himself. Hopefully we will get a little more insight into his character with the comics coming out, but So'lek is i think very similar to Nor in a lot of ways. His clan was wiped out in the Great War, and he was the only survivor to not assimilate into another clan, and we can assume, i think, that those other survivors were most likely children and other non-warriors, either too old or unable to fight for whatever reason. He is entirely alone by choice, and he is angry, but he keeps it together.

So'lek sees the bigger picture, he knows that the resistance is the one other group that's actually fighting back (Besides Jake and the Omatikaya), even if its entirely a group of humans, who we can assume he is not terribly fond of in general. He makes a point of saying the RDA is what needs to be removed from Pandora, not humans. He knows how to separate his allies instead of generalizing 'all humans bad', something Nor is implied to struggle with at least a little. That is especially clear when So'lek calls Nor out after he stabs Alma. But that still doesn't negate how angry So'lek is and is capable of being. He says it after HQ is attacked, he is trying not to follow Nor and his rage. He knows that if he has that conversation with Nor, it will be very easy for him to let his rage consume him as well.

Given that Nor is pretty much gone from the game after he stabs Alma, I'm hoping that in the upcoming DLC we get to find him? Maybe he is being an angry loner out on the woods or if he has found other missing TAP students? There are 4 mentioned in game, either by name (Ri'nela asks where two of them, Telisi and Yefti, are at the very start of the game, and 2 more are mentioned in TAP School Records, Okni and Yuayt) Of course they could all have died while the main four were in cryosleep, 15 years have passed and if they werent with that group when Alma saved them, theres no telling what exactly has happened to them. I just think it could be cool for them to pop up and join back up with the Sarentu.

On, like, an entirely different note, the joy it gives me that there are multiple nonbinary characters! Ahh!!! I think right now the only ones are Tsu'kiri from the Aranahe and Okul from the Kame'tire, at least that I have found, but the way that they are handled, I really really love. They are both just people! Existing in the world! As a nonbinary person myself i also really appreciate the game using they/them for the protagonist and letting you flavor your character however you want so that you aren't locked into male/female like so many games tend to do.

Getting into less A:FoP specific and more general lore territory: Something else I found really interesting while digging around on the wiki is that Mokasa is not the Olo'eyktan? He is listed as Anufi's chief advisor, which made him a sort of stand in Olo'eyktan while she was exiling herself, but he isn't actually the Olo'eyktan the way Ka'nat and Nesim are for their respective clans. Even on the wiki, the Olo'eyktan for the Kame'tire is labeled as Unknown. At most we get Okul being named ? Tsakarem? Thats at least what I took from it. But it makes me curious about the other clans and their leadership (also just very curious about them in general lol). There are 16 clans that we know of (that are all still canon) but we really have only really in depth explored 6 of them in the whole series so far. (Just counting the movies and A:FoP right now because I do not have access to the comics or I think the like one? other games that is still canon) Idk im interested in more Olo'eyktan/Tsahik dynamics beyond just mated pairs like we have seen. Like the Zeswa sisters is really cool to me, or father/daughter dynamic with Ka'nat and Etuwa. Obviously, Jake, and later Tarsem, are not mated to Mo'at but there was the intention of Neytiri eventually taking over as Tsahik before the Sully's left, which would have continued the married couple leaders dynamic that we have been seeing.

We also know that Olo'eyktan don't always have to be men (See Nesim for the Zeswa and Ikneyi from the Tayrangi clan that we see in the first film), so then are there examples of male Tsahik somewhere? Okul being presumably named Tsakarem as a nonbinary/gender non-conforming character would imply that on some level, but im curious if we will ever see examples of it.

And finally, somebody has got to let me smooch the characters in this game PLEASE.

If you actually read all that kudos to you and thank you for indulging my screaming.

#atwow #avatar way of water #avatar frontiers of pandora #froglet rambles #frontiers of pandora #so'lek #afop #sarentu #teylan #ri'nela #nor #afop spoilers #frontiers of pandora spoilers #avatar the way of water #james cameron avatar

[flamemons]

How do you think Digimon Frontier might have gone if the Spirits of Steel, Wood, and Earth had been bequeathed to Ophanimon, the Spirits of Darkness and Water had been bequeathed to Seraphimon, the Spirits of Flame, Light, Ice, Wind, and Thunder had been bequeathed to Cherubimon, and the protagonists had been Katsuharu, Teppei, Chiaki, Teruo, and Koichi (with Kouji joining later)?

im just gonna ramble whatever comes to mind lmao. i drew some stuff too!

uuh while i find it hard to care too much about those other kids because well, I don't know much about them, it is really fun thinking about how kouichi would act if he was there from the start. I think he'd be serious, in a similar way to Kouji, bc he's there on a mission, y'know! All he remembers is following his brother around until Kouji gets some weird text message (wait,,, does kouichi have a phone? probably not, huh. poor people gang ftw...) and now hes in this fuckin place! (hes a dead soul in this au too.) I'd imagine he'd be just as driven as Kouji was, if not more so, bc he KNOWS koujis gotta be here somewhere....but instead of initially trying to avoid the other kids (koujis strategy), he'd probably stick around as soon as he realizes that theyre gonna get themselves killed if they keep acting stupid. So, instead of trying to ditch the kids or act distant, he'd nag them and rush them to stay on track, and come off as kind of a bossy stick-in-the-mud at first

Side note, its easy to think of kouji as being a lot more serious and mature compared to the rest of the frontier kids, but honestly, I have to wonder if he wouldve acted differently if ophanimon wasnt calling him all the damn time telling him that he has to find answers! hes gotta get stronger! theres something he Has To Know!!! like damn if ophanimon was that specific with the other kids they'd also probably be just as sullen. anyway, kouichi would be feeling the same kind of pressure.

in an attempt to make it more interesting for me, chiaki and teruo are now siblings. or close cousins. or something. (what if they were fraternal twins?? that would be so funny actually. there is a statistically improbable amount of twins here!) AND bc i like chiaki the most i think she'd make a cool leader of sorts! like, the lancer to kouichi. kouichi ends up accidentally being the leader bc hes so driven, and chiakis like, a genuinely nice person who really wants to help the digital world as soon as she steps off the first trailmon onto the flame terminal. she also doesnt take shit from anyone. maybe she was a quiet wallflower-type kid at school, but, if its for another's sake, then she'll always speak up! so now, in the digital world, she cant stay quiet!

ah i love just making shit up. this is fun

so together, they make the most chillest leader/lancer duo ever. (hey, if they WERE to be the two Main Ones, wouldnt it be cool if their Susanoomon-type evolution was deep-sea themed? mix darkness and water together, and you get The Fucking Abyss. it could be bioluminescent! a cool way to turn "light into darkness!")

btw, im not drawing any spirit forms here bc I think these kids would have alternative spirit forms as opposed to the evil ones in the show. like, heroic looking ones (basically, no child deserves to have to spirit evolve into grottomon) BUT im no good at character design and that sounds like a lotta work. also, the other spirits (fairymon, chakkmon, agnimon, etc,) would need evil forms too then, right?? that sounds like a REALLY hard thing to try drawing, so nah. just imagine these kids spirit evolving and fighting offscreen. speaking of the other spirits though,

i want chakkmon/tomoki to try pummeling the shit out of katsuharu and teppei!! karmas a bitch!! tomoki didnt get to have his character development in this AU, bc he (probably) fell off the trailmon train tracks and got Got by cherubimon!

i like the main frontier kids too much to not include them in everything i draw Ever, so imagine that maybe they all came to the digital world alone, and wandered around until they found their respective spirits (in similar circumstances to the show) but since those spirits belongto cherubimon, theyre possessed/convinced to fight on cherubimons side!! like "oh shit i have no friends and i hate my life, yea this big evil bunny has a point lets go fuck shit up". maybe some of them are fully in control of their actions, maybe some arent. maybe some of them remember that theyre human, but maybe some of them dont....?

lastly, i have to apologize bc i got completely sidetracked bc i thought "oh takuya and kouji would be very funny as team rocket-esque villains" so heres flamon and strabimon but Evil™

i like to imagine that theyre the Most Incompetent of cherubimons Evil Guys but theyre the only two (that cherubimon knows of) that can form susanoomon so THATS why hes trying to collect all the spirits. bc of that, they DEFINITELY dont remember that theyre human. (bc of that, they also kind of dont have anything to care about, so theyre just trying to have fun)

it would be fun if they were initially kind of lame but although they may be idiots, theyre not Dumb, so they slowly become competent at the same rate as the Heroes do, and instead of a sephirothmon arc theres like.......a beowolfmon and aldamon arc??? im not a writer i dont know. watch these five kids (and counting!) get slowly hunted by two fucking Beasts in the darkest forest ever.

or maybe they do Actually manage to collect all the spirits but it goes so horribly wrong and now theres like ten goddamn kids and ten spirits mashed up in the psyche of a very unstable susanoomon and its just some fucked up Twisted psychological nightmare. digimon evangelion.

basically in this AU, there is even MORE wild tone shifts and the plot goes Absolutely Fucking Bonkers. and takuya's cosplaying Jotaro Kujo for some fucking unknown reason.

thank you for asking! this was....probably not what you were going for, but c'est la vie

#answers #digimon frontier #abril can draw sometimes #digimon #shitpost #i know takuya looks very small but hes the same height as he is as a person its just that strabimon is a very tall guy #he just looks weird when i tried drawing him shorter that boy needs his long legs and weirdly long torso #its also just funny imagining kouichi getting whiplash bc strabimons so tall but kouji is.......exactly his height #takuya and kouji fight over who gets to take the fractal code this time and they accidentally restore a whole city #and cherubimon has to sit down and take deep breaths bc he cant kill these kids #bc these are the ONLY TWO the spirits of fire and light will accept #the spirits quietly rebel against cherubimons evil by only choosing kids that are Really Bad at being Mean #gun to my head i Cannot talk about digimon without somehow memtioning takuya #its my curse

[fantomette22]

Nightmare frontier (Loran) geologic interpretation

Alright, here I am to talk about another detail I noticed while replaying Bloodborne! It has more to do with well the geology of the nightmare frontier and from what it's based on in real life. I like analysis and trying to understand those in video game! But also might bue because I'm a technician geologist too XD Still I will try to stay simple and short.

So The Nightmare frontier in the Nightmare. This optional zone you can unlock thanks to Patches! And where we fight the Amygdala to obtained the Loran's chalice.

Notes : the nightmares are in layers. Mensis nightmare is on top then the frontier, under the fishing hamlet with the boats. And under the hamlet the hunter's nightmare/Yharnam of the dlc. For the one who didn't knew.

Notes 2 : The nightmare frontier is probably a nightmare originating from the region where Loran is (the out place area and the Loran chalice are goos indicator). You know that Pthumerian civilisation far from pthumeru & Yharnam who all become beasts... But if you are into the lore you probably know about Loran and all.

So in the frontiers we can find those strange stone hexagonal columns around :

Well it is a real geologic structures! Also named volcanic (basalts) columns, organ pipes etc (orgues volcaniques in French)

Volcanic columns of Panska skala. Source image : https://planet-terre.ens-lyon.fr/ressource/orgues-volcaniques.xml,

So, how it's formed? Well it is a bit complex but I will try to explain simply. You see those are formed from (effusive) volcanism (don't cofound with magmatic plutonism). You see when a volcano create really liquid lava and don't explode it's effusive. The lava cooled fast on the surface (huge thermic difference with the air or water) and don't crystallised, it often formed basalts (this black rock without minerals visible) or similars stone (can be andesite too in that case or even diorite. It's the same "family").

Those columns are not directly made on the surface but meters under the first couch of lava or they can be formed in magmatic veins that came from a magmatic chamber (in the ground) but cooled way faster than the chamber: it can create those or dyke or sills for exemple/ A magmatic chamber who cooled of will be crystallised on the contrary and take a lot of time! (Thousand if not millions of year) Still it's seems those columns take years or century to become rocks. Still it is "fast" on a geological levels.

Apparently with specific conditions temperature it create this hexagonal columns. It is also similar when clay who became dry and cracked on the ground if you prefer.

Anyway those volcanic columns can be found in many places! Europe, Africa, Asia, America etc There are usually millions of years old and we can see them thanks to erosions of the more tender rocks around it.

The first pic I show are at 80/100km north to Prague in Czech Republic. And You know Bloodborne is a bit more based on easter Europe so 👀

Anyway I think this is very cool the devs inspire themself from those! Very Interesting!

SO what it says about Loran region and Bloodborne world then ?🤔 Well I'm not sure but it's sure is very ancient geologic formation and even in XIX century 2 big theories fought about geology so it sure could be see as specials for old civilisation! Especially in link with old great ones or smt. And maybe Loran could be closer to Yharnam than we think.

ALSO

You see those weird ?ball rocks? in the all the nightmare area? really remind me of pillow lava. You know when lava pierce through the ocean and cold really fast

Ok and I'm not sure for Yharnam or Cainhurst geology but pretty sure the fishing hamlet is volcanic stone too. Why? Well the huge massifs black stones and the BLACK SAND, like in Hawaii ! Or in Iceland. Volcanic region with huge volcanic activity.

Black sand always means it came from volcanic rocks or that it's rich in iron minerals for exemple.

#bloodborne #bloodborne thoughts #bloodborne analysis #bloodborne theory #nightmare frontier #loran #fromsoftware #geology #I love geology in video games! my 2 passions! #volcanism #volcanic column

[blackjackkent]

OK, for realsies this time (maybe?), a few more explorational highlights from the grove area, and then we're off in the direction of the goblin camp, because Rakha craves goblin blood and answers and it seems the most likely place to get both. (After not being able to hurt Mizora, Sceleritas, OR Raphael, she's feeling very pent up and not in the fun way.)

Rescued Mirkon from the harpies on the beach! We didn't do this with Hector last time. In this case, I suspect it was definitely Wyll who originally encouraged Rakha to go down and see if the kid was okay. ("Your favorite drownings all take place in shallow water," the Narrator helpfully informs us. "Just a slice of the ankle tendons...") She also got completely hypnotized by the harpies as well, because it occurred to me that (to her recollection) she has never heard music of any kind before, let alone music that beautiful - and not only that, but it quieted the Urge. Lae'zel (I assume) snaps her out of it. And once Rakha figures out what's going on and that something else was taking control of the inside of her head, she got MAD. This fight didn't go particularly well for anyone except Lae'zel, who rocked an absolutely brutal crit on one of the harpies, but Rakha got to expend some frustration on all of them with some applications of Burning Hands, which made her feel overall a little calmer. We got a Folk Hero inspiration for Wyll for helping the kid out. Gale was also pleased, although I think Rakha cares about that somewhat less.

Hit level 3! Rakha now has more spell slots and can (with sorcery points) cast an action spell as a bonus action. More fire!

Chatted with Volo. Rakha, after her recent interactions with Sceleritas and Raphael, absolutely got jumpscared by him greeting her as "my good friend!" until she realizes Volo is just Like That. She's also utterly baffled when he asks her for information on the goblin battle and then deliberately writes down falsehoods instead. ("A mythweaver," Lae'zel says disdainfully. "This man has no respect for truth.") He does confirm what she's picked up about the presence of the Absolute cult, though - and indicates that the goblins are also part of it, although it's hard to tell whether she should believe him.

Stopped down to see Mol since Mirkon said we should. It was not a particularly exciting conversation, but contact has been made which will be relevant later. Rakha definitely looks at the kids differently than she does the adults in the area, mostly because of Wyll's influence and his story of how he became the Blade of Frontiers.

Checked in with the two tiefling guards in the back corner room, one of whom is threatening to shoot a caged goblin prisoner in revenge for her dead brother. Unsurprisingly, Rakha did nothing to stop this. ("Your mind wanders," points out the Narrator, in the soft, cold drawl she uses for the Dark Urge's specific thoughts. "If the crossbow bolt shot through her mouth, would she taste the metal before she died?") Stand back and admire the guard's overflowing hate. She waits and watches while the guard's crossbow bolt slams directly between the prisoner's eyes. Interestingly - Wyll approved of her choice.

Interacting with the squirrel above the main grove was uh. Sure something.

Narrator: This squirrel might be the single most adorable creature you can recall in all your stunted memory! It would be ever so twee if it were climbing a tree.

And then Rakha got this weird grin on her face and hauled off with a kick; there was an explosion of blood and the squirrel's dead body landed in the upper branches of the tree nearby.

"Terrific," says Lae'zel (presumably while Gale and Wyll look on in complete horror). "If I'm ever harangued by a rodent, I know who to call for."

Narrator: You stare at the body before you. You have no idea what just happened.

Rakha feels the beast in her head settle, its recent frustration soothed by this spilling of an innocent creature's blood. She remembers the deep, crunching impact of her boot and a deep shiver rolls through her whole body.

"My body moved without my command," she mutters hoarsely. "I couldn't control it."

The others don't respond. What is there to say?

Narrator: The swirling bile cauldron of your brain is cooking up a poison stew - served and seasoned by that venomous butler.

#bjk plays bg3 durge #rakha the dark urge #well that escalated quickly and upsettingly at the end there o.o; #i feel like that's going to be a regular durge experience

[clove-pinks]

Lately I have been thinking a lot about how the northwestern frontier of the War of 1812 is ultimately part of the Sixty Years' War for control of the Great Lakes region.

Settler colonial powers clashed with each other (with other overlapping conflicts like the Seven Years' War); and numerous First Nations/Indigenous people joined one side or another in a fight against genocidal removal and the loss of their culture. The frontier was already militarised before the War of 1812.

When he turned his attention to politics, General Harrison specifically emphasised his 1811 win over Tecumseh's confederacy ("Tippecanoe and Tyler too") where he destroyed the Indigenous community of Prophetstown—not his impressive role in the War of 1812 against the British at Fort Meigs.

In the introduction to his 1985 book Men of Patriotism, Courage & Enterprise! Fort Meigs in the War of 1812, Larry L. Nelson discusses his reliance on primary sources in the form of letters, diaries, and journals from the (settler) participants, and how this affects the interpretation of a complicated history:

The use of these primary sources, however, often serves to accentuate the underlying and widely held prejudices of the times. The unsympathetic treatment of the Native American is a case in point. Scorn for the Indian runs as a common thread throughout much of the writing of the period, and is inescapably found in some of the excerpts quoted in this work. For much of white North America during the period, the American Indian was the object of fear and hatred held in equal portion.

The United States already looks pretty Not Great in the long view of the War of 1812—all of our enslaved people constantly fleeing to the British, the bungled invasion of Upper Canada and the burning of York—and there's another dark legacy in the frontier warfare. No wonder the western parts of the United States were so eager for a war with Britain: because it was mainly a war for the expansion of settlement, and there was propaganda depicting the Indigenous population as allies of the British. The New England states wanted to avoid war and almost seceded from the US.

I feel sympathy for many of the defenders of Fort Meigs, particularly the ordinary enlisted men. I don't think they were monsters, even if they were fighting for their nation in a long campaign to break old treaties and expand settlement at the expense of violently displacing native people. The Fort Meigs museum did a nice job with the different perspectives on the conflict, although it's mostly the voices of the US military because they have all of the diaries and letters and other primary sources.

I only just learned that Tecumseh's verbal sketch of Henry Proctor as "a fat animal with its tail between its legs" was in Shawnee, not in English. Tecumseh was revered as an orator, but so few of his words seem to have been written down (that was one of my takeaways from Tecumseh and the Prophet: The Shawnee Brothers Who Defied a Nation, by Peter Cozzens).

There are many challenges for me as a historian, but I am increasingly fascinated by the northwestern theatre of the War of 1812. (And now living there, getting to personally visit these military history sites).

#war of 1812 #fort meigs #tecumseh #military history #us history #indigenous #settler colonialism #ohio #sixty years war #tecumseh's confederacy #old northwest #the war of 1812 ties into the napoleonic wars but also this violent settler conflict! #and i want to be careful how i am approaching it and whose voices are informing me

[wereh0gz]

Hello, I’m one of the contestants of the AU Sonic Smackdown, @delightrolls, the creator of the Sonic Thunderstorm AU. I was trying to decide who to vote for between you and @eloaholiveira, but the decision is proving to be difficult. Would you kindly tell me more about your Old Man Sonic AU? Anything and everything you feel comfortable sharing about your outstanding story! And if you want some more specific questions I would like to ask:

Why has Eggman Nega returned to Sonic’s Dimension?

How did Eggman Nega learn that Sonic is immortal?

If Eggman Nega is present, is Eggman also present and if so, what does he do?

Where and how does your Sonic respawn?

What is Omega like in this AU? Has he managed to destroy all Eggman robots? If so, what is he doing now?

What is Chip like in this AU? If Chip is present, is Dark Gaia as well?

How did Sonic, Tails, and Shadow handle the deaths of their other friends?

Was Tails born as a Kitsune or did something make him like that? If some made him like that what happened? If he was born like that, are there other Kitsune?

Can Tails still fly despite the greater number of tails?

And one just out of curiosity, what would happen if your Sonic were to be killed while all the Chaos Energy in his body has been neutralized? Would he find a different way to come back or would he actually die? I ask because after my Sonic, Duality, gets corrupted by the End in Sonic Frontiers they gain the ability Chaos Cancel from the End’s Absence Energy which allows them to neutralize all Chaos Energy in a certain range though that energy will eventually come back. Could my Sonic theoretically kill your Sonic?

Thank you for your time and regardless of whether you win or lose I think your story is outstanding :)

OH WOW THAT'S A LOT OF QUESTIONS

I'd be happy to answer them all for you :]

(Answers under the cut bc this got really long lol)

1. Why has Eggman Nega returned to Sonic's dimension?

From my understanding, Nega has some conflicting lore about his origins, so in this AU he's actually just Eggman's descendent from Silver's future and not from another dimension entirely.

2. How did Eggman Nega learn that Sonic is immortal?

It actually took a while to figure out, since Sonic keeps to himself a lot more than he used to, and he's really slippery and hard to capture or kill. He wasn't even sure if that old blue hedgehog getting in his way was actually Sonic for a pretty long time.

He did kill him once, though. Managed to stab him through the head with one of his mechs in a fight, basically lobotomized him. You see that scar under his floppy ear? Yeah.

Shadow, Omega, Silver, and Tails got Nega to retreat, but he was sure Sonic was gone for good. Turns out he was wrong, as Sonic came back months later to foil his plans for world domination again, quieter and much, much angrier than before.

This leads to Nega looking into his past in as much detail as possible, as well as trying to capture Sonic and study him to find some way to get rid of him for good. And that one death would not be the last caused by him.

3. If Eggman Nega is present, is Eggman also present and if so, what does he do?

Eggman is long dead by this point, as this AU takes place 200 in the future from when most Sonic games take place. Can't do much when you're six feet under lol.

4. Where and how does you Sonic respawn?

He doesn't really *respawn* so to speak, he regenerates from whatever is left of his body after dying. I guess you could call it respawning if he's reduced to atoms, as he would technically have to come back from nothing, but that (thankfully) has never happened.

Whenever he dies, he's usually taken to one of Tails' workshops by Shadow so that Tails can oversee his regeneration/recovery. He's built machines that help speed up the regeneration process using Chaos Energy. They're like special beds that blast him with high amounts of energy until he can come back to life and recover from his injuries on his own.

He can regenerate without the machines if needed, but it takes a lot longer and he doesn't like it. He hates the feeling of a "restless death", as he calls it, and would rather come back as fast as possible even if he wakes up scarred and in pain.

5. What is Omega like in this AU? Has he managed to destroy all Eggman robots? If so, what is he doing now?

Omega is pretty similar to how he is in canon. Still very much the rage-filled lover of extreme violence and destruction we all know and love, but he's ever so slightly more open to showing affection to his friends now (even calls them his friends outright sometimes!)

He's destroyed as many of Eggman robots as he possibly could, which, as far as he's aware, is all of them, so he's satisfied on that front. However, he does have the newfound goal of destroying all of Eggman *Nega's* robots, too, ensuring Eggman's legacy is wiped out completely. So he joins Shadow and Silver in fighting Nega whenever he can.

Achieving this new goal gets progressively more difficult as his body becomes harder and harder to repair, though, but he won't give up until his job is done (or until he finally kicks the bucket).

6. What is Chip like in this AU? If Chip is present, is Dark Gaia as well?

Chip actually comes in later on in whatever semblance of a cohesive story I have in my head, after Nega's properly defeated. They'd basically be the focus of the second major arc in this story.

They actually fused with Dark Gaia after their premature release from the planet's core, seeking to embrace each other and end the cycle they were a part of, reforming into "True Gaia". After some time, their seal eventually weakened again, which led to parts of them escaping back into the surface and forming a new physical body.

He struggles a lot with his identity and guilt as both Light and Dark Gaia's identities and memories suddenly merged into one. It's hard to tell where Chip ends and Dark Gaia begins. He's still kind and curious, like he was when Sonic first met him years ago, but he can also be prone to mood swings and even act animalistic and feral sometimes. The most notable change, though, is that he is very sleepy all the time.

It would travel the world with Sonic and Tails to energy "hotspots" scattered around the planet in order to absorb the parts of it still sealed inside the core, all while helping Sonic connect with the current world in the process.

7. How did Sonic, Tails, and Shadow handle the deaths of their other friends?

Shadow had time to come to terms with the fact that he would outlive his friends. He'd known he was immortal for much longer than Sonic or Tails, so he could at least try to prepare for it long before it happened. Of course, it still hurt when they eventually passed away, but he continues to move forward.

He looks back at the times they shared fondly and keeps their memory alive in a series of journals he's written.

Tails didn't have as much time to prepare himself like Shadow did, but he handled it alright. He misses them a lot, but he lives on because it's what they would've wanted. He often regrets not having spent more time with them, though.

He keeps a database of all the information (both public and private) he could possibly have about them, including biographies, images, videos, even things like chat logs in a cloud network he created to ensure they'd never be forgotten.

Sonic... didn't take it so well. It's like he never really processed that he would outlive his friends at all. He never thought about it, never *wanted* to think about it, despite the fact that he learned of his immortality well before that time came. So when it eventually happened, and he had to watch his friends eventually die one after another, it hit him *hard*.

He isolated himself and started hoarding anything and everything that reminded him of them, from gifts he was given years ago to pictures that had begun to fade. He avoided facing that grief head on for as long as he could, but he eventually began to forget what they were like, and was forced to move on.

He still grieves them, but now it feels like he's grieving phantoms instead of actual people. He hates it.

8. Was Tails born as a Kitsune or did something make him like that? If something made him like that what happened? If he was born like that, are there other Kitsune?

He was born a kitsune! There are others like him, but they're extremely rare and only really heard of in legends, so he's the only one we would actually see in this AU.

9. Can Tails still fly despite the greater number of tails?

Yes! He can fly without having to spin his tails now, too, but still does it out of habit.

10. What would happen if your Sonic were to be killed while all the Chaos Energy in his body has been neutralized? Would he find a different way to come back or would he actually die?

Sonic cannot truly die unless his soul is destroyed, which is nigh impossible as the forces of Chaos themselves forbid that from happening.

Neutralizing the Chaos Energy inside him would temporarily halt his regeneration, though, so he wouldn't be able to heal at all as long as the neutralization effect is active. Since that effect is temporary and his soul is (I assume) still intact, he will eventually come back.

-

Thanks for asking about my AU!! I love thinking abt him and The Horrors he's gone through <3

#asks #old man sonic au #au sonic smackdown #ask to tag #for some of the darker stuff touched upon here. dunno if it needs trigger warnings or not since i didn't go into too much detail. but yeah

[shihalyfie]

This is potentially a very loaded question so feel free to not answer if you don't feel like it, but how do you as a woman feel about the handling of female characters in Digimon (anime of course, but also games, manga and even the Digimon themselves)? I've seen takes of all kinds from women over the years so I'm curious how you feel. But again, no pressure to answer if you feel uncomfortable with the subject or too daunted by all the material on the table.

Oh man, I don't mind talking about the subject in itself, but what makes it hard for me is just that the Digimon franchise just has so many things at once with so many different writers and different writing philosophies that I can't really treat the entire thing like a monolith. Especially when you have things running the spectrum from Cyber Sleuth (where female characters arguably drive the narrative far more than the male characters) to Next (which has gotten me angrily ranting about the absolutely awful way it treats its girls, a rant which I would prefer to not subject my followers to).

So before I go ahead, I do want to make sure anyone reading this understands that I'm just talking about my own personal experience and feelings regarding the situation, and I'm very sure that other people will feel differently. I definitely don't feel qualified to comment on what's the ideal way to write female charaters in media or whatever (as if there's even one right answer to that!); I can only truly comment on myself and my own stances on it. (And of course, the OP graciously asked specifically about that, but I just want to make sure nobody reading this post misunderstands!)

Well, I will say that if there's one thing that does seem to be consistent (and I say consistent, because Next absolutely violates this one and Frontier does kind of dangerously toe the line), it's that I haven't really seen Digimon fall victim to the problem of what I call making its female characters the Designated Girl Characters™. Explaining what that is is kind of tricky, but a lot of shounen series will have this very strong "consciousness" of its female characters like they're there to fill a quota, and thus treat them in a way that's kind of alienating. Or in other words, "they section off this character very weirdly in a way they would never do for the male characters." (Note that while Ruki's character arc is made with strong consciousness of her being a girl, the whole point is about condemning the idea she should be treated like some novelty just because she's a girl, so I don't count it as this.)

It was really refreshing to see a 1999 anime portray the girls as mingling with the boys like it was no big deal, and I do wonder if Adventure setting this precedent is a big reason later series have followed in this regard. Adventure through Frontier were made with heavy female creator influence, something that the fandom really tends to downplay (especially because a lot of people suspiciously avoid acknowledging their importance, like how everyone will talk about Hosoda but nobody will talk about the fact Yoshida Reiko wrote the scripts for everything he did, or how people virtually ignored Seki's existence compared to Kakudou until very recently). I think a lot of that shows in its writing; of course, that's not to say there aren't things that really could have used improvement (I think Izumi's treatment in Frontier is the one pretty much everyone universally agrees really left much to be desired, and Tomita even outright admitted he's not very good at writing girls, although that frankly kind of surprises me given how much of his other work has involved writing girls really well), but at the very least it does show a bit more conscientiousness about its female characters than you would see in other shows where female creators were either nonexistent or clearly had no influence in the staff room.

On the flip side, there's also things that were more tasteful in execution than may have even been intended; Sora's character arc isn't that much about her femininity in practice, and Juri does come off as better than your average damsel in distress character, but that doesn't change the fact that the nuance is still there (and that in the latter case a certain writer has outright indulged in that), so all I can do is just be grateful that it didn't get worse.

I guess in the end, my stance is "give or take". I like a lot of other kids' shows (including shounen) that have been better or worse than Digimon's average level, and Digimon itself is so varied that I think it just kind of mingles in there. There are things I like, things I don't like, but at the very least there haven't been too many things that crossed my personal boundary of "absolutely not" (there are, there just aren't many). I think Adventure and 02 in particular are often accused of being more malicious towards its female characters and "screwing them over" than they were intended to be, since a lot of it seems to be a combination of wanting to portray its characters a little too realistically and simply just accidental bad circumstances of how it presented (the fact Hikari's two most famous episodes are by two non-regulars on the series who seemed to be huge fans of portraying her with a brother complex really did not help here), and things like "the same things that feel personally relatable to me are also things that read badly to others, so I understand why people don't like it but I also feel kind of weird when they imply that this kind of concept is inherently Bad" (a lot of things related to Sora and Miyako fall into this category for me). And I mean, part of the reason Miyako became my central character back when I wrote fanfic more often was that I just found her to be an incredibly complex character for the kind you'd usually see in shounen works; I honestly don't know of many other things that would portray someone like her sympathetically instead of cramming her into a "hysterical woman" trope box.

There's also the fact that there's a lot more adult-oriented Digimon media coming up nowadays, so there's that awkward situation where "female character representation" starts having a blurred boundary with "waifu character". Which is not to say that I mind the idea of male fans also liking the female characters I like, but more so that when you get into this territory, I start getting conscious about whether the female characters are more obviously being written in a way to "please the male fans and make them into fanservice material" than it respects them as characters. And I mean, I say it's a blurred boundary for good reason; the aforementioned Cyber Sleuth characters do kind of have that (especially in their character designs), but they are actually written as good characters with agency, whereas you have things like the Adventure girls in tri. who are ostensibly written to follow up on their Adventure character arcs but came off to me as being uncomfortably shoved into the Waifu Character Fanservice troping boxes, especially Mimi and Hikari. (Hooters outfit Mimi and brother complex Hikari are among the few things that I would say have crossed a serious line with me.) So again...give or take.

I will say that the American English dub had a somewhat more misogynistic nuance in the way it treated Mimi, Miyako, and Hikari (it had a lot more condescending tone in the way it portrayed Mimi's airheadedness/materialism and Yolei's penchant for fangirling while also expecting Kari to just put up with Davis harassing her, and it exacerbated the already-kind-of-uncomfortable feelings I had about the unsympathetic way Sora is portrayed in Our War Game!), but it's not to the extent I felt it derailed the entire narrative.

As for the Digimon themselves, the feminine Digimon design sexualization didn't bother me much when I was younger (I remember I really wasn't bothered by Angewomon's design at all), but it does bother me a little more now, especially since you have more designs like Venusmon these days (really? really?). But then there are also really good designs like LovelyAngemon and Mastemon that are just plain cool! And then even designs aside, there's a difference in the way each work portrays them; for instance, you can tell certain anime had more fun with the chest jiggles on the same Digimon that other series were not weird about at all. Maybe the fact Adventure and 02 weren't really weird about Angewomon's design was exactly why I didn't notice it very much back then?

Well, that got long and very rambling, but I hope that answered your question to some extent!

#atamatajiih #shiha's ask box #digimon multi series talk #tri negativity #dubbing discourse #not that I intended it to get super negative #but it does lightly touch on it so I wanted to cover my bases so it can catch filters for people who don't want to see that

[randomvarious]

Today's mix:

Fuse Presents Hell by Hell 2000 House / Techno / Deep House / Electro / New Wave

Goddamn, man, I'm not gonna say outright that this mix in particular is the greatest shit in the world—although it's pretty close!—but the ethos behind it certainly represents what has ultimately led to some of the most astonishing sets that we've ever had the pleasure of witnessing as a species. There's this late 70s-and-80s-rooted spirit that's equal parts unpredictable and eclectic, in which the overall route of the set doesn't feel pre-planned at all, because the DJ takes risks by linking tracks together that you yourself would never expect to hear in succession. The overall journey from point A to point B that you get taken on is one that's long and winding and full of surprises, and the DJ themselves doesn't really have any particular destination in mind to begin with either, because the perpetual question that's always most immediately on their mind is, "hmm, what banger do I want to play next? 🤔"

And I feel like this flying-by-the-seat-of-its-pants approach to DJing has largely faded from the limelight and has gradually been replaced by either the DJ who specializes in one specific dance subgenre that's in one specific range of BPMs for a whole set, or the DJ who just plays mindless EDM claptrap from a pre-loaded USB stick 😒. All of it's so safe and hermetically sealed shut. Where's the danger, the fun, and variety of it all?

See, what you really have to understand here is that there was no place on the planet that was more sonically diverse than your typical late 70s and 80s dancefloor. House, freestyle, synthpop, disco, hi-NRG, pop, post-disco, art punk, art rock, art pop, electro, hip hop, funk, boogie, post-punk, new wave, dance-pop, dancehall, two-tone ska, glam rock, sophisti-pop, soul, alternative dance, R&B, etc., etc., etc., all had the potential to be played at any given moment during a set, and the ultimate job of the DJ was to craft a breathtaking sonic collage out of any of it.

And that's exactly what Germany's DJ Hell channeled here with this commercial mix from 2000 for the second ever installment in Belgian club Fuse's own series. But what's more is that while Hell was deriving his inspiration from an attitude of a bygone era, he also happened to have about an extra decade of music at his disposal that his spiritual predecessors didn't. And the 90s ended up seeing a mega-expansion on the frontiers of electronic and dance music entirely, so while Hell certainly picks out his classics from super popular acts like Donna Summer and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, on here you're also gonna find stuff from contemporary dance legends like Todd Terry and Carl Craig, different flavors of rock from Tuxedomoon, Sparks, and the Flying Lizards, Brazilian-sampled techno from Andrew McLauchlan, and deep house from Bougie Soliterre. In reality, almost none of this track list makes any lick of sense on paper, but that's the inherent beauty of the whole thing, folks! Once you put it on and get a taste of Orange Lemon's (Todd Terry's) "Extended Club Mix" of "The Texican," you really start to get a feel for the vision that's been laid out here, and it's one that's mindbendingly motley, and more in the vein of how a lot of old DJ sets used to be!

The best DJs to me are the ones who appear to be doing it purely off the dome and are just living right in the moment while barely thinking ahead. They know how to wow a crowd with a memorable blend of classics, a contemporary hit, and obscurities from any decade, place, or genre, but they make adjustments if and when they feel the need to as well. And above all else, they possess an uncanny ability to play songs that you don't see coming—or that you never even knew existed in the first place—while also convincing you that the choice they made is one that's both thrilling and logically sound. It's a tough act to balance, like a halftime gimmick who rides a unicycle and spins plates on a long rod that sits on their chin while also juggling bowling pins, but DJ Hell is someone who clearly has the knack for it and puts it on full display here.

The world could always use more of this kind of DJing in it, especially when so many of us now have access to more music than we know what to do with that's all sitting right at our fingertips.

And by the way, I didn't really get into specific tracks with this post here, but "Desire," by 69, which is just a nice alias that was used by Carl Craig, is one of the most stunning combinations of string synth and drum break that I think I've ever heard in my life. Good lord, what a tune that is! 🤯

Listen to the full mix here.

Highlights:

Speedy J - "Evolution" Ché - "The Incident (Wet Dream Mix)" Orange Lemon - "The Texican (Extended Club Mix)" Liaisons Dangereuses - "Avant-Après Mars" Tuxedomoon - "What Use" 69 - "Desire" Mitsu - "Shylight" Donna Summer - "I Feel Love (Patrick Cowley Megamix)" Sparks - "Beat the Clock" Phuture - "Rise From Your Grave (Wake Side)" Foremost Poets - "Pressin On" Bougie Soliterre - "Superficial (Main Vocal Mix)" G Strings - "The Land of Dreams" Frankie Goes to Hollywood - "Two Tribes (Annihilator Mix)" Dopplereffekt - "Rocket Scientist" Andrew Mc Laughlan - "Love Story" Filippo "Naughty" Moscatello - "Disco Volante" The Flying Lizards - "Steam Away"

#house #house music #techno #deep house #electro #new wave #dance #dance music #electronic #electronic music #music #70s #70s music #70's #70's music #80s #80s music #80's #80's music #90s #90s music #90's #90's music #2000s #2000s music #2000's #2000's music #00s #00s music #00's

[lollytea]

what (human) social media do you think the hexaquad uses/is on. Because personally I think Luz is weird and bi enough that she would use tumblr and completely commit to the goncharov bit

Luz absolutely uses tumblr as her primary socmed and she has an intimate relationship with the nature of its insanity. She's the one the others ask when they stumble across an utterly incomprehensible meme and Luz will be like "Okay so basically the origin of eeby deeby is--"

She has two blogs. One for art and one for reblogs/fandom/shitposting. She used to have a twitter but she deleted it some time during the Thanks to Them montage because she was dealing with too much bullshit to tolerate the cesspool. She has an Instagram that she uses exclusively for posting art.

Oh and ao3. How could I forget ao3?

I feel like Amity is completely uninterested in human social media. Out of all the kids, she's the only one who didn't really find a specific hobby/interest during her time in gravesfield. She's already got a pensta and she likes how it's tailored for witch society. She'd have no interest in Instagram or twitter or shit like that. BUT she would absolutely go apeshit once she discovers the Good Witch Azura fandom in the Human Realm. (Literally NOBODY back home even knew what those books were.) She doesn't understand the memes and shitposts or general culture but Amity would absolutely have a fandom specific tumblr. She mostly just reblogs from Luz. An ao3 too of course <3

Willow used pensta for general teen reasons like selfies and socializing with her friends before she came to Gravesfield but now that she's developed an interest in photography? Oh that girl's account is gonna get such a glo up. She'd have an Instagram too. She actually becomes pretty popular on both accounts. Not ✨️Influencer✨️ status but she's gained quite a following of humans and witches alike.

I like to imagine that she also has a Pinterest. Idk she strikes me as somebody who'd enjoy collecting aesthetic pics and making boards. For the same reason she also has a tumblr that's mostly aesthetic with the occasional feral little reblog like this thrown in

Gus is a tiktok kid!!! Gus is SUCH a tiktok kid!!! I could also see him having a YouTube channel where he posts deranged little vlogs (in this universe Gus13 does not exist or its after it happened and only adds more fuel to the fire.) A twitch too maybe?? I could see him streaming. Basically I just think Gus would be drawn to all the video-focused social media.

I think he'd have a twitter too where he tweets his insane little thoughts and it actually blows up in popularity because people think it's a parody account.

Also....he would read Wikipedia religiously and eventually get banned from making his own edits.

Ok ok ok ok I think it would be so funny if Hunter got his penstagram account back in ASIAS, got so excited about finally having a regular teen experience but after a year or so once he's become well acquainted with pensta culture he's like "Well. This sucks."

So basically

Back when Hunter got a scroll, he followed Willow and that was that. He never followed anyone else. He has never posted anything. He can't even be convinced to follow any more of his friends. Not even Gus. He has notifications on for when Willow posts. He pops in to like them and then he fucks off again. People have forgotten that Hunter even has an account.

But when it comes to human socmed OHHHHH....

I want to say he has a devianart. But I'm not sure because I'm pretty sure that devianart is a husk of its former self. So he probably just has a tumblr. Hunter has not yet learned that you can make seperate blogs for all your different interests so his blog is a cluttered mess of his whole autistic self Cosmic Frontier brainrot, wolves, anime, the occasional embroidery pics that Willow tags him in.

Also he would be on neopets.

BONUS CHARACTERS:

Camila is on Facebook and Instagram. Also after the events of the series she gradually begins to rediscover the Cosmic Frontier message boards she used to frequent back when Manny was still alive. They brought back memories of her grief for the longest time but she's beginning to once again embrace her love for the series. She's even reconnected with some old online friends <3

Vee would have all the Normal Human Teenage Girl Social Media. She mostly uses twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. She also stays active on Facebook just to like her mom's posts.

Mattholomule would use reddit. Don't disagree with me I'm right.

#sorry for giving so many of them tumblrs #theyre gay and autistic what else am i supposed to give them