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#very indicative of third act power ups and the like!
silverskye13 · 3 months
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Rereading the Demon fight because I love watching my blorbos suffer, and oh my god Helsknight saying ‘You’re beginning to annoy me’ has me screaming again. he used Wels’ line. Like. how am I supposed to be okay with this.
I was wondering if anyone noticed that :D
I'm also currently rereading RnS [my sister has informed me rereading your story to see where it came from sometimes helps writer's block, and I will try any solution short of drinking snake oil at this point] and I only just got to chapter 13, but I will be joining you in blorbos suffering soon, anon.
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loveemagicpeace · 9 days
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🧚🏽Astrology Notes🧚🏽
🎸If Jupiter is in the first, fourth, seventh, tenth house, it should protect the person from major accidents. Jupiter in the 11th house means many friends. Jupiter in the 9th house means long journeys, usually paid for by someone else. Jupiter in the 4th house means that the person has a very religious family and that he will not live where he was born.
If Saturn is in the falling house (third, sixth, ninth, twelfth), circumstances may arise during that period, but you only become aware of them a few years later. If Saturn is in an angular house (fourth, seventh, tenth) at the time of birth, it sets a pattern that a person will follow throughout his life.
Saturn in the first, second or third house can indicate a burden on a person already in his early life. This is often because of the father. Saturn in the 4th house means that the individual will build a larger valuable property.
If the Sun is in a corner house (first, fourth, seventh, tenth), this means that the exercise of individuality will be visible to others. It makes the power that can bring you fame.
If the Sun is in one of the following houses (second, fifth, eighth, eleventh), this tends to give up publicity and the individual must progress on his own. If it is accepted by the public, it is not based on a personal initiative, as the main position of the sun sign would suggest. Follow-up houses often lead y dealing with other people's lives and/or their property.
If the Sun is in the falling houses (third, sixth, ninth, twelfth), this indicates that the individual thrives best behind the scenes. It makes an individual who serves. The beauty and strength of this individual are visible only to those closest to him in close contact with him.
Uranus is the planet that shows the clairvoyance of a person and the premonitions that a person has. But it is also a planet associated with astrology.
Mercury and Uranus: each aspect helps the person to communicate well. A person writes a horoscope.
Sun and Uranus: this is one of the more important aspects. No matter how aspected it brings a person great success in the field of astrology. And people will accept him as an expert and trust that person. You will become an authority figure, so you can make sure that you are honest.
Pluto rules kidnappings and gangsters. And many people do not know that pluto is also the co-ruler of Aries. So people who have a lot of Aries and act mysteriously is also part of it.
Cancer rising people are very sensitive when someone is rude to them. They take it to heart when someone is rude to them, especially authority figures. They are very used to home and family and it is difficult for them to be with people who are not their family for a long time. Let's say: if someone takes them to a doctor, they will always want it to be a person who is related to them.
Capricorn rising people are basically unaffected by things. And they are used to people being harsher towards them. are basically unaffected by things. And they are used to people being harsher towards them. They have tough skin and are generally not that personal as a sign. They look at things from a different perspective.
Aquarius Sun tend to want more friendly relationships than romantic ones. They don't like you controlling them or telling them what to do. But they are prone to long engagements. They also say that Aquarians do not like flashy and provocative clothes, jewelry and make-up. Although it all depends on what other signs a person has.
Venus:
Venus in Aries- are often selfish in love and will always put themselves first. And it is considered unstable venus.
Venus in Taurus- are very frugal with money. In love, however, they are loyal, deep and lasting.
Venus in Gemini- in love, they tend to flirt or have several relationships at the same time.
Venus in Cancer- are emotional and tend towards the domestic environment. They can be better parents than partners. This position is not always favorable for marriage.
Venus in Leo- love to spend, especially on people they love. They like attention. They are frank, honest and sometimes too kind-hearted.
Venus in Virgo-Venus falls here. They are artistic, but they are also emotionally closed. They tend to be critical. Once they commit, they don't let up.They are often disappointed in relationships and have several.
Venus in Libra- are young at heart, often indecisive. They are determined hosts. They often marry early.
Venus in Scorpio- are passionate, intense, mysterious, jealous. They strongly desire to know the hidden motives of others. He is quick to rate people. They can have a hard time forming relationships.
Venus in Sagittarius- are positive, sincere, passionate, irresistible. They are very idealistic, philosophical. They are intuitive, loyal and love a mystical way of life. They have many friends.
Venus in Capricorn- usually not open, they are calculating, serious, careful. They are often disappointed in love, so they are afraid of relationships. They can get married for the sake of society. They marry a person who can be quite different.
Venus in Aquarius - aloof in love, quickly establish contacts with strangers. They are usually more friendly than romantic. They tend to have multiple relationships.
Venus in Pisces- often fantasize about their love life. They are sensitive and also depressed. Music has a good effect on them.
The first house covers areas of life such as: early life impression, causes of financial losses, long journeys of children and their religious inclinations, friends of brothers and sisters.
The third house covers areas of life such as: incidental sciences, willpower, speech and hearing, reasons for moving away from home, long journeys of a spouse.
The fifth house covers areas of life such as: spouse's friends, grandchildren's long journeys, person's passions, ways of relaxation, cause of bankruptcy.
The seven house covers areas of life such as: the description and characteristics of a marriage partner, friends in other countries, rivalries, quarrels and fights, enemies and rivals, things that are the most difficult for a person to achieve, the outcome of diseases, the mentality of children, the later life conditions of the father in the female chart, later life conditions of the mother in the male chart.
The eighth house covers areas of life such as: natural death of a person, business friends, transition to the astral world, gateway to the spiritual world, acquisitions due to partnership, acquisitions due to marriage, investigation of lawsuits, short trips to work.
The second house covers areas of life such as: inner emotions and feelings, financial visions, the propriety of borrowing money, a person's ingenuity, the ability to be comfortable, what you give is what you get, family friends, time and reputation of children, inheritances and inheritances by marriage partner, cause of death partner.
The fourth house covers areas of life such as: family traditions, situations in later life, kitchen, causes of sadness due to love relationships, inheritances from other countries.
The sixth house covers areas of life such as: favors, small animals, attitude to diet, restrictions due to marriage, restrictions due to partner, working conditions, food, clothing.
The ninth house covers areas of life such as: rites and ceremonies, types of church, gains from spiritual experiences, gains from psychic experiences, the person's consciousness, the hygienic conditions of the person's home, the care or neglect of property, the mentality of the spouse, the health of the parent of the opposite sex, the end of the life of uncles, restrictions or losses in business, situations of children's romantic relationships.
The tenth house covers areas of life such as: the house of pride, reward karma, grief and loss of friends, long journeys due to money matters, children's health, the cause of death of loved ones, the end of the life of a spouse, money that you can earn from traveling.
The eleventh house covers areas of life such as: societies and organizations to which one belongs, punishments, fines that a person has to pay, the way money is spent, agreements in foreign countries, attitude towards entertainment of the spouse, potential cause of loss of property, health of uncles and aunt on your mother's side.
The twelfth house covers areas of life such as: a symbol of the most difficult battles, a symbol of the most difficult tasks, a symbol of accidents, losses, fate, enemies, hospitals, asylums, the house of spies, the cause of the end of romantic relationships, residence in a foreign country, how someone sleeps and relaxes, house hindsight, self-analysis, friends' finances, friends' acquisitions, closest point of contact with a person's soul.
🎸For personal readings u can sign up here: https://snipfeed.co/bekylibra 🎸
-Rebekah🧚🏽🪐🎸
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bethanythebogwitch · 5 months
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Wet Beast Wednesday: walrus
There are a lot of iconic arctic animals, such as the polar bear and narwhal, but my personal favorite is the walrus. Known for their large tusks, prominent whiskers, and habit for busting myths creepy eyes, walruses are unique amongst the pinnipeds. Most people know of the two main groups of pinnipeds: Phocidae, the earless or true seals and Otariidae, the fur seals and sea lions. Walruses however are in a class of their own, being the only surviving species of their own family: Odobenidae. A weird fact that I learned researching for this is that taxonoimists used to think Odobenids evolved from bears before later reclassifying them alongside the other pinnipeds. Old-timey taxonomy was wild and came up with some absolutely unhinged ideas. Like they used to think that microbats and megabats weren't related, instead classifying megabats as primates.
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(image; a walrus sitting on an ice flow. It is a large, brown mammals with short limbs that end in flippers. Its head has a wide, blunt snout and two long tusks emerging from the upper jaw)
There is one species of walrus, Odobenus rosmarus, divided into two subspecies based on location: the Atlantic walrus (O. r. rosmarus) and Pacific walrus (O. r. divergens). The two subspecies are still very similar and genetic testing indicates they diverged between 750,000 and 500,000 years ago. There used to be a third listed subspecies from the Laptev sea, O. r. laptevi, but they have since been reclassified as a population of the Pacific walrus. Walruses are very large, being the third largest pinnipeds after the two elephant seal species. The Pacific subspecies is larger than their Atlantic brethren with most males reaching an average weight between 800 and 1,700 kg (1,800 to 3,700 lbs). A few males have been known to grow considerably larger than average. Male Atlantic walruses average about 900 kg (2,200 lbs). In both subspecies, females are about 2/3 the size of males and have shorter tusks. a large portion of their weight comes from the thick layer of blubber under their skin that helps them stay warm. Both subspecies have an average length between 2.2 and 3.6 meters (7.4 to 11.8 ft). Walruses have hind flippers that can turn forward to act like feet, letting them crawl on all fours like sea lions. Like true seals, they have no external ears. The skin is very thick and mostly bald. They are born with brown skin that becomes lighter as they age. While swimming, the blood vessels in the skin construct to reduce blood flow and limit heat loss, which makes them considerably lighter, almost white. Males have skin nodules called bossed around the neck and shoulders. Their creepy eyes are the result of eye sockets with no roof and powerful extraocular muscles that let the eyes protrude out of the skull and look both forward and sideways. The famous mustaches are composed of 400-700 thick whiskers. The whiskers are attached to muscles and have both nerve ending and blood supply. They are incredibly sensitive sense organs and a walrus can identify objects as small as 2mm with its whiskers. Their lips are muscular and flexible and aid in creating a large variety of noises.
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(image: a close-up of a walrus's face, showing its prominent whiskers and small eyes. Its mouth is open, revealing its tongue)
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How come the walrus can whistle but I can't? (video: a walrus in a zoo being instructed by its handler to make multiple vocalizations)
Of course the most famous features of walruses are their tusks. These two large canines can reach a meter in length and are larger in males than females. The tusks have a number of uses in both sexes, though males use them more. In both sexes, they are used to help dig breathing holes in sea ice, hang onto ice and help the walrus climb out of the water. Males also use their tusks in displays of dominance, especially during mating season. Larger tusks are a sign of dominance and typically the walrus with the largest tusks will win standoffs. If a standoff escalates from posturing to a fight, they will use their tusks as weapons. They tend to strike around the neck and shoulders and the skin nodules in those areas help protect males from each other's tusks. It was formerly believed that walruses would use their tusks to dig for prey on the sea floor, but this is no longer believed to be the case.
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(image: a walrus skull showing the tusks)
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(image: a walrus using its tusks to hang onto the ice and keep its nostrils above the water)
Walruses spend a lot of their time searching for the food they need to support a body that big. They prefer forging along the continental shelf and spend much more time in shallow water than other pinnipeds. While walruses have been tracked diving 500 meters deep, the majority of dives are much more shallow. The vast majority of a walrus's diet consists of seafloor-dwelling invertebrates including tubeworms, soft corals, tunicates, crabs and shrimp, sea cucumbers, and mollusks. While that's a wide palette, their absolute favorite food is clams. To hunt, walruses drag their noses and the forward surface of their tusks through the sediment and use their whiskers to search for food. This stirs up the sediment and releases nutrients back into the water column, a process balled bioturbation. Many foods can be swallowed whole or chewed, but they have a special feeding style for clams and other bivalves. Walruses will hold the bivalve in their mouths and use their flexible lips to form a water-tight seal around it. It then withdraws its tongue into its mouth to create enough suction to suck the bivalve meat right out of the shell. So important is this strategy to feeding that the shape of their mouths is specially adapted to it. Walruses are also known to feed on seals, though how much of that is due to hunting or scavenging is unknown. Additionally, they will scavenge whales, may hunt walrus trapped under sea ice, and have been seen catching and eating birds.
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(image: a walrus foraging for food underwater. It has its snout pressed into the sea floor and is kicking up a large amount of sediment. Still from a National Geographic video)
Walruses are social and migratory, traveling south for the winter and north for the summer in aggregations that can be tens of thousands strong. They will haul out onto land or sea ice in huge numbers, blanketing the landscape in blubber and tusks. While these aggregations are preferred, they are not considered a true social species as they do not aid each other when together. Walruses on land or ice are skittish and will spook easily. Being startled can lead to stampedes while the walruses flee back to sea. Sometimes, walruses will be trampled to death during these stampedes. During mating season, the normally cordial walruses become much less friendly to their neighbors. Breeding seasons lasts from January to March. During this time, males will gather in the water around females in heat and compete for the change to get to that nice walrussy (I will not apologize). This is usually done via bellowing and posturing with the tusks, but may escalate to fights. While males become sexually mature around age 7, they often do not become large and strong enough to secure mates until around age 15. Females become sexually mature between 4 and 6 years old. Curiously, females enter heat twice per year, but males are only fertile once per year. Gestation takes up to 16 months and calves are born able to swim and weighing up to 75 kg (165 lbs). Females with calves move away from the large aggregations, possibly to keep their calves from being crushed in stampedes and possibly to make it harder for predators to detect their scent. Nursing lasts for over a year, longer than in many pinnipeds. Walrus milk is fattier than that of land mammals, but less fatty than that of true seals, forcing walrus mother to nurse longer. Even after being weaned, walruses may spend up to 5 years with their mothers. Females only mate at most every two years, which gives the walrus the lowest reproduction rate of all pinnipeds. Walruses can live up to 30 years in the wild and 40 years in captivity. Male walruses have the largest penis bone of any non-cetacean both in absolute size and proportionately.
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(image an aerial shot of a walrus herd on land. There are many walruses and they are so tightly packed together that no ground is visible)
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"Don't talk to me or my son ever again" (image: a mother walrus with its calf. The calf is a smaller version of the mother with no tusks. The calf is sittting by its mother's side. Both are looking at the camers)
Walruses have been hunted by humans living in the arctic circle for millennia. Hunting peaked in 18th and 19th centuries when there was a high commercial demand for meat, blubber, skin, and ivory. This almost led to the extirpation of Atlantic walruses. Since then, hunting has been outlawed except by indigenous peoples, allowing the populations to recover. Now, the major threat to walruses is climate change leading to loss of sea ice needed for hauling out and breeding. The IUCN lists both subspecies as Vulnerable. They were an important source of food and other materials to the peoples of the arctic circle and appear frequently in the mythology of said peoples.
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(image: a walrus tusk carved with the images of multiple fish, seals, and polar bears)
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tonythr · 8 months
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Picking up Monarch Wings triggers Infected Crossroads and there is a lore reason for that
Another interesting fact that (in my opinion) is not talked about enough is that the Infection doesn't corrupt the crossroads after we take monarch wings just because it's a convenient point from a gameplay perspective to introduce the player to stronger enemies, or to show us the passage of time. It's because taking away the wings from that specific location directly affects the spread of the Infection.
In the game, we can clearly see how a specific segment of the Ancient Basin is overrun by the Infection. I'm talking about two big rooms in the western part of the Basin, one where we fight the Broken Vessel and the other where we encounter the Mawlurks. There is a third one near the Basin tram station of the lower line, but I assume it's just part of the same thing, just the Infection seeping through the ceiling of the main room. There is also the room that contains Monarch Wings, which is completely free of the Infection, but I'll get to it.
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Those glowing bubbles and pulsing vines and orange clouds of fog are indicative of severe corruption by the Infection. Before Infected Crossroads, we see them only in special places (like the Glowing Womb aspid nest) where the Infection had a lot of opportunity to become gas, then liquid, then flesh for one reason or another (with the aspid nest that reason is probably the symbiotic relationship between aspids and the Infection itself, where the aspids act like carriers of the disease that help it spread).
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And the western part of Basin is the most unique place in that sense, because, aside from the crossroads, it's the only place where 'that flesh came to life'. But what is the reason for that? Why don't we see those glowing blobs and lightseeds in any other part of the map, even though it's clear that even the most remote parts of Hallownest were influenced by the Infection? What is so unique about this part of the Basin?
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It's the wind.
The picture doesn't show the vines and particles moving around that much, but anyone who played the game probably remembers that badass storm that we see and hear the moment we enter the room after the big spike tunnel. The orange glow of the Infection also makes its first appearance in this particular room (if we're talking about this specific part of the Basin, of course). That leads me to believe that the wind is somehow connected to the spread of the Infection in the confines of this area. And we already know why this wind is there in the first place.
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The room where we pick up the Monarch Wings is the only one in this area that holds no sign of the Infection whatsoever. The wind in this room also feels much stronger, and it blows with a unique sound specifically near the Wings statue. But most importantly, it stops the moment the Knight consumes the Monarch Wings.
After that, the whole area actually becomes less infected. The changes are rather subtle, but visible.
Look:
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LOOK:
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And, despite the common misconception, it's consuming the Wings that serves as the in-game trigger that sets off the Infected Crossroads. You can literally kill BV without picking up the Wings, and then return to the Crossroads to see that it's still (relatively) uninfected. It's a solid proof that Monarch Wings and the wind that they create is what affects the spread of the Infection.
After we pick up the Wings, the Infectious mass partially leaves this part of the Basin and moves to the Crossroads, since that's when we see all those drastic changes. Now, that might give us some interesting implications about how the Infection actually works. Possibly, reuniting with its main source inside the Black Egg Temple gives it more power, resulting in total corruption of the Crossroads, since we see that Infected Crossroads has way more bubbles, lightseeds, vines etc. That actually leads me to believe that the Infection actually may have very specific physical limits, and that the total mass of the matter that it can create is finite and measurable (at least as long as the Sealed Vessel is still intact and holds the source of it inside itself).
Like, why doesn't it spread all throughout Hallownest even when the Seals are broken and the door is open? Even when the Hollow Knight is unchained, the Infection doesn't spread anywhere beyond the Crossroads, it stays exactly the way it was with only one Dreamer taken down or only Wings being picked up. So yeah, my theory here is that:
Picking up Wings and killing a Dreamer triggers the spread of the Infection in different ways (Wings lets another part of the Infection's mass give power to its main source, killing a Dreamer loosens the door's Seal and lets the Infection out), but ultimately leads to one result, that being Infected Crossroads.
The Infection doesn't spread past Crossroads because Hollow Knight, despite its failure, is still strong enough to hold it at bay.
The Infection operates like some kind of shapeless mass that can be gas, liquid, solid and sentient. It's basically a matter that holds a will (that will, of course, belongs to the Radiance).
That is why destroying the Infection (instead of sealing it away) was deemed impossible.
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Although that leaves many questions about the Pale King and his relation to the Radiance. Did he know that the source of the Infection was his old pal Moth Goddess? Did he deliberately choose not to confront her, but instead try and seal her away? Was he stupid? Or did he have some secret internal motives?
...That is not exactly what this post is about. I would like to get back to the Wings thing now.
Another thing that led me to believe that it's that particular Infectious mass from Basin that corrupts the Crossroads after we pick up the Wings is the movement of the particles inside that part of Basin. Particularly, the Void particles. Before we pick up Wings, those particles follow the wind. After that, they start to slowly rise upwards, just like in the rest of the location. That gives us two interesting conclusions:
After we pick up Wings, the Basin Infection escapes upwards, eventually reaching Crossroads.
The Void that resides in Basin is also affected by the Monarch Wind.
By the way, another interesting fact: the orange fog that we see spreading throughout Infected Crossroads actually moves according to its position relative to the Black Egg Temple.
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This means that Team Cherry does put deeper meaning into how they make background particles move, and it means that I'm not insane for reading this much into that! Yay!
Now, back to the Void being influenced by the Wind. Like I said, the part of the Void (which, probably, is also a matter that has its own mass, albeit maybe not as measurable) that resides in that part of Basin is also influenced by the Monarch Wind along with the Infection. It might imply that, like the Infection, the Void is trapped inside that area.
Or maybe it's not trapped. Maybe it just circulates there, so that something else can be trapped inside its currents. Ancient Basin is basically the Void's home, so I really doubt that whatever is going on in that area affects the overall condition of the Void as a whole. But we don't know that. What we DO know is that the Infection there is certainly trapped, unable to reunite with its source, being forced to slowly find ways to adapt, becoming gas, then liquid, then flesh, then reviving the corpse of the Knight's Lost Kin.
So what if that was the whole point?
Ok, we know that Pale King was looking for ways to fight off the Infection and eventually decided to harness the power of the Void to do so. He created Kingsmoulds, Wingsmoulds, probably experimented with the Void inside his workshop, eventually coming up with the idea of a Pure Vessel... But what if what we see in the Monarch Wings location is another part of his struggles to come up with a plan to lock up the Infection?
See, we KNOW that the Monarch Wings were Pale King's deal.
We know he wore one of those.
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We know that those flies that (presumably) give the Knight those Wings are called the Monarch Flies (or rather Monarchflys? I dunno, I wouldn't trust those mushrooms on how to spell things).
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And we also know that the Pale King has some connection to the wind.
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So perhaps that area is a place where Pale King was trying to contain the Infection without trying to put it inside a live Vessel. Maybe it was the first prototype for his plan to see how the Void, being channeled with his monarch power, would keep the Infection at bay? Maybe there was another reason as to why that part of the Infection should have been sealed away?
Whatever it is, my overall theory is this:
The Monarch Wings contain some kind of power that is strongly connected to the Pale King. This power creates a magic Wind that makes the Void residing in Ancient Basin move and circulate, resulting in a part of the Infection (perhaps one of the remaining parts from the first time it started destroying Hallownest) being trapped in the area of that Wind's range, isolating it from the outside world and making it start to form gas clouds, liquid puddles, bubbles and lightseeds. Once the Knight removes the Wings, consuming them for its own purposes, the once trapped part of the Infection reunites with its main source at the Black Egg Temple. As a result, the Infection's will becomes stronger, and it starts corrupting nearby lands (although it's still being held back by the Sealed Vessel), creating what we know as Infected Crossroads.
Ok I'm actually done. I hope this is comprehensible enough to read and not too boring or too obvious. I just REALLY wanted to talk about it, since everything about this part of the game gives me chills.
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carionto · 8 months
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See, we got this... inclination
The Galactic Coalition is no stranger to war. Every sapient race has a history filled with external conflict, and most with some internal strife as well. Even now, the Coalition is in a stalemate with the United Federation on the North-Western arm of the Galaxy, a recently cooled hot war over what the Federation call foreign meddling in internal affairs, while the Coalition claim is an abusive contractual effective enslavement of a pre-stellar civilization, which goes against the Coalition's Ethics Directorate For All Sapient Encounters.
The Humans, who managed to learn of this on their own, sparking a hushed debate about their espionage capabilities, wanted to send their own delegation to the established Neutral Zone to speak with the Federation. As a party to the Coalition governing body, they have free reign to make contact with anyone on their own terms, with the understanding such individual activity will not represent the Coalition itself.
It did not take long for the Humans to reach back to us with an inquiry:
"So like, this might just be us, but these fellas are giving us some nasty fascist vibes, ya feel me? Maybe we're wrong (though we do got a lot of experience with that), but have a look at this data we've gathered so far."
What we saw were shockingly detailed and up-close images of clearly Federation design medical and emergency disaster relief encampments. A baffling number in fact, but technically nothing that would indicate wrongful action or intent. But there were a lot of them all across the planet.
"Yeah, we only got data from right now, so do you got info on this planet and it's folk from earlier? My gut, and all these shuttles full of some kinda cargo we can't scan hyperin' away, is telling me that it's not gonna match well."
The Human, or his... gut?... (we'll have to ask them to elaborate, we thought they only had one mind?) is correct, startlingly so. We informed the Human the atmosphere was far thinner than it was merely 40 years ago, containing a third less Nitrogen and almost no trace gasses at all, save for CO2, which was at nominal levels, but the planet used to have an abundance of Helium, now almost entirely gone. If further investigation corroborates this, and perhaps other inconsistencies, this will be cause for a full open investigation and possible sanctions!
"So... can we fight them?"
The Human's question startled us from our anger, now replaced with confusion and worry. Humanity boasted the most powerful fleet in Coalition space, there was no question about it, but they are still only a singular planet with some specialist stations dotted around local space, while the Federation was composed of dozens of races across thousands of planets in a very efficient hierarchical structure, plus the true strength of their military was unknown.
This is a delicate matter and we need them to not act rashly. We have learned, however, that outright denying Humans anything leads them to desire it more, so we must adopt a new approach to each situation we wish the Humans to... not take the initiative on.
Offering the delegation leader command of our own covert investigation units, and requesting he withdraw his ships to act as emergency response and intervention forces in the area seemed to please him. He had an important task to do, and his crew busied themselves preparing for a variety of possibilities, thus making the Humans feel both needed and engaged in productive activity, preventing them from escalating the situation. For now.
We really hope this "gut" will not cause rash action.
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All Hail the Princess!!!
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"She who Dances in a Silver of the Night Skies"
"The Angel of Stars"
"Child of Godzilla and Mothra"
"Princess of the Monsters"
"Avatar of the Star Goddess"
Presenting...
Princess Mothra Astra, the daughter of Godzilla and Mothra! Heir to the throne, and the Angel of Stars who foretold that she would one day become the ruler and protector of the Earth.
She is born on the twilight morning of the third day of April, where a single white star aligned above the heavens and the sunrise. She is revealed to be the Star Goddess' avatar, christening her blood and soul to the very beginning of her cycle. Both Godzilla and Mothra vowed to cherish her life and learning to become a protector and guardian at all times.
Until a terrible fate happens to the Princess. She was killed under the wrath of Ghidorah, the One who is Many in the eyes of the King and Queen. After Ghidorah's icy imprisonment, she made her final wish to her parents: she will be buried on the twilight eve from the parts of the island (the Philippines rather) where she will watch them and her people, and her promised about one day, she will be incarnated...
As centuries have passed after her death, the Princess' soul now resides on her human incarnation, Ma. Celestina, who would one day find the true meaning of the past and discovering her self.
AN:
Hello! And welcome to those who read my Godzilla fanfiction titled "Princess of the Monsters"!
The wait is over!
This is Mothra Astra. And this is also how I depicted her in her Titan form: she is a moth like Mothra, but has dorsal plates behind her wings like Godzilla and it acts like a carapace to protect her body from any danger. She also feeds on radiation, well, half of it. Crystals are her main power because of how resourceful and more powerful the Earth's core's radiation was; she can harness it by detecting 'a twinkling sound' and pinpoints it to the area she used to.
She is depicted to have a symbol of a six-pointed star on her forehead, indicating the avatar of the Star Goddess and supposedly rebirth.
Her appearance made her more ethereal and divine like. She is graceful, kind, loving and helpful like Mothra, and stubborn, strong, feisty, and equally powerful like Godzilla. One thing that describes her is her curiousity because of what was beyond the heavens wherein she could see those who died became stars, a belief she shared from her parents.
There are more stories for her to come. And I only posted this short background for her. Thank you all for liking my art! I work tirelessly just to come up with this!
This is now my official OC and Mothzilla fanchild!
@sassyassblog @mossizi @androgynouslovechopshop @magic-thing
Stay tune for the Princess of the Monsters story!
🌟~ @adm-starblitzsteel-4305
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truevedicastrology · 2 years
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Having Mars in each house 1-12
Note: This post is intended for Vedic Astrology. Mars is only one planet in one house within your chart. This means you will still have to see your chart in full to know the complete effects of Mars and what it can do. This is a general overview of Mars in each house. Thank you for viewing and please do consider following me to see future post :) If you have any questions dm me!
#1 Mars in the first house
Mars is the planet of war and aggression. It is associated with the signs of Aries, Scorpio and Leo. It is believed that people with Mars in the first house of their astrology chart are more inclined to be aggressive and violent. This is often seen as a negative trait, but it can also be a source of great strength and power.
There are pros and cons to having Mars in the first house in astrology. On the plus side, Mars is the planet of energy, action, and assertion, so having it in the first house can give you a lot of drive and motivation. You're likely to be a go-getter who's always ready to take on new challenges. You're also likely to have a strong sense of self and be very independent. On the downside, Mars can also be a very aggressive and impulsive planet, so you may find yourself acting impulsively and without thinking things through at times. You may also come across as being too forceful or assertive, and you may have trouble backing down from a challenge. But overall, having Mars in the first house is a good thing, as it gives you the energy and drive to go after what you want in life.
#2 Mars in the second house
When Mars is in the second house, it brings an active and assertive energy to your finances and possessions. You may find yourself taking more risks in your business ventures, or you may simply be more aware of the value of what you have. Either way, Mars in the second house is all about asserting your own worth and making your own way in the world.
There are both pros and cons to having Mars in the second house in astrology. On the positive side, this placement can indicate a strong ability to earn money and accumulate material possessions. Mars in the second house can also signify a forceful and determined personality, which can be a great asset in achieving one's goals. However, there can also be a downside to this placement. Mars in the second house can sometimes indicate a person who is overly aggressive and competitive, which can lead to conflict and problems in relationships. Additionally, this placement can also indicate a person who is very impulsive and impetuous, which can lead to financial difficulties.
#3 Mars in the third house
Having Mars in the third house in astrology means that you are assertive and have a lot of energy. You are also very curious and like to learn new things. You are quick to react and can be quite impulsive. You are also independent and like to be in control of your own life.
When it comes to astrology, there are a lot of different opinions on what Mars in the third house means. Some believe that it is a good thing, while others believe that it can be a bit of a mixed blessing. Here, we will take a look at some of the pros and cons of having Mars in the third house, so that you can make up your own mind about what it means for you. One of the biggest pros of having Mars in the third house is that it can give you a lot of energy and drive. You are likely to be very ambitious and always striving to reach your goals. You are also likely to be very independent and able to think for yourself. This can be a great asset, both in your personal and professional life. However, there are also some potential downsides to having Mars in the third house. One of these is that you can be quite impulsive and rash. You may find yourself acting on impulse more often than you would like, which can lead to making some poor decisions. You may also find yourself being more argumentative than you would like, as you can be quite headstrong and opinionated. Overall, Mars in the third house can be either a good or a bad thing, depending on how you use its energy. If you can channel it into positive endeavors, it can be a great asset. However, if you let it get the best of you, it can lead to some problems.
#4 Mars in the fourth house
When it comes to astrology, Mars in the fourth house is said to indicate a strong influence from the home planet. This can manifest in a number of ways, from a strong sense of patriotism to a love of all things domestic. Fourth house Mars people are often fiercely independent, and they may have a combative streak when it comes to defending their home turf. This placement can also indicate a strong connection to the land, and fourth house Mars people may have a deep connection to their roots.
There are both pros and cons to having Mars in the fourth house in astrology. On the positive side, Mars in the fourth house indicates that the native is likely to be very independent and self-reliant. They are also likely to be very driven and ambitious, with a strong sense of purpose. On the downside, Mars in the fourth house can indicate that the native is likely to be very aggressive and impatient. They may also have a lot of anger and resentment, which can lead to conflict in their personal relationships.
#5 Mars in the fifth house
Mars in the fifth house in astrology can indicate that you have a fiery spirit, an impulsive nature, and a quick temper. This placement can also signify that you are competitive and ambitious. You may be drawn to activities that will stir up conflict or challenge you, such as athletics or competitive work. Because of your impulsiveness and strong passions, you may also be prone to making decisions without fully thinking through the consequences.
There are many pros and cons of having Mars in the fifth house in astrology. On the positive side, Mars indicates energy and drive, and can help you be more assertive and focused in your pursuits. This can be helpful in careers or in your daily life. Additionally, Mars in the fifth house can also indicate a strong sense of sexuality and passion, which can be beneficial in relationships. However, there are also some potential drawbacks to having Mars in the fifth house. For example, if your Mars is in a negative sign, such as Scorpio or Leo, this can lead to anger and conflict. Additionally, if your Mars is in a sign that is associated with violence, such as Aries or Sagittarius, this can lead to dangerous or destructive behaviors. So, it is important to assess your individual situation to see what the potential pros and cons of having Mars in the fifth house are.
#6 Mars in the sixth house
Having Mars in the sixth house in astrology means that the planet of energy and action is located in the house of work and service. This can indicate that the individual is someone who is very driven and always working hard to achieve their goals. They may also have a strong sense of duty and responsibility, and be very helpful and supportive of others.
There are both pros and cons to having Mars in the sixth house in astrology. On the plus side, this placement can give a person drive and ambition in their work life. They are often able to channel their energy into productive pursuits. Mars in the sixth house can also give a person a competitive edge, and they may find themselves excelling in fields that require physical or mental dexterity. On the downside, Mars in the sixth house can sometimes indicate a person who is overly competitive or aggressive in their work life. They may also have difficulty relaxing, and may find themselves constantly striving for perfection. This placement can also indicate a person who is prone to stress and anxiety.
#7 Mars in the seventh house
Mars in the seventh house can indicate that someone is very aggressive and confident in their abilities. They may be very ambitious and want to achieve the most in life. They may be very determined and aggressive in their pursuits, but this will come down to the level of maturity of the individual and other placements in their natal chart.
There are a few pros and cons to having Mars in the seventh house. On the plus side, it can indicate a strong will and determination, as well as a natural inclination towards leadership. This can be a great asset in any field, be it business, politics, or even personal relationships. Mars in the seventh house can also be a sign of impulsiveness, which can be both a benefit and a liability. However, if this impulsiveness is uncontrolled or directed in a negative way, it can lead to dangerous or destructive behavior. On the other hand, Mars in the seventh house can also lead to feelings of anger and frustration. If these passions are not channeled in a constructive way, they can lead to violence or other destructive actions. It is important to be aware of the potential consequences of having Mars in the seventh house, and to make sure that any impulses are managed wisely. You will need too look through other placements on your chart to see the full settings and effects of Mars in the 7th house, however, this does go for all other houses.
#8 Mars in the eighth house
When Mars is in the Eighth House, there is a sense of determination and focus. This is a time when you are driven to achieve your goals, and you are not afraid to work hard. You are also very determined in your relationships, and you are not shy about expressing your opinions. This can be a difficult time for you if you are not careful, as you can become very aggressive when you are determined to get what you want. However, if you can manage to stay calm and rational, this can be a very productive time for you.
There are pros and cons to having Mars in the eighth house in astrology. On the plus side, Mars can be a powerful motivator and help you to get things done. However, if Mars is in the eighth house too often, it can lead to anger and frustration. Additionally, if Mars is in the eighth house, it can make you more aggressive and impulsive and looking into your other placements and full chart will give you a much more better understanding of where you're at with the Mars in the 8th house.
#9 Mars in the ninth house
In astrology, the ninth house is associated with our feelings and emotions. This is the house of relationships, both personal and professional. When mars is in the ninth house, it suggests that you are attracted to power and authority figures. This can be a helpful trait in the workplace, but it can also be a source of underlying insecurity. When this house is strong, you can be extremely persuasive and determined. When it is weak, you can be prone to mood swings and obsessive behaviors.
There are both pros and cons to having Mars in the ninth house in astrology. On the positive side, this placement indicates a strong belief system and the ability to stand up for what you believe in. You are also likely to be well-educated and have a keen interest in philosophy and other higher-minded pursuits. On the downside, however, this placement can indicate a rebellious streak and a tendency to be argumentative. You may also find it difficult to stick to one belief system for long, as you are always questioning and searching for the truth.
#10 Mars in the tenth house
In astrology, Mars is the planet of action, energy, and assertiveness. When Mars is in the tenth house of a birth chart, it indicates that a person is likely to be ambitious, competitive, and driven to succeed. This placement of Mars can also indicate a strong interest in public affairs and a desire to make a mark on the world.
There are both pros and cons to having Mars in the tenth house of astrology. On the positive side, Mars in this position can indicate a strong drive to achieve one's goals. This can be a great asset in both one's professional and personal life. However, Mars in the tenth house can also indicate a tendency to be overly aggressive or competitive. This can sometimes lead to conflict with others.
#11 Mars in the eleventh house
In astrology, Mars is the planet of energy, action, and assertiveness. Mars in the eleventh house suggests that your energy and drive are focused on achieving your goals and working towards the greater good. You are likely to be a leader or pioneer in your field, and you are motivated by a desire to make a difference in the world. You are confident and always ready to take on new challenges, and you are not afraid to speak your mind or stand up for what you believe in. You are a loyal friend and an excellent team player, and you are always ready to lend a helping hand to those in need.
The pros of having Mars in the eleventh House are that it can bring about energy, passion and initiative. This can help people to be more physically active and to take action in their lives. It can also help them to be more assertive and to be more confident. The cons of having Mars in the eleventh House are that it can also bring about anger, aggression and impulsiveness. This can lead to problems with those around the person, as well as with their own physical health. It can also lead to problems with money, as well as with possessions.
#12 Mars in the twelfth house
Having Mars in the Twelfth House in your natal chart indicates that you are a passionate and determined individual who is not afraid to fight for what you believe in. You are a natural leader and are not afraid to stand up for what you believe in, even if it means taking on a challenge. You are also very creative and are always coming up with new ideas. This can lead to some successful and rewarding career paths, as well as some exciting and new relationships.
Some people might find that having Mars in the twelfth house can be a bit of a challenge, as this placement can often indicate issues with self-expression and self-confidence. Additionally, Mars in the twelfth house can sometimes make it difficult to take action in the world, as this placement can often indicate a preference for staying in the background. On the other hand, having Mars in the twelfth house can also be seen as a strength, as it can indicate a lot of passion and drive, as well as a strong sense of intuition. Additionally, this placement can often indicate a talent for healing and helping others.
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astrophileblogs07 · 2 years
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Astro observations pt.10 (🥳)
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🫧Gemini placements have long limbs (idk why, but i have seen that in many people)
🫧Aries moons often find themselves in a place/situation where they know about both the parties very well and they kinda have that "ball is their court" kinda power. Weird and unexplainable 🤣
🫧Also sometimes they're a part of third party situations. (Romantic or otherwise)
🫧(Not an observation tho) I had literally mistook a Virgo rising guy to be a Gemini rising (ah, Mercurials)
🫧 Virgos DON'T, I REPEAT, DO NOT like unnecessary sounds, especially the ones where you drop something (me fr🤡🤌)
Now some synastry aspects 🫠(coz i was heavily thinking about my ex, so the observation below are from our chart. Not necessarily has to be with everyone. Other aspects depend and matter too.)
❤️‍🩹 Venus square Neptune relationship (wherein the guy is the Neptune person) can indicate a relationship where deceit prominent. Later on it can instill trust issues in the Venus person.
❤️‍🩹When someone's Sun falls in your 8th house, you undergo a huge ego transformation becoz of them, either for the best or for the worst. (Sun rules your ego and 8th house is about transformations). That person can even be a 'turning point' of your life.
❤️‍🩹 Lilith opposite Moon can potentially mean a third party 😬
❤️‍🩹 Lilith opposite Neptune another indicator of hidden agendas and third party. (Ofc i had this with my ex, and i literally had no idea he was interested in another girl who acted like my friend for obvious reasons 🙄)
❤️‍🩹 Ascendant opposite Lilith, okay this one, can turn out both good and bad. But from what i have experienced, it can really blow up your self esteem. The words they say really changes your outlook on how you see yourself. Any comments on looks (good or bad) can affect your self confidence and ego. (Pls be careful with this one)
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Again, all these are my personal observations, do not take them as it is. There are other aspects in the chart which DO matter.
Thank you so much y'all for your patience ☺️
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imakemywings · 7 months
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Yoooo Im still reeling at the fact that the Kings of Numenor are descendants of Turgon like FREAKING TURGON HOLY SHIT. Do you like Turgon? He's such an interesting character and I never saw his action of building a hidden city as an act of cowardice despite popular belief.
I LOVE Turgon he's so cool. My traumatized little mew mew.
Usually when a divine power comes to you in a dream and says "hey do this to save your people" you might want to at least consider doing it (and his downfall comes when he stops listening to Ulmo). And one thing I think is always relevant to consider when thinking about Turgon's character is that he convinced all these people to do Gondolin with him. Literally a THIRD of the Nolofinwean forces go with Turgon and just disappear into the ether never to be seen again as far as anyone else is concerned. A THIRD of their forces decided Turgon was the guy to follow. Even Aredhel, who backs out later, initially was onboard. Personally, I think it says a lot about how close they were--which is why my h/c is that they were each other's favorite sibling. This says something about him: either that he's very persuasive, or a very strong leader, or very likeable, or something. People don't just up and abandon their king to follow a different guy for no reason, and we know that Fingolfin was also well-liked, so Turgon did have competition.
And I don't think that protecting the people who chose to come with him was an act of cowardice. Turgon had a responsibility to the Gondolindrim and I think he took it very seriously, possibly especially after the trauma of the Helcaraxe and then their first battle in Middle-earth where his little brother Argon died. If Turgon had a downfall, it wasn't cowardice, it was pride, and allowing himself to believe that staying in Gondolin was safer than taking Ulmo's advice and abandoning the city (although in his defense, you can imagine how he convinced himself they were safer with city walls than no city walls, Valar be damned).
Turgon was also such a warrior that even in Bilbo's time the goblins still fear his sword. In The Lay of the Children of Hurin Tolkien calls him "Turgon the mighty" and notes that Melkor particularly wanted to catch Turgon at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. In this same battle, he also gets the sexy sexy epithet "Turgon the terrible towering in anger" as he hacks an escape from the battle for him and his soldiers.
And this is another thing--while staying hidden was key to keeping Gondolin safe--Melkor never did find it except through trickery--he still comes to Fingon's aid during the Nirnaeth.
"But now a cry went up, passing up the wind from the south from vale to vale, and Elves and Men lifted their voices in wonder and joy. For unsummoned and unlooked for Turgon had opened the leageur of Gondolin, and was come with an army ten thousand strong, with bright mail and long swords and spears like a forest. When Fingon heard from afar the great trumpet of Turgon his brother, the shadow passed and his heart was uplifted, and he shouted aloud: ...The day has come! Behold, people of the Eldar and Fathers of Men, the day has come!'"
Turgon also does a great job making buddies with Men which is fun for him.
"Now in the phalanx of the guard of the King broke through the ranks of the Orcs, and Turgon hewed his way to the side of his brother; and it is told that the meeting of Turgon with Hurin, who stood beside Fingon, was glad in the midst of battle."
He stands out to me for how we never get any indication that he takes issue with his daughter Idril choosing to marry Tuor, a mortal, even though this means that should Turgon ever die, a Man will become prince consort of Gondolin (Idril is named as his heir, so presumably she would be a ruling queen).
I've never bought into the notion of Turgon having a contentious relationship with Maeglin either, for reasons explained here.
This man has just had so much trauma...Elenwe dying on the Helcaraxe, Argon getting killed as soon as they arrive, Aredhel being murdered right in front of him by her abusive spouse, Fingon getting stomped into jelly, Fingolfin's mutilated corpse getting delivered to him after the duel with Melkor...is it any WONDER he chooses to go down with the city when he realizes he made the wrong choice in staying?
"And [Thorondor] laid [Fingolfin] upon a mountain-top that looked from the north upon the hidden valley of Gondolin; and Turgon coming built a high cairn over his father. No Orc dared ever after to pass over the mount of Fingolfin or draw nigh his tomb, until the doom of Gondolin was come and treachery was born among his kin."
Want to talk about carrying on the family legacy? By the time Turgon takes the crown of high king of the Noldor, he is the last one left of Fingolfin's immediate descendants.
And you know, I think it's fun and cool of him to never forgive the Feanorians for abandoning the rest of them after Alqualonde. He should get to say whatever nasty shit to them he wants to. Worst cousins of Arda until Maeglin decides to give them a run for their money.
You know who else is related to Turgon of course--Elrond and Arwen. No wonder they're so cool and sexy.
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demonfox38 · 1 month
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Completed (Early Access Content) - Palworld
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Look, man. I know I can't call this an official completion, given that the game is still in early access. But I trashed all available bosses and 10/10'ed each of those little Pal bastards, so that has to be indicative of some level of mastery, right?
Or maybe I've got to explain why I disappeared down this hole for the last few months.
I'm not what you'd call a cutting-edge kind of person when it comes to technology. Considering that most of my game consoles are old enough to purchase cigarettes and alcohol, it's safe to say I'm fairly retro. A throwback. Happiest with something made between 1986 and 2005 (or, at the very least, looks and acts like that.) Getting in on an early access for a game is not my thing at all.
So, "Palworld" is a bit of an anomaly. Maybe, in many ways.
"Palworld" is a hybrid crafting, survival, base management, third person shooter, and creature catching game. It stars your customizable character de jour who is forced to survive on an isolated island full of inhospitable terrain, monsters of various levels of aggression, and asshole humans. What's the secret behind the looming towers and massive Yggdrasil-like tree glowing in the distance? I don't know. The tree part of the content isn't out, yet. But, you can at least explore the island and wail on the asses of those that dare to conquer it for their own varied ends. That's at least 100 hours of content right there!
Since its early access release in January of 2024, "Palworld" has garnered a fair amount of attention. Good. Bad. All over the place. Definitely a case of the old phrase "all publicity is good publicity." While not the first in terms of creation when it comes to edgy monster collecting games (with "Megami Tensei" loudly coughing in some dusty old corner), it is unique in its game style mix. Perhaps not visually unique enough, given how certain "Pokémon" fans were sharpening their Honedges after the very first glance they took at this game. Its publisher having a previous game that openly used AI art generation didn't help its credibility, either! (Although, that game also is about rewarding players for detecting art made by an AI opponent a la an elementary-school art class "Among Us", so judge accordingly.)
I get it. I've got some degree of Nintendo brain rot, too. Did you check my avatar and username? But, I also know that Nintendo can and will obliterate anything in its path with Death Star-adjacent precision and power, especially when it comes to any potential IP infringement. Hell, they crumpled two emulators into a black hole mere weeks after this game's early access released. If they had any notion that something was off with this game, they'd have it annihilated—for better or worse.
Like most modern games, my attention was drawn to this title via watching several streamers play. (In particular, PatStaresAt, WoolieVersus, and Vinesauce, if you're wanting names.) Now, I'd like to be coy and pretend that online videos don't influence my interest in games, but I also own a copy of the SNES game "Lagoon" because I loved watching PJDiCesare clown on it. Hell, I only backed "Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night" after watching Liam Allen-Miller replicate "Castlevania"-Metroidvania physics in a YouTube preview! I see a video, my brain makes judgements, I variably engage in commerce. And, to be honest, I like games like this. "Breath of the Wild." "Pokémon Legends: Arceus." "Minecraft." I wanted a game like this, so hell. I was willing to gamble $30.00 USD on this, bugs and unfinished status and all.
I think I may have gotten my money's worth out of this.
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Was the game play that addicting, or was I in a depression spiral triggered by bad working conditions at my job and my maternal grandmother's health issues precipitating more labor on my family's behalf? Yes. To which part of that question? Yes. While the game attempts to guide the player via an early game tutorial and tasks for building up your bases, you're mostly left on your own to build both the world and yourself in whatever image you'd like. Want to build a Babylonian tower to offend whatever god created this world? Okay. Want to drop everything on the floor like an agitated toddler and/or "Resident Evil 0" protagonist? Whatever makes you happy! Want to build a rocket launcher and shoot it at a dragon's face? That can be done! It just might take some time.
Because the game consists of different play styles, I found myself alternating often between game loop sets. Usually, it broke into a stack of tasks like this:
Determine nearest threat (monster fighting.)
Gather materials (crafting.)
Return to/establish a base (base management.)
Build what I can (crafting/base management.)
Loop steps 2-4 until items of desire were created (crafting/base management.)
Gather/raise Pals to attack nearest threat (monster fighting.)
Return to Step 2 for final repairs and/or weapon creation (crafting.)
Attack threat (monster fighting.)
Reset to step 2 on failure and step 1 on success.
While catching and raising monsters tends to garner you the most experience points, your character will more or less remain just a nuisance to a bulk of the major threats in the game. At best, you've got a rocket launcher, an automatic rifle, a sword, and shot-deflecting shields and armor. You put out maybe around 600 damage with a weapon that takes a second to reload. The bosses you fight? They can have anywhere from 30,000 to 200,000 HP. When it comes to survival, it isn't about how much damage you can take or give. It's about what you learn and how you deploy your so-called Pals.
If you are planning on taking a shot every time I write the word "Pokémon" in this review, you might want to switch off the liquor now and move to a soda. Do your liver a favor.
A lot of the game's rules can be reduced to "Pokémon - 1" or "Pokémon / 2". This includes:
How many monsters you can take with you (5 instead of 6)
How many moves they have (3 instead of 4)
Your level cap (50 vs. 100, but that may just be an early access limitation)
How many elements are in game (9 vs. 18. Also, don't expect much in the way of complex monster typing line-ups. You may end up overthinking fights.)
Having said that, the complexity here isn't lost. You're obviously doing a lot more home ec to keep your bases up to snuff. Where "Palworld" really succeeds is in its battle speed, scale, and options. Pals will automatically engage based on whatever aggression level you have them set at, performing moves without your instruction. Several different monster types and human factions can be thrust together to duke it out. It can get quick and chaotic, often forcing you to get your ass out of the line of fire. When you do want to get manual? Well, hell. Some Pals can be a ridable mount, and some can act as living artillery for your use. Is it responsible to give a giant panda a grenade launcher? Well, who's gonna stop you? The cops?
Also, it's awesome that you can teach Pals whatever moves exist via fruits. It's nice not to have to look up some table online for move compatibility. (A shame that the same can't be said about its breeding, but more on that in a bit.)
"Palworld" certainly has a different take on its so-called Pals, especially in compared to "Pokémon" titles. Don't expect the first monster you pick up to go on and become some powerhouse fueled by respect and love for you as a caretaker. There are Pals that are great, and there are Pals that suck. (The game is more than happy to tell you which is which in its Paldeck.) You're rewarded for getting at least 10 of them, but you won't have the space to keep 10 of every species. You can slaughter Pals for parts or mush a bunch of them together a la "Shin Megami Tensei" to make the surviving unit stronger. Basically, you're expected to keep updating and consolidating your inventory of friends so that you can cut down on your work loop time and challenge the other assholes vying for territory on Palpagos Island. (Seriously—that is its name!) You're not really supposed to be getting attached to any of them.
And yet…well, the nature of a person eventually reveals itself, doesn't it?
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While the game allows you to take many unscrupulous actions, you're rarely rewarded for acting like an inflamed, gaping asshole. Yeah, you can slaughter your Pals, but you're losing out on making others stronger if you do that. You can capture other humans like you would a Pal, but they won't provide much in the way of help on your bases or in battle. (Apparently, you can sell them off, too? Fucked up all around.) Hell, you can even kill NPCs and end up having to bolt off like a "Grand Theft Auto" protagonist when the cops show up to bust your ass! About the only defiance I got away with routinely was ransacking Wildlife Sanctuaries, and even that required me to sneak around at night and keep a low profile.
There is a bit of a conflict going on between the game's tone and appearance. It very much wants to be the edgy "Pokémon" game any average teenager would dream up (again, with certain Atlus RPGs coughing and wheezing for attention in the background.) Supplementary journals and Paldeck texts describe a world full of violence, blood, animal trafficking, suffering, death, and birds with cocaine addictions. (I'm not kidding—it's literally the bastard cop's monster of choice.) But, the monsters look like an average social media artist's attempts at combining Pokémon species together, and the humans all have some degree of generic anime cuteness to them. It's hard to take the leader of a bunch of martyrous pyromaniacs seriously when he looks like the protagonist to some Sega Dreamcast rhythm game. (Also, why he has an electric/dragon type as his Pal of choice when he leads a bunch of fire freaks is beyond me.) 
At this point, I wouldn't say the music is much to write home about, either. It tries to kick up for encounters, letting you know how much danger you are in (from piddly little twinkling music for typical cannon fodder to bombastic choral arrangements for tough sons of bitches.) A lot of times, it can be rather quiet. This didn't bother me with "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild," but it does bother me here, especially when I have to take 15-20 minutes to work in my base. I think what the game needs is something like "Minecraft"'s Mice on Venus track. Just a few pieces of music to interrupt the quiet when it's gone on for five or ten minutes.
I'm also not super thrilled with the breeding system in "Palworld." With "Pokémon" games, you generally know what you're getting based on who the mother in the coupling is. (Well, barring the use of specialty items, I suppose. Speaking of things that annoy me…) Here? About the only guarantee you get is if both parents are of the same species. The resulting couplings for other species isn't random, but it is a weird mess. Generally, you can assume the resulting offspring to be of a poorer quality than at least one of the parents, if species of different rarity are mixed. Through on top of that several structural, item, and time-based requirements, and you've got a very expensive and irritating system to work around. Honestly, this was the thing that finally broke me into looking up help guides online. It's just that off-putting.
If you are looking for a breeding calculator: palword.gg has you covered. Mostly. I think I did run into some issues there as well, but I don't know if I read something wrong or was just stupid tired when I set something up.
"How about bugs?", you might be asking.
"There's no Bug type in this game," I would reply.
Maybe you'd start hitting me with a shoe after that.
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But, in terms of glitches I encountered? I played from versions 0.1.3.0 to 0.1.5.0, so I saw my fair share of issues that came and went. The biggest problem as of 0.1.5.0 involves terrain clipping and occasionally being shoved beneath the map. (Big Pal bodies + me going all Goemon Ishikawa XIII on them resulted in some unfortunate subterranean exploration.) Generally, I got myself back into the map without too much struggle, but there were times where I did have to respawn myself. I also lost several boss captures to a combination of freezing status + a rocket launcher round blasting them into the horizons beyond, so that was unfortunate. There was also a bug where you could get the game's dungeons to respawn bosses to another Pal type if you didn't like what you got, but I started having issues with the dungeon's barriers failing to drop on the boss's death when I screwed around with that, so maybe just stick with what you get. I also had the occasional text goof-up where my instructions would be in Japanese instead of English. Given the Goemon commentary above, you may surmise that this was not a huge deal for me. Still goofy, though.
If you'd like, the game offers you quite the list of customizable settings to alter your experience. I'd highly recommend playing around with them, particularly when you are vulnerable to taking a one-way trip to the Backrooms via a bad clip. It's one thing to lose your inventory to a fight you lost; it's another to lose your inventory to an issue with collision detection. Do yourself a favor and remove that penalty. I also eventually grew tired of the exponential experience curve and jacked up the multipliers for experience as high as they could go. I put several hundred hours into this game, man. And that was on top of working in a half-staffed job while babysitting my mom's dog for weeks while she got my grandma into an assistant living facility. All of these bitches needed a break.
Also—for the love of your hands, please flip the "Hold to Toggle Interaction" setting to On in your control style of choice. You can recap a shredded controller stick, but you can't recap your fingertips.
While I spent a lot of time on this game, I also spent a lot of time on this game with good reason. Even in its unfinished state, I had a good time. In the midst of building up my first character—a punished tribute to an Abrahamic icon forced to repeat his edict from God once more—I kept thinking about making the next character. Doing it all over again. Honeymooning it. There is a risk that this game doesn't get any further than where it's at now, but I can't say that where it's at is a bad place.
So, you can't get to a giant, sparkly tree. Boo hoo. There's a lot of other good stuff to see. Maybe even conquer, if you're up to it.
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emcandon · 8 months
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I return from my bg3 stupor with a fresh 2 am question:
was the TAU story and world a concept you were baking for a long time until you had a chance to write it, or was it a more recent creation?
Do you find it easy or hard to build out new story concepts? Like, do you need to sit on them a while until they feel right, or does it just come pouring out of you from the start? Or a secret, third thing?
Just anything about your personal creation process!
lol hi it might not surprise you to learn that i am also steeping in bg3 (i am still stumbling around act 1! i'm not allowed to play until i hit daily sequel writing quota, which is healthy, i'm sure, but does mean i am somewhat behind just about everyone i know who is also playing :P)
(my first Tav is an enormous nb tiefling bard named Faretheewell who is, imo, perfect. very beautiful. very kind. definitely does drag. lying a lot, but mostly just for funsies. has turned astarion into their little purse dog.)
ANYWAY, TO THE ACTUAL QUESTION:
TAU's an interesting case because it was cannibalized from a couple different ongoing projects into something entirely new.
The characters had been floating around in different iterations since about 2013, and their final forms in Archive are quite distinct from the original seed! Imagine Sunai as an exiled diplomat who got involuntarily apprenticed to a cursed king/the last magician in the world; imagine Veyadi as a disowned god-child tasked with murdering the last magician! I'm still probably going to use that world somewhere so I'll mum about it now (it's the one I call "grandma heist.")
((imo that's why you should always yoink characters you like from whatever source you enjoy, be it your own or something else -- they will inevitably change in their new context, often so substantially that they are nigh unrecognizable.))
The story concept also originated in 2013: "Pacific Rim, but the mechs are built out of the kaiju, and pilots must have survived being poisoned by those kaiju." The addition of strange and upsetting AIs of divine power was somewhat inherited from the story Sunai and Adi came from, where divinity was fraught, fractured, and hungry.
Here's a funny. In 2017 I thought TAU would be a nice, simple, clean project. However. I know some folks who turn out gloriously clean first drafts. I AM NOT ONE OF THEM. My brain is a hazardous work environment, very non-OSHA compliant. Basically I do a lot of thought work in the drafting, so the drafts are consequently messy, and there are a LOT of changes from concept to actual workable manuscript.
Which I suppose is to say that story concepts nest in my brain quite often when it is healthy. The frequency with which I land on new and interesting story thoughts is actually a pretty good indicator of how well I am doing ambiently! Right now I'm storing up a lot of them, some of which I am fairly rabid about -- nearly as rabid as I am about Archive, which is the real indicator of a project that is ready to transition from Thought to Work. They are described here as "apocalypse magicians" and other such things. There's one that's going to be kind of an argument with Lovecraftian unknowability via desconstruction of Enlightenment epistemologies + queer identity destruction, and another that's going to be the Le Carré approach to espionage + magic as divinity meets public service + interplanetary empires intruding on your bumfuck planet offering the solution to climate change might still be bad actually. (I want to write that last with my wife and we are making SUCH GOOD FUCKING SHIPS FOR IT.)
How to summarize this? 1) find a story notion/concept about which i can obsess, 2) actually start writing it, 3) mess up spectacularly for a few drafts, 4) finally whittle together something more or less correct, 5) that's my editor's problem now!!
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fearthedancer · 6 months
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Logan character analysis (its long)
 Logan Chan is one of the main characters in Lego DREAMZZZ.
 Ever since the start, she has been regarded as Cooper's „new” best friend. Her first appearance in the first episode is her mocking Mateo. Her being Cooper's new best friend and also mocking Mateo may not be a complete coincidence. A reason of her targeting Mateo constantly, other than him having „nerdy interests”, might be to drive away Cooper from going back to him.
But why would Logan be scared of Cooper being friends with Mateo? Well, we are told that Cooper is the closest friend Logan has ever had and that she is desperate for them to not become friends anymore. She is scared of him leaving her. Of him leaving her alone, to succumb to the loneliness of her own home while her moms are always at work. So she drives Cooper away so she can’t lose the one person that she has
Her and Cooper’s friendship is very important to the show, as because of it the entire plot of Mateo „not having any friends” started. As seen in the end of the first episode, Logan really cares about Cooper. She immediately wanted to find a way to cure him of „his sickness” (keep in mind she had no idea of the dream world at the time). However, Mateo was suspicious of her - and understandably so, as to him she was just a jerk.
In the second episode, Cooper says that he texted her after he woke up. Given that she lives in an apartment in the same neighbourhood as the others (but from what I can tell, not exactly that close to them), she probably ran to check up on him the moment she got the text (what was she doing up that late actually).
Also, in the second episode, she sees the Night terror and is absolutely mortified. When it takes Mateo she is a bit hesitant on saving him; but then she immediately tried to help him (even hurting herself in the process) and even brought soup for him like she wanted to with Cooper. To me it shows that even tho she hated him, she still cared alot about him.
In the third episode, she experiences the dream world in an aware dreamers perspective for the first time and messing up (being confused of how they are here and of course, the scene in the spacebus). Even when she has no idea how to do the dreamforger’s test she still acts like she is the best out of all of them. Being the best would give her alot of attention in her eyes; and will get back on the theme of her wanting attention from people later.
When they have to get across the bridge, the first thing she does is lunge at the guardian, which led to her being immediately pushed off into the void.
In the waking world, she ignores Mateo when he told them about his plan to get across. This indicates that with her still not knowing much about how aware dreaming works she wants to separate her waking world life from her dream world life.
Back in the dream world, she figures how to get across the bridge by climbing the ladder. Her immediate dance tells that she thought that by being the first to think outside the box, everyone would think that she is the best.
Fast forward to them in the dreamforger’s test. She lets her fear get a hold on her and immediately wakes up – ruining her only chance at getting an hourglass. At the end of the episode, we can see her outside, seemingly waiting at the Garcia siblings footsteps. She most likely assumed that the others would have woke up too. But they didn’t. They got their hourglasses and she didn’t. This later on awakens a big insecurity within her.
In the next episode, she tries to change her dream avatar like Izzie did and she could just turn her skin blue – which proves that even if she didn’t pass the test, she could still dreamcraft, just super weakly.
Their search for the sandman continues and they find themselves at Pillows Peak, where the youngsters race to the top. The others use their dream crafting powers to their advantage while she can do anything because as it was already established, she doesn’t have an hourglass, therefore she can’t dreamcraft. So she gets the not so brilliant idea to use Lunia’s hourglass even tho it’s broken; which causes a huge avalanche and now nighthunter and the other nightmare creatures know about their whereabouts. The other dream chasers are understandably mad at her. Alot of their problems in the dream world are caused by her.
Moving onto episode 6. this episode in my opinion shows that Logan and Mr Oz are actually pretty close. She might see Oz as a parental figure but she acts like he isn’t because she would probably thinks its lame. I will also go further on this topic later on.
Episode 7. Ho boy. This is a heavy one. Mateo and Logan do a bet saying that if Mateo wins, Logan will rejoin their sheep week team and if Logan wins, Zoey will go on the wolves team. This bet doesn’t really make sense once you think about it but whatever, they are kids.
During the match, Logan sees that she is losing because of Mateo dreamcrafting. Which is when she meets our black sheep: Lance. Lance looks like a sketchy guy from his introduction. He gives her a sketchy cheat USB that makes her invincible, making it super easy to win the match.
The others discover the USB and they are super mad because she cheated. WHICH BTW doesn’t make any sense when you put into consideration that they dreamcrafted. Dreamcrafting SHOULD be counted as cheating since no one else but them can dreamcraft. But whatever.
When they are trying to cure the digirealm she is a bit resilient on doing the final blow, showing she is feeling very guilty about what she did. She is also feeling guilty about listening to Lance.
In episode 8, they have a math test, right? So she comes back with „brilliant ideas” and proposes that they go into the dream world to get the answers. As you can probably tell nothing went according to plan. Logan and Lance meet again and she is absolutely pissed because he tricked her. However, he manipulates her into thinking that she should give him the hourglass. With Logan at that point being very insecure about her being weak compared to her friends (and one might even say desperate to make herself feel strong) she accepted.
This is arguably where everything that couldnt get worse gets worse.
At the start of episode 9, Logan gives Lance the hourglass, then finding out that this entire time he was the Nightmare King in disguise. Who then takes her to the Shadowkeep.
In the waking world however, something caught my attention. Cooper immediately jumps to the conclusion that she ditched them because she couldn’t go to school that day. That did not make any sense to me, as by that point, ESPECIALLY HIM, should have considered that she could have been stuck in the dream world. Plus, her ditching them does not make any sense as just 1 or 2 episodes ago she played on their team. It is especially interesting when you consider that when he was stuck in the dream world she was very worried about him. Combining this with what I said very early in this analyzation that Cooper was Logans closest friend, It has led me to think that perhaps Cooper is a closer friend to Logan than Logan is to Cooper, thus him caring less about her.
Back in the dream world: the Nightmare King tries to make her join his side. As you can tell, Logan is very easily manipulative. This time however, he doesn’t succeed. She finally stands her ground to him. This makes him angry so he orders Nighthunter to take her to the fear works. This scares her so she runs away (to the fear works somehow) where she meets our wild card: Sneak.
Sneak can relate to Logan. Both of them are considered weaker than their friends. It’s not  surprise that the two of them get attached to one another. They don’t want to fight each other but they know they have to.
In this fight, Logan figures out that she can, in fact, dreamcraft. ...But she can only dreamcraft herself small and blue. This makes her think lowly of herself, associating being small with being  weak. However, this form comes with some very useful attributes: she is super duper fast and super strong (being able to just throw Sneak like he is a rag LMFAO)! And as the episodes go on it seems like she started fully embracing it as a part of her.
She wins the fight and Nightmare King is very adamant on her killing Sneak. Now, as every person with a heart, especially a child would, she refused to do that. So like the musty decomposed bitch he is he ordered Nighthunter to cage her at the fear works (fucking freak I’m glad they caged you in Z blob like a baby carrier). Nighthunter tells her that her friends aren’t coming to save her because she is useless to the team. This line actually got to her, even tho she didn’t want to accept it.
Logan easily escapes (cause she’s AWESOME!!!) and Sneak helps her escape. Aww.
But ofc they first have to get the hourglass blah blah hell yeah they are out! Now, Logan could have woke up as soon as she got out of the Shadowkeep, as Sneak said. However, she chose to stay to save her friends from the Nightmare King. Showing that she cares alot about her friends.
She stumbles into Mateo in her monster form. He is OBVIOUSLY scared cause what the fuck what the heck is that blue monster is it a dream creature or some knock off grimspawn. Anyways she reveals her identity and he IMMEDIATELY hugs her. That hug surprised her. As i confirmed earlier, Logan craves attention. Thats why she always acts like she’s the leader and that she’s the best. But getting a hug seems like something new to her; something she is not used to. This shocked her so much she immediately turned back into her human form just so that he has to stop holding her like a plushie.
And then, when they are thinking of how to help the other dream chasers, Mateo asks „What would Logan do?”. This surprises Logan. None of the other dream chasers actually asked for her plan on how to resolve stuff. Seriously. She thought he was joking and i think that is so sad.
Anyways, they ambush the cage beast with a grimwolf and they get their hourglasses and run off. When the trio meets the others, she apologizes to Oz for stealing the hourglass, but he assures her that everything is alright. Logan assures Albert that Sneak is her friend, and she wants to go to the landing with him, when they get on the spacebus..
When Lunia’s hourglass fell out of the spacebus, she IMMEDIATELY lunged herself out to get it. And honestly i would have done the same cause after being tricked into giving it and had to get it from the Shadowkeep myself i would have jumped off too. But i would have jumped off with another goal in mind.
Mateo and Sneak jump off too. Logan is surprised that they want to help her, especially Mateo. But sadly, the edison bomb the wolf ate went off. Killing every single grimspawn in that radius. And from what we thought, Sneak. She is absolutely devastated. All that was left of him was her cap. Logan fell to her knees, too devastated to pay attention to Mateo who was shaking her to not wake up. But she did.
Later at school, she was too devastated to even wear her cap. She had no motivation. Didnt even want to stand next to her friends for a picture. A picture that showed their win. She didnt even want the attention she was previously desperare for anymore. Her friends are there for her (altough i am still a bit dissapointed in Cooper) and she puts the cap back on. But the cap. Has an EYE. SNEAK PUT THAT EYE. FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOUR MASTER DAWG.
And that was it for the first 10 episodes. Ill admit she doesnt do any note worthy stuff later for me to detail every episode. Now, i will analyze her relationship with the other characters.
I have detailed her relationship with Cooper earlier but i really didnt show how much it expanded. As i said, Logan cares alot about Cooper while Cooper cares less. They were both in Dallas’s bully gang before leaving to become dream chasers. Its unclear who was in there first tho: as in did Cooper become friends with Logan while she was part of them or before that? The two of them have a special ability that they can only do together: DREAMBASHING! Where they combine eachothers aesthetics (Logans monster stuff and Coopers car stuff) to make a special awesome vehicle. I really want to see what else they can create together.
Mateo and Logan hated eachother from the start as they were both rivaling for Cooper. Logan constantly mocks Mateo. However, in an interesting turn of events, the two of them evolve to care alot about eachother. The two of them are parallel in their own ways. They both have artistic major interests: Mateo loves drawing (obviously) and Logan loves making music. But the interesting thing about this is that Mateo is encouraged while Logan was never even showed a bit of support other than from MATEO , who told her to use her dj skills to bring life to the Fall Festival. In episode 18, Mateo chooses to save Logan instead of Z blob. You heard that right, he chose Logan, the person that he used to not despise, over his best little buddy.
Izzie and Logan were first sort of neutral until they became an adorable duo of friends. They do tease eachother from time to time but its mostly friendly. Logan is the character that Izzie always calls a turkey cause lete face it Logan is stupid. I really wish their friendship will be shown on screen more cause they are too cute. They do hang out and they both share an interest: kpop. And Izzie even has a nickname for her too!! She calls her LOLO ;-;. Never change, Isabel Christina Garcia.
Now Zoey and Logan.... if you know me you know that i love them alot. Idk its something about them being the tough ones that intrigues me (even tho if Logan mostly just acts tough). Its clear as day that Logan has a crush on Zoey (even rivaling Mateo because of that). They dont have many interactions other than Zoey yelling at Logan cause as i said Logan is DUMB.
Oz and Logan’s relationship is one i hold to heart. They have a father daughter dynamic that i cant get over. Oz is like that with every single dream chaser but this is about Logan specifically so ill focus on her. Ever since episode 6 they have definetly grown closer. He thinks she is silly. She doesnt understand him. But episode 10 shows that they are closer than we thought. When he realizes that she stole the hourglass he doesnt really look angry. And when she apologizes to him he doesnt even scold her for stealing it and yknow at some point losing it. He only cares that she is safe and well. And she looked so happy when he said that :(.
Sneak and Logan were best buddies. But her getting attached to him is why she ended up being used by the Nightmare King. A friend of mine once said that he probably put the eye so that the Nightmare King doesnt kill him and i love to believe in that. When they do meet after what happened she sounds super angry at Sneak for tricking her, just like the Nightmare King did. But the show really downplays how bad this is and for some reason she just???? Doesnt acknowledge it later in the episode?? I mean hello she was devastated the entire morning!!! But now my question is if she knows that he put the eye on her cap.
Logan and Nightmare King obviously hate each other cmon he is the main villain. However, Nightmare King has been playing with Logans life as if she is a toy. He pretended to be a human just to get Lunia’s hourglass, using Logan as a means to get it. When she is in the Shadowkeep he makes her fight the only person that cares about her in there. And even after she escaped, he still has a grip on her life: the eye. He still uses her. He sees what the dream chasers do through her. And she probably feels guilty about that too because the eye is the only reason he and the rest of the nightmare army always knew where they were.
Logan on her own represents seeing the truth. She constantly discovers the truth about the people around her with her own eyes. And as i said, Nightmare King sees the truth about the dream chasers plans through her eyes.
Logan’s athletism doesnt advantage her at all in the dream world because she is still the weakest. Ill admit, i really REALLY want to know more about her monster form. Why does she transform into a little monster? Are there more people like her who can turn into monsters but most of the just dont know cause they arent aware dreamers?
I will end the entire analysis on this note: I love you Logan.
TLDR: im hyperfixated on a lego character and im sick of the fandom downplaying her character to just a jerk jock.
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princeescaluswords · 9 months
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(contd) Like the twins want in on Scott's pack and Derek literally asks them if they'd be willing to die for him because to Derek anything less is just not gonna cut it.
Then the twins want to run bc of the Nogitsune and Derek has his whole speech about what an amazing leader Scott is.
Derek and Scott's heart to heart at the hospital has Derek going all "yeah you have the same place as protector of this town as my late mother and family and everybody needs you and you have taught me so much."
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It always mystifies me when I read certain people's criticism of Teen Wolf: The Movie. These criticisms fall into three main categories.
Too much attention is paid to Scott and Allison's relationship.
How can you bring the nogitsune back without bringing back Stiles?
Derek's death and its aftermath was pointless and unfounded.
Rebuttals of the first two criticisms deserve their own metas, but I'll give them a brief summary. If you carefully watched the first three seasons, Scott and Allison's relationship was the foundation of the show, not in terms of consuming romance, but in terms of how it helped Scott and Allison define who they are in the face of exterior forces, which is a key part of growing up. While Stiles was the focus of the action in 3B, the story was still mostly about Scott's maturing as a leader by giving him a Kobayashi Maru: a no-win scenario pitting his desire to protect others against his love for his best friend. But it is the third criticism that I'll address in this post.
Derek's death at the end of the movie is a tragedy. This can't be stressed enough, but it is also a culmination to his entire character arc. The end of Season 3A saw him renounce the fear of loss and desire for power that almost doomed him that season, made him an antagonist in Season 1 and a villain in Season 2. His departure at the end of Lunar Ellipse (3x12) symbolizes both that renunciation but also indicates his arc for 3B: what will he become?
He starts with a journey to the past. "But that's not the only reason I left. I needed to talk to my mother." He finds Talia's claws, coerces Peter into using them, and then emerges with a new vision of himself. In Riddled (3x18), he acknowledges the passing of the alpha mantle to Scott (and I would argue begins to act as Scott's beta) with "This town needs someone to protect it, someone like you." but it's very important to note that while he is inspired by Scott, he does not emulate Scott. Following another person doesn't require the obliteration of self. Derek works with Chris Argent and he doesn't take killing Stiles off the table the way Scott does. He physically attacks him. He doesn't rush to Oak Creek, because he can be more helpful rescuing the twins from what will turn out to be Kate.
We see that in the way he talks about Scott throughout the season. It may look like he wants to join the Scott McCall Fan Club, but he rejects that, even in his big speech in The Divine Move (3x24). This is the key line: "You've had it wrong the whole time. You don't fight for a leader. You fight for a leader's cause." He's going to work with Scott, protect what Scott decides needs protection, and even be Scott's beta, but he's going to be his own person while doing so. He learned this from Scott who was willing to work with him in the first three season but who wasn't willing to simply do as he's told. He learned this, in a negative way, from Peter who manipulated him repeatedly, in Visionary's flashback (3x08), in Wolf's Bane (1x09), in Battlefield (2x11), in Alpha Pact (3x11).
Unlike Scott, who chooses to place the most value on life (but not above everything), Derek's more than willing to kill victims like Stiles in order to protect the town, as he tried in De-Void (3x22), but unlike his attempts to kill Lydia in Season 2, he's not doing it out of fear. In addition, as he says to the twins, he also believes he should be willing to die to protect what he cares about as well as kill. This manifests in his willingness to die in Season 4, and that willingness allows him to evolve. However, it's a reaction to what Kate did to him, not a decision to die in order to achieve an end. In the movie, however, it is an active choice. The nogitsune will never stop coming for his family, his alpha, his friends, and he makes the decision to sacrifice his life in order to prevent that. He doesn't do out of a reaction to the horrific memories of the Hale Fire; he's does it because he values family and pack; that's virtue. He's not doing because he's mindlessly following Scott or being manipulated by Peter, but out of own conviction that it is the right thing to do, which is strength of character. He faces fire, the same terror that destroyed his first family, without fear, which is force of will. He didn't mimic Scott's path to a new set of red eyes; he forged his own.
As tragic as it was, how could it be anything but satisfying?
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hayscodings · 7 months
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how do you think the actions from 3x06 affect lana? i dont rlly remember much but the best person to ask felt like you.
This is an excellent question. I started a google doc not too long ago to jot down my observations on every Svetlana scene and only got as far as her first three episodes, so I've given this some thought. I actually hadn't watched the scene in 3x06 since I first picked up the show, as I always skip it, but I needed to rewatch it in order to draw conclusions about how it affected Svet and, while I was doing so, I noticed some interesting things.
First, I think it's curious that all it took to get Svetlana to the Milkovich house was a call from Terry saying "It's Terry. Send the Russian." As far as we know, the girls at the spa did not make house calls. Which begs the question, why did Terry have the power to have her sent over with just five words?
Second, how exactly did Svetlana get to the Milkovich house? As far as we know, she never owned a car. She also couldn't have taken the L because she shows up without a purse. Is the spa walking distance or did someone drive her over? If so, who? Why would the people running the spa cater to Terry in this way?
Third, it is very odd to me that Svetlana shows up without anything on her person— no jacket, no purse, no wallet, nothing. She's not even wearing clothes with pockets where she could be carrying any personal belongings. Terry makes one quick phone call and there she is at his doorstep a few minutes later, heavily made-up in a short dress and very high heels. There's a metaphor to be made here about her not being her own person.
Which brings me to another point: Terry never calls Svetlana by her name. He frequents the spa enough to be able to summon Svetlana by just stating who he is over the phone, and he's been a client of Svetlana's before, yet he refers to her as "the Russian" on the phone and addresses her as "сука" (which means "bitch" in Russian) to her face. This could mean one of two things: (1) he either never bothered to learn her name; or (2) he knows her name but actively chooses not to call her by it. Both are equally dehumanizing in different ways.
Which leads me to wonder...what exactly was the dynamic between Svetlana and Terry like? We know he solicited her services (presumably) more than once, which suggests some sort of satisfaction with them, but we also know that he didn't believe that she was worth more than "a couple of bucks". As I mentioned before, he also never calls Svetlana by name, and at no point do we see him act particularly warmly towards her. Yet he specifically requests her when he calls the spa...why is that?
Perhaps the most interesting observation I made while rewatching this scene though, is that Svetlana never utters a word in it. Not to greet Terry at the door, not to ask him what she was called over for— nothing. There are no pleasantries exchanged between them. She doesn't so much as nod when he gives her his orders. This suggests that she knows how he works, knows that he doesn't consider her anything more than just some hand-whore, and I don't think it's a stretch to assume that she is probably scared of him. Everything about the way that Terry approaches the situation indicates that he does not view Svetlana as a person, but rather as a commodity— to use, to exploit, to rent as he pleases. And Svetlana acts accordingly.
From the moment she walks into that house she looks completely dead-eyed. The only time she looks anything other than 100% emotionally checked out is when she's looking between Ian and Mickey, taking stock of their injuries and piecing together the severity of the situation that she has just been dragged into. She knows Terry is responsible for what's happening, she can see that he has a gun, and she knows better than to protest or try and leave. The most accurate word I can think of to describe the way that she approaches the situation is: clinically. She looks completely detached.
Now, I know that deleted scenes aren't canon but I want to bring up the deleted scene where Ian goes to visit Svetlana at the spa for just a moment. In the scene, Svetlana tells Ian, "Your face looks familiar." She recognizes him enough to know that she's seen his face before, but she can't place why or from where. And while this might seem impossible given how horrifying that entire situation was, or even odd given that she clearly took note of Ian in that scene, it actually makes a lot of sense and clues us into how Svetlana coped with the situation: by suppressing it.
Back when the show was airing, Isidora said in an interview, "At the end up the day she is a victim of that event as well, and is traumatized in her own way." I think a lot of people assume that Svetlana wasn't affected by the situation because she never says or does anything to indicate that she was, but that's the thing— she never acknowledges it at all. Just like she tries not to acknowledge her father's abuse, doesn't stand up for herself when Kev refers to her having sex with Yvon as 'cheating' (he was threatening her— it wasn't consensual), and doesn't let is show that Kev and V pushing her around is actually getting to her until she finally reaches her breaking point and can no longer hold it in.
Svetlana copes by pretending that her trauma doesn't exist. She suppresses it, she ignores it, she compartmentalizes. And when someone brings it up, she either brushes it aside or attempts to downplay it. When Kev asks her if her father ever sexually abused her, she gets up and walks away. Then in a following scene she casually confirms that he did, as if it's no big deal.
She doesn't make a big deal of her trauma because she so badly needs it not be. Calling a spade a spade would mean actually having to face what she's been through, and she doesn't want to do that. It's easier for her to claim that her father "had good qualities too", and to respond to other people acknowledging the abuse that he subjected her to by correcting them on meaningless details ("it was three-hundred dollars", "it was potato sack"), than it is for her to confront the truth. Because deep down she knows that, if she does, she is not going to be okay. And she needs to be okay.
She needs to be okay because she is poor and she is undocumented and she has a child to take care of. She needs to be okay because she can't afford to not be. Because, if she's not, then where does she go from there? How does she manage to get up every morning? What happened in 3x06 was awful, but people need to keep in mind that that day was not so out of the ordinary for Svetlana. She was sold into sexual slavery when she was just ten years old, was being abused by her father before that, was married to an abusive man who used her for sex sometime during her teens, and probably dealt with her fair share of violent clients at the spa. She's been raped many times over.
It's hard to say, in so many words, how all of this has affected her, because, the truth is, I think there is precious little about Svetlana's personality, and everything that she does, that isn't a direct result of her trauma. Her hyper self-reliance, her inability to ask for help or lean on other people, the way that she grounds all of her decisions on practical bases forsaking any potential hurt feelings, the difficulty she has comprehending others peoples' emotional appeals, her need for security and some semblance of a functioning family, her willingness to forgive any wrong, the way that she accepts mistreatment from people she cares about, and, most notably, the way that she lives her life in survival mode even when she no longer has to. All of these things can be tied to her trauma.
It's easy to look at Svetlana, see how mature and responsible and put-together she is, and assume that she is okay. But, in actuality, all of the things that paint the picture of her being okay are indicators that she is very much not. It just so happens that the manner in which she chooses to cope presents itself in a way that makes her seem extremely high-functioning. But just because she isn't turning to a bottle to get through the day, or going on benders, doesn't mean that she isn't hurting. She is. And what's sad is that the fact that her suffering is so subtle and quiet actually works against her, because nobody ever sees her pain. They just assume that she's fine.
So if she's not asking for help or sympathy, and no one is offering her any, well...
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ravenkilgore · 6 months
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Diaspora's Marking Identity: Moonlight (2016)
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Moonlight (2016), directed by Barry Jenkins, tells the story of a young Black man named Chiron, who is growing up in Liberty City, a predominantly Black, very impoverished neighborhood in Miami. The film is divided into three parts, each focusing on a different stage of Chiron's life, from childhood, to adolescence, to adulthood. This structure allows the film to successfully explore all of the defining moments in Chiron's life, and show how is youth shaped him as the adult we see in part III. Throughout the film, Chiron struggles to understand or come to terms with his identity, sexuality, and place in a community that is plagued with drugs, violence, and homophobia. The film embarks on a journey that explores themes of masculinity, sexuality, and belonging, all while attesting to the Black queer experience through Chiron. Moonlight examines the transition of Black boyhood to manhood, and how the effect of the cultural and political factors of ones environment can have on the development of identity.
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Part of what makes Moonlight such a unique film is its narrative structure, which is split up into three parts, or three phases in Chiron’s life. The first part, "Little," introduces us to a young Chiron, who is struggling to find his place in the world. His mother is neglectful, and has an increasingly worsening drug addiction. He is taken under the wing of a drug dealer named Juan and his girlfriend, Teresa, who become a kind of surrogate family for him. In the second part, "Chiron," we see Chiron as a teenager, grappling with his sexuality and trying to navigate the rough streets of Miami. The third part, "Black," finds Chiron as an adult, now going by the name "Black." He is a drug dealer like Juan, but has a hardened exterior and seems to have cut himself off from his past.
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Through focusing on the pivotal stages of Chiron's life, Moonlight aims to highlight the trajectory of a Black gay mans life, and how the intersectionality of race, sexuality, and socioeconomic factors can impact it. Though the film is set in the present day, it highlights the generational struggles of African American's that have had lasting effects on Black communities in the US. Chiron, or, Little, has a fear of water in part I, something that is supposed to be a historical fear in the Black community, due to lack of opportunity and limited resources. In Part I, there is a scene when Juan is teaching Little how to swim. As he gets in the water, Little looks at his hands that have gotten wet, indicating his unfamiliarity to the experience of being in the water. Though uncomfortable at first, Juan urges Little to relax, and holds him as he bobs in the water. This scene represents a reconciliation with, and breaking free of generational traumas that have kept Little, and other Black boys like him repressed.
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After Juan teaches Little to swim, he tells him a story from his childhood of a woman told him, “In moonlight… Black boys look blue." (20:31). This is the first mentioning of the color blue, which will serve as a motif that represents peace and tranquility throughout the film. In this scene, Chiron is in the comforting presence of Juan, and his feeling of peace is represented through the blue water that surrounds and engulfs him. Juan also connects the color blue to the skin of Black boys, alluding to the fact that peace and tranquility can be found in their their shared Blackness, that becomes blue under the moonlight.
The ocean, acting as the most vast display of the color blue, is very powerful force within the film. The most defining moments in Chiron's life have happened in the presence of the ocean, one being his learning how to swim, the other being one of his two only sexual encounters, with his childhood friend, Kevin. Kevin first appears in Part I, and acts as Chiron's only companion. As the film moves into part II, we see the extreme bullying that Chiron is subjected to. Kevin is the only person who is nice to Chiron, and we soon start to notice that the two share more than a friendship. As Chiron and Kevin sit on the beach together, under the moonlight, Kevin says “sometimes, round the way where we live, you catch this same breeze. It come through the hood and it’s like everything stops for a second ‘cause everybody just wanna feel it” (52:32), to which Chiron responds: "And it’s like all you can hear is your own heartbeat, right?”. In this moment, both of the boys seem to recognize a shared sense of tranquility amongst their community upon feeling even just the breeze of the ocean. The ocean has the power to temporarily relieve the hardships and generational bondages that suppress Black youth in a place like Liberty city.
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At the end of Part II, Chiron's bully forces Kevin to beat up Chiron. Left feeling humiliated, and betrayed by the only person who understood him, who he identified with, Chiron was at his breaking point. When Part III begins, we see Chiron, now going by the name "Black". He has moved states, displays an impressively fit physique, and seems to have cut off all ties to his past. His new persona is a direct reflection of his lived experiences and generational traumas that were characterized by his community. This is a common tactic adopted by many Black people who do not fit into their respective communities - to harden themselves from the outside world in order to protect and ignore their unhealed internal wounds. In a society that upholds a rigid definition of Black masculinity, it is often easier to conform to that standard, rather than attempt to be queer in a system that has worked against queerness for generations.
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Chiron/Black receives a call from Kevin, which prompts him to revisit his childhood home and confront his past. After the two meet up after so many years, they share another intimate moment together. The final scene of the film is of Chiron as Little, standing on the shore, under the moonlight. Ending the film like this takes us back to Juan's story, and his implication of innate peace that is found through the connection of Black boys to the moon, which simultaneously controls the movement of the ocean. This represents the confrontation with his past that Chiron needed to move forward, and the unhealed traumas of his inner child finally being at peace, which can literally be seen reflected on his face through the moonlight that makes Black boys look blue.
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Questions:
How do the elements of moonlight and the ocean work to enrich Chiron's story? Can you think of other movies that use nature as a motif?
What does the movie imply about cultural identity, and its relationship to one's geographic location?
How do the intersections of race, sexuality, and social strata shape the reflection of ones identity? Does Moonlight provide an accurate representation of this?
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brutish-impulse · 4 months
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Sega Genesis Game Pads and the Mode Button
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I had a Sega Mega Drive (aka Genesis) as a kid, and also a 6-button game pad. Actually still have, but I haven't used them in forever.
The 6-button controller has shoulder-button labeled "MODE" and I only learned what it's for recently. When you hold it down while starting the console, it will disable the extra buttons and act like an old 3-button controller. Ok, that's pretty boring. The interesting part is why I didn't need to know that.
3-Button Controller
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Basically, the 6-button pad Just Works because the 3-button pad already had one button too many. The controller uses a connector with 9 pins. One pin each for power and ground leaves you with 7, but it has 8 inputs: UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, A, B, C, START.
To solve this, the controller contains a multiplexer. By setting the voltage on one of the pins, the console can select which inputs it wants the controller to report.
When voltage on the select pin is LOW, the controller indicates that it is present (so you can distinguish "no controller connected" from "no buttons pressed") and reports the state of the inputs UP, DOWN, A, START.
When voltage on the select pin is HIGH, the controller reports UP, DOWN (again), LEFT, RIGHT, B, C.
This makes it backwards-compatible with Sega's earlier console Master System, with B and C corresponding to buttons 1 and 2 on the MS controller, and A and START doing nothing.
The way a 3-button game normally interacts with the controller is that for each frame, the game briefly sets the select pin LOW, records the inputs, then sets it back to HIGH and records the rest. These are then the inputs for that frame. This is also called a pulse.
6-Button Controller
Instead of a multiplexer, the 6-button controller has a microcontroller that counts the number of pulses received. For the first two pulses, it behaves like a 3-button controller. Also, the counter resets after not receiving a pulse for 1.5 ms. That way, a 3-button game running at 60 fps that reads the controller once per frame will only see the behavior that it expects. Unfortunately, a small number of 3-button games don't behave this way (Ms Pacman for example), so that's why the MODE button is needed.
A 6-button-aware game interacts with the controller by rapidly pulsing it three times every frame. When the select pin is set LOW for the third time, a 6-button controller will indicate that it is in fact a 6-button controller. If a game isn't 6-button-aware and somehow gets the controller in this state, this looks as if you're pressing UP and DOWN simultaneously, so that's where the problems start.
When the pin is set to HIGH again, the controller reports the X, Y, Z and MODE inputs. So you can also use the MODE button as a normal game button. Only a handful of games do this though, and some of them only for cheat codes. (I actually happen to own one of them: Vectorman)
I just thought this is very hacky and also really cool! I wonder if I could manage to read out my old controllers with an Arduino or something!
Sources
"Sega Six Button Controller Hardware Info" by Charles Rosenberg
"How To Read Sega Controllers" by Jon Thyssel
Sega Retro page
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