#but like gaming culture at large sometimes feels like it

[crazylittlejester]

i'd love to hear all your head canons on Warriors! and the others too if you have any. :)

i'm trying to get into writing fanfiction but its difficult when the canon version of Link is just "blank stare and sometimes arson" /j. Warriors is one of the Links i have the most difficulty with characterization lol (Legend, Hyrule, and Four or also giving me trouble /lh)

aight this is definitely gonna be so much more than you asked for but im not havin a great day and you asked about my special guy and gave me permission to yap about him, so here are a lot of headcanons + the way that I write/characterize him in my own fics! (my bad for spelling errors or if this is incoherent)

- I hc he came from a rather large family out in the country, so he had a lot of sisters growing up and a lot more space than the city but he moved to the city and has stayed there since he joined the army at 15/16

- I know most people hc all the Link’s parents are dead but NOT ME, Wars still has his mom, but he hasn’t been home since he left. I hc he hasn’t been able to bring himself to go home because he feels like the war changed him so much as a person that he won’t belong there and nothing will be the same, and that his family won’t take him back because they’re expecting the same kid who left and he just isnt that person anymore

- I will die on the hill that this man is a fake blond (and that he also straightens his hair). I hc he started dying his hair because he was so desperate to fit in and also to look like the other heroes because his image is incredibly important to him. A whole war was started over him because Cia wanted him, he feels like he needs to at least LOOK like that classic image of the hero. Tied in with this i think he has a lot of insecurity about himself and how he looks because he forces himself to look such a particular way and he’s created this character of himself and acts it out so thoroughly he’s forgotten who HE actually is

- This is a popular hc for him because in his game soldiers turn against him, and you have to fight them in game so a lot of people hc there have been assassination attempts against him and that these include poison. So I hc he has a very intense fear of food that sometimes prevents him from being able to eat all together because he can’t trust where it comes from. Some days he has to watch it be made, some days he has to make it himself, and rarely he just can’t do it. This is all based on my own food allergies and fear of cross contamination, and I also gave him a safe food: oranges! My thinking behind this is that when I get like this eating prepackaged foods are the most comforting to me because it makes me feel like it couldn’t have touched something I’m allergic to, and oranges have a peel which is just a barrier between them and the world. Can they still be poisoned? Absolutely, and Wars knows this, but he’s irrationally dependent on them because in his mind they’re safe because he NEEDS them to be, otherwise he just can’t eat. Like deep down he knows it’s stupid and they’re not guaranteed safe for him, but when he’s panicking he’ll grab those because he’s convinced himself they’re safe and he’s yet to be wrong

- Purely self indulgent hc but I also gave him my blood sugar issues, which is truly just an angst source for me because he’s caught in a trap of having an issue where he HAS to eat semi frequently or bad things will happen but his deep rooted fear of all his food being contaminated makes it really really hard for him to do so

- I hc he’s got a journal that has so so much in it that’s a mix between a diary, battle plans, history book in the making, sketchbook, and more. To me he’s got such a big big brain and a thirst for knowledge and he absorbs history like a SPONGE. He met all these people from other eras during the war and he learned so much about them and their cultures and times, and now he’s going through time to some of these places??? He’s writing that shit DOWN. He’s absolutely the first one to figure out where everyone is on the timeline. He also got used to observing soldiers during battle and noting their strengths and weaknesses so he could plan where to put them in battle and thats just somethin he cannot turn off, so he analyzes the chain and all his notes on them are in this book too. He TELLS them these things, with the intent to help them grow stronger, and he absolutely offers to help them work things out and because of this the group has really become a solid unit. Also the whole thing is written in his native language that NONE of the others can read (I hc he’s brazilian/scottish and his native language is the equivalent of portuguese)

- He’s a very touch oriented person, though the war and his trust issues kinda messed that up for him, but he IS getting better with it. He does much better if he’s the one initiating contact, and he’s definitely a shoulder to lean on for the others and his hugs are very nice

- I hc he HATES shit rubbing against his neck, which is one of the reasons why that scarf is so thoroughly pinned down

- I also hc he came from a family of tailors, so he’s definitely one of the people the chain goes to if they need sewing help

- He’s the one who gives the others haircuts, and he taught Wind how to properly care for his curly hair

- I hc he has temperature regulation issues because of the severe burn scarring Volga left him with, so he and Wild are ALWAYS the first two to overheat

i have more, i could talk about him for hours, but my brain is getting fuzzy so i’ll stop here for now lmao sorry for yapping so much 😭

[k-hippie]

A BRAND NEW SIMS 3 WORLD : SHETLAND HARBOUR

And here we are ... At last :D

10 years ago, Rope crafted a remarkable world, inspired by Starlight Shores, and generously given away to the community : Brightwater.

We embraced this gift, transforming and reshaping it, creating an island to eliminate distant terrain, and thus, Shetland Harbour was born ...

While many creators have fashioned stunning Sims 3 worlds with a Northern charm—like Saaqartoq, Greymont Bay, Lillebror, or Plymouth Isles—ours, stands a little apart.

Shetland Harbour is a unique blend : a touch of Aurora Skies, a hint of Moonlight Falls, and a dash of the unfortunate Barnacle Bay, all interwoven with our own vision of course. It is a vast yet easily navigable world, balanced between lightness and richness, featuring nearly all the Rabbit Holes the game offers.

Our aim was to craft a cohesive and vibrant world, one that feels alive and contemporary, with harmonious architecture and a spirit that invites exploration and delight :)

Welcome to Shetland Harbour, a picturesque coastal town nestled between rolling green hills and a fantastic bay … It is a beautiful medium/large-sized world, a community nestled on its own secluded island, accessible only by ferry. The town is known for its charming cobblestone streets, a vibrant fish market, and a rich history dating back centuries, dotted with quaint cottages, a bustling coast, and a grand lighthouse standing guard at the harbor’s entrance ...

This hidden gem is a haven for sheep, but don't let that fool you – Shetland Harbour is far from a sleepy place. With its rich maritime history, the town offers a unique blend of tradition and vibrant local culture.

Designed to capture the essence of a northern European island, Shetland Harbour offers a self-contained community with 100 lots in total : 65 residential lots + 35 community lots. Each Lot ( except the Old Renovated Factory ) is fully furnished.

In addition, there are multiple sheep ( all by Murfeel ) fields here and there – the latter being especially dear to the local culture, a close-knit community, where the ocean's presence is always felt and the simplicity of rural life is celebrated.

Shetland Harbour combines a lively downtown with peaceful suburbs and serene neighborhoods, featuring quaint cottages, charming gardens, and scenic paths through lush greenery.

The town's historic churches, like Old Church, Albert Church or Lux Chapel, are steeped in tales of ancient rituals and ghostly apparitions ... Albert Church, built on a Druidic site, is haunted by druid spirits, while Lux Chapel is known for the ghost of a sailor, seen on stormy nights ...

The mysterious stone circle inside the Graveyard, Ghost Place, adds to the island's mystical allure. Rumored to be a portal to another realm, it activates during celestial alignments, with visitors reporting strange occurrences. Town elders speak of a prophecy foretelling the return of ancient spirits and the awakening of the island's mystical powers. Signs include a rare star alignment, the stone circle's awakening, and three chosen individuals with the island's ancient bloodline ...

• Harbor Bay : The central feature of Shetland Harbour is its expansive bay. The bay is a natural harbor with calm, crystal-clear waters, making it ideal for fishing and sailing. It is surrounded by gently sloping hills and cliffs that provide stunning vistas of the sea. The marina is bustling with fishing boats, sailboats, and yachts sometimes … It’s the hub of maritime activity, with a fish market ( aka Grocery Store ), boat repairs, and a sailing club ( aka Business and Journalism Center )

• Lighthouse District : Right beside the Harbour, stands the Lighthouse Point, this district features historical homes and buildings, including a Norman cottage, a strange Diner and higher into the Hills, a fantastic museum dedicated to the town’s maritime history and a recent Hospital ready to welcome all the citizens of Shetland Harbour :)

• Beaches : The Coastline is dotted with sandy beaches, perfect for beachcombing, picnics, and bonfires. These areas are popular spots for locals and tourists alike. And you may want building some Coastal Houses for your Sims which is possible almost all alongside the sea ;)

• Old Town : The heart of Shetland Harbour is the Old Town, characterized by cobblestone streets, historic buildings, and a charming town square. Shetland Harbour's downtown area is a kinda picturesque pedestrian square, and quaint paths perfect for leisurely strolls …The Old Town includes the Town Hall, the Old Toad, the Talking Dog, a Fish and Chips, and even a Geek Store, all of them under the shadow of one of the oldest shop of the Island : the Elixirium ...

• Rolling Hills : Surrounding the town are rolling green hills covered in wildflowers and dotted with grazing sheep. These hills are perfect for hiking and offer panoramic views of the town and the bay. Beware of the fog !

• Forests and Woodlands : To the north of the town are more dense forests and woodlands with waterfalls upstream of the river which separates part of the island. These areas are home to various wildlife and provide a natural retreat for the residents. There are several well-maintained trails for hiking and exploring :)

Come and explore Shetland Harbour all your content ... Whether you're building your dream home, running a local business, or simply soaking in the serene atmosphere, this unique town promises endless possibilities and a truly captivating experience ...

Download Shetland Harbour today and start your new adventure!

\o/

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

IMPORTANT : Before downloading Shetland Harbour !!!

Shetland Harbour contains custom content. As much as we try to include them into the world building process, we learned with time the necessity of providing a list those items. No worries, we used the same cc creators as usual and added 2 or 3 more. Such as the grey/dark roof we made, based on the terracotta roof of the game and the Wood walls you'll find on different lots, the same as the ones of Oaksoak Hollow ... Or more important, the boats used in the world and of course ... The sheeps ! All you need should be included and/or available down here ;)

1) the ANTS & CC :)

ANTS stand for Absolute Necessary Things & Stuff to enjoy Shetland Harbour :)

Download ANTS and CC ( both are needed to have all the right textures, the right look and feel of Shetland Harbour )

You will need too some of our Rabbit Holes

Not mandatory but nice : our 88 Patterns mostly brick, masonry, concrete and wood ;) A bit of fabric & paper too ...

ATTENTION : if you have played with one of our Worlds, you might see duplicate files. We try to use the same objects as much as possible. Of course, you don't have to install twice. Skip whatever you already have. We use Blams objects for some Sims 3 objects ... so if you already have those objects from any other means, just skip ;)

CREDITS & THANKS due to all the following creators :

ATS, Noir and Dark Sims, pitheinfinite, Brunnis-2, Blams, CycloneSue, HydrangeaChainsaw, Leroy157, Lisen801, Murfeele, Nilxis, PotatoBalladSims, Qahne, TheJim07, Mammut ( from BlackSimsZoo ) BlueCoco, BuffSumm, JomSims, Ladesire, Mutske

2) the Saved Games

They are in the same page than Shetland Harbour itself. You have the choice between Unpopulated and Half-populated. Whatever you choose, we always strongly advice with a save game ;) But as far we know, once we delivered a World, it is entirely up to you to begin a new adventure and make your own challenges with your own Sims :D

Download a save game

3) the Lots ( both residential & community )

Quite a bursting town, Shetland Harbour has 100 lots : 65 residential and 35 community and very important : many small sheep fields ( visitors not allowed com lots )

Download ALL the lots

Some lots are Maxis ones we modified, some lots are our own creations, and for the others, they come mostly from MTS ;) And we are very grateful to those creators who always offer a special flavor to our Worlds :)

CarlDillynson - Bellakenobi - Bast - MySimRealty - stonee206 - Norn - Cutbacks - Ferguson Avenue - SimplySimlish - hazelnutter100 - PolarBearSims - RubyRed2021 - CircusWolf - Moihi - Lasciel

Well, it is time for discovery now and you are ready for sure ! We wish you all the best, all the fun with your new life in Shetland Harbour !

Download Shetland Harbour World

PS : Shetland Harbour is a medium/large sized world of 88MB, and has been tested 1 week long on both Mac and Pc ;)

xoxo - blackgryffin

[justpoliteconversations]

Apple Merchant [BOTW!Link x Isekai!Reader] (Part 1)

In which Isekai!Reader becomes a merchant, and unintentionally Link's benefactor.

Even more self-indulgent trash. The usual.

PART: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6

Alternate Extras: Embrace

Masterlist

TW: Nothing worth mentioning.

Disclaimer: Don't own The Legend of Zelda franchise.

---

Being transported into a video game was not as dramatic as the media had led you to believe. For one, there was no bright, all encompassing light nor the feeling of a thousand worlds ripping themselves asunder. Instead, you had taken one step out of your door and crossed the threshold into an endless field of tall grass.

Panic should have taken hold by that point, but it didn't. You'd later learn it was just postponed by the shock of it all. At the time though, you'd simply taken stock of the situation, scanned the horizon for civilization and started in on the first plumes of smoke you found in the distance.

You'd been lucky. So incredibly lucky it had been a village that you'd landed near and not something more sinister. That you had decided against going near the waterfall or towards the forested area where a clear path was etched into the hillside.

You hadn't known that yet though. Instead, you'd taken the most direct route and hiked up the steep grassy slope heading towards the plumes.

Near the top you'd taken a short break beside an apple tree, admiring the perfect shape of the fruit hidden throughout it's low hanging branches. How large they were, and how brightly colored.

You'd taken one, struggling to pull it from it's stem. You were surprised by just how heavy it was when it finally did give way; more akin to holding a watermelon than an apple and as large as a grapefruit.

It was strange, but you figured it was just a variety of apple you were not familiar with, or perhaps you were heading towards a farm that was working on a new type of apple for the market.

You decided to save this one for later, in case the place you were heading didn't have resturants or take card payments. The surrounding land looked pretty rural, so you wouldn't be all that surprised if they didn't.

As soon as you'd thought it though, the apple disappeared. No light or sound or anything to indicate the unnatural occurrence, just popped out of existence.

It should have startled you, and it did, but you didn't panic. Not yet. That would come later. Right then, it was almost like you were dreaming.

In the top left corner of your vision a flicker of red came into existence. A simple line of words ended in an explanation point that pinged at your subconscious.

[New Item!]

And you'd thought, 'What a strange dream.'

---

Four years later, and you knew this was most certainly not a dream. The panic had passed, the initial pain of loss and separation had eased. The confusion of a new language and culture had settled into smooth integration.

The easy acceptance of the Hateno people helped a great deal with that.

Honestly, it helped that the population was as small as it was. While some cultures would shun outsiders upon contact, the scarcity of new blood had made your arrival quite the welcome event. Even if you were a human.

Perhaps even because you were a human. It was hard to tell sometimes. Your round ears were equal parts admired and awkwardly avoided in polite conversation.

You tried not to think about it too much.

The bottom line was that you had been transmigrated into Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Your head now contained the equivalent of the Sheikah slate and the differences in product quality here and your world was, to put it frankly, wacked. The metabolism and durability of the region's residents was even more so.

The apple you had picked up the first day had lasted you two days. Each bite was equivalent to eating two apples. Eating a whole apple was enough to make you sick. You'd watched a hyrulian child munch down three of them with no issues, and then ask for dinner.

Your conclusion; Magic. Hyrule was very similar to your own world, but the addition of magic had fundamentally altered the biological makeup of it's inhabitants.

It wasn't a difficult conclusion to come to. Hell, one of the farmers had even given you a brief rundown on the magic quality in the soil once, explaining the emergence of Hearty foodstuffs. It was an eye opener for sure, though a welcome one.

However, things got complicated in your case. The addition of gamer like attributes seemed to alter the world around you to an alarming degree. Nothing too noticeable thankfully, but still noteworthy.

Things you picked or put in your inventory had a way of coming back within a few days. This, you'd learned, was not the norm. A harvested field stayed harvested until it was replanted. A picked apple stayed gone until a new one grew from another bud.

Things did not just reappear after enough time away from them. Hyrule did not have that type of magic, though it would seem you did. Which, honestly, was fine by you. It helped you make a living at the beginning.

Food, you found, was a precious commodity. The game made it seem easily accessible, but in reality it was a hit or miss depending on the season. Late spring through early fall was bountiful, but the rest of the year was downright miserable.

People here lived on what could be grown locally. When things stopped growing, people started struggling.

Not to say most residents starved, but the cost of a bale of wheat went up drastically in the winter. Nevermind the cost of fresh fruit, meat or anything not pickled or preserved.

The game never showed this side to Hyrule. The part where these magical people with their high metabolisms suffered during the lean winter months. How they worked and saved all year just to break even through the cold season.

Winter might have been the time of hardship, but it was your golden goose. It was how you made a living, how you came out ahead.

Anything stored within your mindslate stayed perfectly preserved, untouched by time nor the effects of decomposition. And added to your unusual effect on the world, it allowed you to amass a literal shit ton of resources.

At first you'd make daily trips around the village gathering enough materials to ensure a place at the inn every night. Anything would do. Wheat, crickets, apples, the occasional fish, even fairies.

(Strange that one, how your mindslate just stored living beings like that. They were the one thing you didn't mess with. Just let them sit in there, as far from your mind as possible.)

You cut grass with your rusty sword, hacked down small trees with your equally cheap and rusted ax, roamed the nearby woods for mushrooms, beetles or lizards. Occasionally, you'd even find a more unusual item. Like a sword or shield just laying in the grass.

You'd try not to think of how it got there.

You gathered resources for a living, and the shop owners came to know you as the Apple Merchant. It was sweet actually, and it seemed to endear you to some of the residents.

Perhaps they appreciated that you were trying to make a life for yourself among them, not just begging for handouts. Or maybe it was pity for the foreign human who didn't know hyrulian common well. Hard to tell.

When winter came that first year, is when you realized the full breath of your situational advantage.

One year. That's all it took. One year to become one of the wealthiest people in the village.

And they didn't even realize it.

A bundle of carrots purchased cheaply during the height of harvest season sold for five times that amount in the winter. A bundle of wheat, nearly seven. And meat was something else entirely. Rare enough during the warm season, it became worth its weight in gold the moment winter set in and creatures ventured to warmer regions.

Winter was a literal Godsent.

And the next winter was even more profitable. Now armed with the foresight of experience, you planned your life around it. Bought overflow harvest in bulk, bought out traveling merchant's wares without a second glance.

You prepared, and you thrived. Your bare threat clothes became wool, your worn shoes became comfortable soft leather. You bought a horse, then three, a wagon. Hired guard detail.

Became a merchant. The Apple Merchant; written in clear hyrulian script across your wagon.

By the third year, you were in Lurelin, Kakariko, and every stable and small settlement in the southern reaches of Hyrule. Damn near made it to Gerudo too, before the logistics of such a trip set you back.

You made it though, on your forth year. Reaped the benefits of being a well stocked merchant in an inhospitable place like Gerudo desert. Never made it to Gerudo town though, but the outlier villages more than made up for that.

Life was good. It was profitable. You could even say you were happy.

Then it happened in the early spring of the fifth year. The Shiekah towers rose.

It was nothing that should have concerned you. Link had finally awoken from his 100 year slumber as he was meant to, and his story would continue on without you. Your paths would probably never cross. You were just one of the thousand's of merchants making a living all across Hyrule.

You were nobody in the grand scheme of things. You were someone completely removed from the big picture.

Until you weren't.

And it started with a missing apple.

---

Now I return to the shadows to rest.

[the-moon-files]

YESSSSS I BEG GET INTO THE CULTURAL DIDFERENCES BETWEEN HYLIANS AND HUMANS 🙏🙏

...now ur just sweet talking me 🥰 /lh

Not years, well maybe 1 year-

but i have wanted to ramble desperately to smone, even the tumblr void if i had to, abt humans vs. hylians so much, esp with a guide reader or male reader bc whatdya know im into niche stuff that only u and like 2 other ppl like lmao ¯\(ツ)/¯

Anyway im so shocked, since ur like the third person to be interested in this and wanna hear abt it 🥺 🤲💌 here u go!! Hope u like it <333 👉👈

Sun: Masc!Reader (he/him)

Orbit: Humans are Not Hylians/Humans are Space Orcs AU, Headcanons-ish, long overall but each section is kinda short

Stars: Mostly worldbuilding! you've been warned, don't get mad me for not talking abt the boys too much✌️

Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: mild cursing, mentions of private area/joke in the clothing headcanons, & Trigger Warnings: none known.

Please comment if I missed any. /gen

☆

just some quick headcanons bc tbh i haven't given it too much thought, and i feel like I've been able to somewhat get into it in other posts? or maybe im thinking of stuff i have in my drafts idk-

Imma make another list, so buckle up for the short ride lol

Courting periods/dating/marriage

individual/small groups society-based hylians v. large personal groups/large community society-based humans

simpler foods hylians v. complex food humans

clothing modesty/style/relationships with fashion

fighting styles/strategies

entertainment complexity/differences

and language

☆

1st one, not much yet, im also making a separate post bc someone else asked me to talk abt that more 🥺

(tysm for all the enthusiastic asks guys <33)

anyway, basically hylian courting is a lot shorter, think “lesbians with the uhaul” type of energy, like sort of the classical medieval “does thee wish to pursue marriage with this one?” ← how hylians ask u out for the first time lmao

if it helps, they do tend to get to know one another well, talking about morals/kids/life goals/preferred lifestyle/house/etc. pretty clearly and quickly, then using the in between time to sort of stew on that information

id say the total time is sort of something like 6 months? maybe 3/4 if they're really compatible

(so bc i love interpreting video game logic for real world building, I actually blame this on how fast Zelda/link get together in games despite having sometimes never met before that moment lol)

like i said, ill be posting about this later

2nd one!!

pretty basic, just saying we don't really see hylians in big groups, despite the organizations they form, like kingdoms/knights or on a more personal level, towns/families/etc.

(once again, in-game appearances/video game logic translated to real life to draw these conclusions)

like not only are family units pretty small, like nuclear family setup, with like 2 parents and 2 kids, or single parent 1 kid type of situation, but the towns or collections of these families arent very big either

hylians kind of use their government the way it was intended lmao?

like the villages and towns matter more for everyday decisions than the kingdom/royalty, like Zelda would esstientally just be the mayor of Castle Town for those constant decisions,

while occasionally is called on to make decisions like for several towns or like is a natural disaster happens

meanwhile humans are, in comparison, in Way Bigger groups, both on an organization scale, and a personal scale

like u have all these specific branches of government, whereas im sure the population difference doesn't help,

and on a personal level, humans can easily have like multiple parents, lots of siblings, and once u combine that with each parent having family too, and those families like to meet up? All together??

yeah, itd look insane to any hylians (who’s smaller extended family may just make up their own village and that's it)

3. I've touched on this

like the use of spices, syrups, seasonings, etc

but also the complexity of dishes too, like chilling cream and mixing it for awhile to make ice cream, or even just getting ordering a pizza,

that's a lot of processing, like making the dough from flour and other ingredients, to letting it rise, to making the tomato paste, making cheese, then combining those things with any other toppings, all into one dish??

i like to think that hylians have only just started to touch on actual complicated cooking processes (as in BOTW, where they sell flour and salt, so people besides Link/Wild must know what to do with it)

this has the advantage of impressing any hylian with what a “creative genius” you are lol

4. look im just a fan of medieval time periods Links

so i think its funny if the hylians are used to like 4/3 layers and ur over here like, “wym, if i take off my shirt there's nothing underneath?”

one of them gets bold enough to ask, “d-do you not. do you not have undergarments??”

you “just my boxers? like just to cover my di-”

also this makes its easy to seduce people here? LMAO

clothes are def higher quality, after all there's not as many artificial processes or materials interfering,

plus u usually get some sick embroidery on it too!!

5. so like i get it, Link is the main fighter in games

but like, the few times there is a war/army in loz games, there's rlly not a lot of strategy, beyond just finding the enemy and fighting

tho im partial to that hylians/most inhabitants of Hyrule abide by the “lets meet up either literally by inviting each other or just between our territories to fight”

with occasional guerilla warfare (by any means necessary/stealth/ambush attacks/strategy) that's only rlly used either by Demise/Ganon, or by the wilder individuals/races in games

or maybe even the more civilized fighters in an emergency

and so that means by this logic that all of the Chain use kind of wild techniques compared to their race/kingdom lmao

id imagine its not too surprising to also see “every fight is a bar fight if its for my life” from individual travelers, so im sure they're not viewed too crazy (esp when ppl know their the hero that constantly has to deal with guerilla warfare from Ganon)

but its be hilarious to watch the reactions of both the Links realizing they’re in a bigger group that should be using “proper” fighting strategies and seeing the general publics reaction to this absolutely feral, armed to the teeth, trained hylians with their equally wild human lol

LMAO everyone thinks ur the reason they started using the more brutal fighting methods bc ur human, ur a bad influence lol

(humans would use it primarily, esp after we converted to use that method in warfare a couple hundred years ago i think?)

changing course a bit, hylians tend to use weapons (to compensate for difference in strength compared to humans, and since they don't experience/get a lesser version of adrenaline)

while humans tend to equally rely on weapons and our body as a weapon (marital arts/basic self-defense)

6. this is mostly bc the hylians only rlly seem to have the basics of music, books/stories, theater, and art

i have, surprise surprise, another post abt how i think this came to be,

mostly based on how human curiosity is indomitable and insatiable and the endless force that has not yet met its immovable object.

or at least an immovable object they haven't at least poked a little, out of curiosity lol

like we went to space for that reason, we reach the most dangerous corners of our planet (deep underwater/volcanoes) out of sheer curiousity/for the sake of simple knowledge of the thing

so needless to say, curiosity can absolutely drive any field to its limits, including the arts, which is why we can have stained glass, or movies/tv shows, hell, the marvel that is Hatsune Miku lmao

(fully for entertainment, a projection of light and sound, what is essentially magical illusions but u did it hte hard way, to the hylians)

on a different entertainment related note, i don't know if the hylians would be super into sports, or not really at all? mostly bc they have to use their fighting/training against real threats, not the sort of “fake” threats that sports are

but on the other hand i could see people like knights wanting to use their abilities for something other than violence and fighting bc their life or their villages lives depended on it

bet the Links would enjoy it for those reasons especially, what with at least sumo wrestling being a sport or activity for them at some point in history, and practically beg u for any new games to play, or to ref their games, bc whewwww

im sure they could get pretty competitive lol

7. obviously, their mostly influenced by the Japanese language

id almost like to imagine a sort of, if not outright Japanese (like with earlier heroes like Sky) then a sort of English-Japanese hybrid further along the line

sort of like how English has German/Greek/Latin roots and therefore u can see what words or structure comes from where, or even how u can understand a fair amount of basic words when other languages share the same roots (english, pants = spanish, pantalones)

would make for some funny miscommunications

or even better, most hylians liking ur unique accent or the Links love to hear u talk bc of it lol

☆

well the fever has broken, i am now free of the sickness that made me hack this up geez

i hope u got some enjoyment out of these my beloved anon!! esp since u were so nice as to ask abt it <33

hope u guys have a great weekend, look out for some more posts, bc its been great to get some more asks in lately and very motivating,

not to mention i actually have time to write now that my siblings graduated/we’ve moved several states over 💀

so i have reliable internet now too! sheesh :’)

Peace out,

🌙

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I know that yuu going for every event just so the player can experience the event from their pov, but I do wonder if in game, yuu are just tired of being dragged places. the first few times probably were fun! they got to experience different places in a world they don't know! but after the second time, I feel like it would get exhausting, especially considering some kind of chaos follows them onto their trips. I can imagine yuu desperately trying not to go on trips only for luck to constantly be against them haha

Yeah, most likely! There's always some convenient excuse that amounts to Yuu and Grim being present yet insignificant 99% of the time.

The most egregious example of convenience that comes to my mind is how Yuu and Grim went along to the City of Flowers/Fleur City.. Crowley claimed they might be able to gain more knowledge of how to get Yuu back to their original world from this conference for talented young mages. (That topic never comes up again in the event.) Depending on who you ask, you might find fans that say it's a missed opportunity that the ONE event where being magicless is an advantage, they didn't give Yuu a bigger role in saving the day and instead relegated to them to off-screen involvement.

I feel like Yuu actually doesn’t mind traveling to places beyond NRC! (After all, as large as the school’s campus is… surely it starts to feel samey after a while, a change of scenery would be welcome.) Most events which involve travel typically give you the chance to pick between two dialogue options to express your own interest in tagging along (though it is typically Grim who first expresses wanting to go).

There’s really no down sides to it either—they don’t have to pay for transportation, food, or housing so every trip is basically a free vacation and a chance to experience extremely different countries and cultures!! The set-ups can be super swanky too due to how affluent some of the students hosting them are (Kalim, Leona, now Vil). No jet lag either, since the Mirror of Darkness instantly teleports them to wherever they want to go. That’s the dream life 😂 And while it’s true that problems sometimes arise during these trips, they’re often small personal conflicts that Yuu and Grim don’t need to intervene in or help with. (Someone insulted Deuce’s mom, competing against the delinquents/RSA in a race, helping the fireworks guy, seeing who wins Catch the Tail, etc.) It’s definitely more relaxed overall than Crowley knocking on their door every few weeks to personally ask them to fix problems.

I guess it really depends on the type of Yuu you have in mind (assuming we’re talking Yuusonas and not the generic in-game Yuu)? I can see why constantly going on trips might be exhausting if you picture Yuu as being more introverted, or perhaps more short-tempered or tired due to whatever else they have on their plate. It would suck if they didn’t actually enjoy their travels…

[ouroborosorder]

I once heard someone say that because Arknights' disability representation is mostly tied to their fantasy turbo-cancer, then it doesn't feel like real disabled representation, and I've been unable to get it out of my head, like a piece of popcorn stuck in my teeth. So, rather than doing my homework like I'm supposed to be, I want to talk about why I disagree and why I love Arknights' approach to disability.

So, for those who are unaware, Arknights has a shockingly high amount of disabled characters, and characters who are disabled in a lot of different ways, both caused by being Infected and just being disabled in the way that normal people are. Nightingale has chronic pain, Lemuen is the best sniper in Laterano while being in a wheelchair, Akafuyu is mostly blind, Eyja has severe hearing loss, Rosmontis has severe memory loss, Amiya has very severe PTSD, I could go on and on.

And of course there'd be a lot of operators with disabilities! Rhodes Island is a medical organization dedicated towards long-term care of terminally ill patients. Of course many of them would develop disabilities, and of course Rhodes would have the resources and facilities to help them. They even make notes of how to treat them in their medical files, like how Ejyafjalla's has a little guide on how to best have a conversation with her. It makes perfect sense, but I can't say a lot of games would think about it on that level.

And that why I like this game's approach to disability so much. A lot of video games just treat disability as "someone missing an arm" or "someone in a wheelchair because of Their Injuries From Combat. It's usually treated as an individual thing, just someone who got hurt, or who maybe has a frail constitution or whatever. But in Arknights, disability isn't simply treated as a character trait for individuals, but as part of the worldbuilding itself. The world is largely defined by Oripathy, this fatal degenerative disease with no cure. And the Infected are treated as second-class citizens, considered free labor that they don't have to treat ethically because they're dying anyway. The writers realized that this would cause severe disability, both real and fantastical, and worked it into the story and world.

This runs the other way, too! Arknights' worldbuilding follows a sort of social model of disability, in a way. There's a lot of fantasy stories that treat the inability to use magic as a sort of disability, but to Arknights, it's... not. Because Arts require specialized training, and so a lot of people just don't know how to use them, and might not even know they can't use Arts. So it's not treated as such, even though it is still a physical inability to perform things other people can.

But on the other end, Laterano's culture is based around the Sankta having empathic communication between each other. Mostima, as a fallen angel, can't use this telepathy anymore, and she speaks about how othering it feels sometimes, to be physically unable to engage with an important part of her culture. While it's not explicitly stated as a disability to the Lateran culture, I certainly feel like it's treated as one to some degree. Namely that it's explicitly contrasted with Fiametta's PTSD rendering her unwilling to empathize with the people around her, as opposed to Mostima's physical inability. It's the fantasy disability treated with the same weight as real world disability, because within the world of Terra, they're the same thing.

And of course there's just some of the more fucked up fantasy stuff like "On top of her existing narcolepsy, Ptilopsis was forced to become plural after she had to have part of her brain replaced with a computer that forces her to speak and think like a computer or else it causes her severe mental stress to the point of physical pain." Which uh. I don't know where that fits in the conversation but jesus christ someone hug that owl

Of course, its representation isn't always perfect. Just off the top of my head, Nightmare is a pretty rough stereotype, with the whole "Oripathy gave her multiple personality disorder with a violent personality trying to take control of her body!!" trope. And, of course, I'm sure other people have complaints with the representation of their disability in ways that I'm not aware of because I only have the perspective I have.

But... what I remember about this game's treatment of disability isn't when it fails. What I remember is reading Glaucus' module for the first time, the story of the first time she ever put on the mechanical exo-suit legs that allowed her to walk for the first time in her life. And I started bawling my fucking eyes out. I cried because, even though I don't know the specific feeling of walking for the first time in years, I know well what she felt. That feeling of liberation from something you secretly feared was just who you are now. Even though you know it won't be a perfect solution, the physically choking emotion that you're able to get a little closer to a normalcy you've always wanted. The feeling that right now, the only thing you can do is run like the wind.

[missile-silo]

The Dwemer ruins in morrowind are some of the scariest places I’ve ever visited in the elder scrolls.

Compared to the Skyrim ruins, they are barren. Utilitarian. The outsides are decorated sure, but it’s more like a show of strength than any sort of actual artistry, huge statues bearing spears and ballistas made from dwarven metal.

The ruins are loud, clanging and metal clashing as the ambient sound. Occasional swells of battle music only adding to the tension. Typical orchestral sounds replaced by something far more artificial, more mechanic.

Metal walls, metal floors, odd machinery still working long after the dwarves disappeared. Corpses of long dead adventurers lie in the corners, adventurers much like you.

Sometimes you’ll come across an automata. The spiders are egg like but organic to an uncomfortable degree, their bodies flop and shift when they attack in a way that makes them seem not entirely metal. Spheres suddenly pop to life from the corners, Centurions are large, steam spewing and oddly lifelike in comparison to the art deco feel they have in Skyrim.

Sometimes you’ll be attacked by a Dwemer spirit, souls somehow trapped in the places they dwelled long after their race disappeared. They’re lifelike, looking more natural than the last living dwarf, but still not quite natural.

Compared to the stone halls and grandiose sculptures of the Skyrim Dwarves, I wonder about the cultural differences between these two groups of Dwemer. One carved through the mountains, crafting beds and desks and all sorts of artworks from metal and stone alive. The other clad hallways in almost never ending panels of the same copper-bronze colour, desks spaced meticulously, artwork all but abandoned.

If I have one hope for the next elder scrolls game, it’s a return to the horror of the Vvardenfel Dwemer. And perhaps a return of the Dwemer themselves, an ultimate enemy or an ultimate ally.

You can’t kill a god, after all.

[ganondoodle]

"bc i find it weird and uncomfortable how nintendo treats and comments on Riju and the gerudo as a whole"

Could you elaborate on this? Outside of men perving on the Gerudo (which is honestly just representative of real life scenarios) I can't think of anything problematic in regards to how they or Riju are treated. (Her being put into power at such a young age is questionable but that's just one of the downfalls of hereditary ruling I think.)

This is genuine, I'm not trying to be sarcastic or obtuse or anything! I never noticed anything overtly concerning so I just was curious what you were referring to. (Sorry I'm sure there's a post or something I missed where you were talking about it.)

so, this ask comes off as a little weird since the Gerudo are very overtly orientalist/racist stereotypes and you can just .. .research it instead but, given that i recently got an ask from someone saying they were 14 i will answer it bc i know sometimes you think first about asking someone about something instead of looking it up yourself

so, mind you, i am not a person of color, and the issues are a giant can of worms i cannot possibly go into every detail of nor know every detail of

the Gerudo, both in older games and new ones (botw/totk) are basically a bunch of stereotypes about black and arab people rolled into one, they are based on a mish mash of middle eatern cultures together with popular stereotypes about them

they wear stupidly impractical sexy clothing for people living in the desert, its very skin exposing (something that is the opposite of what you do living in an environment like that) and based on the wrong but popular idea of the 'belly dancer' outfit- an outfit that isnt sexual but was popularized as something akin to a strippers outfit by western people (colonizers im pretty sure .. who else) and is STILL used as that, they also wear high heels ... in the desert ......... a sand desert .... and wear heavy make up (like hylian women dont)

even worse then that the EXACT SAME outfit is used for the children as well, they too are put into heels, heavy makeup, and that 'belly dancer' outfit which is very VERY uncomfortable if you know what that oufit is largely seen as .. (even if youd try to argue that Riju wears it to seem more like a competent leader, it falls flat bc the children wear the same damn weird outfit as everyone else)

the Gerudo are also all very muscular in a way that no other women is in the game, which plays into the stereotype of black women being more masculine/mannish than uwu frail little white women and thus, among more, less women, or being able to feel less pain (yes that is an actual belief wtf??), while at the same time still sexualized

now in OOT they were thiefing evil women (thief being yet another stereotype for arabs as well as evil) whos only 'good' one both rejecting some of their tradition (kinda playing into the idea of those tradtions being wrong and adhering to the "good" traditions of western people is what makes you good) and is also abused throughout the game; in botw/totk they are not eviiiil but live in a closed to all men city and their entire society revolves around finding a hylian man to marry, their only goal in life is basically to find a man and have a family which i HOPE i dont have to explain why that is problematic (misogyny anyone) while it is treated by other NPCs as something to be conquered, something alien and other that beckons them to invade, they constantly try to get into the city where all da sexyyyy women are (hello????????????) and its less treated as disgusting and more like a haha little joke (in botw theres a guy circling around the city at all times??? excuse me?? and in totk the same guy is SNEAKING ON THE ROOFS OF THE HOUSES IN THE CITY LOOKING TO GET IN?????????????????)

the argument of that just being real life is ... not all wrong per se but the thing is, ONLY the Gerudo are treated like sexy things to be oogled at (both in OOT and botw/totk, possibly even more but i am not as familiar with all games in the franchise) and no other women from any species is eyebrow raising to say the least, and it never really gets called out either beyond making fun of that one guy by scamming him out of his boots by .. pretending to be a girl (pretty sure link is the only non Gerudo that is oogled at by anyone and its the creepiest creep)

then, with Riju in particular its made even worse that she is not just young but VERY young (which also begs the question why the fuck the Gerudo would put someone so young into the seat of leader of their entire region- something also no other race does), shes only 12 in botw and yet, like all the other children too, put into the same kind of outfit, but then theres also the commentary in the concept art book saying that "gerudo age faster than hylians and thats why shes got a mature air to her" which, among being a way to make how shes sexualized (both in outfit and at times camera angles- also applies to Urbosa) seem more okay (its not) and plays into the stereotype that people of color are quicker to gorw up and thus be treated as adults despite being children like any other child- hence why often in the news when a black child is shot they dont call them a child but "young man", using that to subtly shift it to seem more okay (like we are currently seeing in the genocide of palestine, news calling a murdered SIX year old palestinian "YOUNG WOMAN" while calling a 19 year old white soldier lady who got a little bruise an abused child)

and it also applies to Ganondorf, he is the epitome of evil arab men stereotype, power hungry abusive and ruling over lots of women (in this case its his entire race...), (with a hint of antisemitism too, his hooked nose being both used as an overemphasized feature for arabs and jewish people as a sign of their connection to the devil/sing of evil and to other them from white 'good little noses'- (((i want to yell about this so much bc big and hooked noses are so cool and beautiful argh))) and his skin tone being always some strange greyish-yellow color no one else has and even worse mint green in totks official art, despite him being very dark grey in model- green skin being yet another antisemitic trope PLUS playing into the whole idea that being evil means you also LOOK evil, whichs is often, who would have guessed- anything that isnt the traditional western beauty ideal of thin thin white and young)

while also in totk, he as well is sexualized with his new revealing outfit and the weird constant emphasis on how he is meant to be sexy to everyone alike (and it not being apparent in the game nor used in it) in multiple interviews with the main people in charge of the franchise- and his evilness being what all the Gerudo must atone for, they birthed this eviiil man (who is evil from birth i guess bc thats totally fine and logical) and they have to bear that sin for all eternity (as in dialog about him in the gerudo sage cutscene, plus the whole idea of the closed off city, despite there having been no ganondorf in thousands of years, being closed of to men as to shut out any potential Ganondorf or similar evil? though the latter im not sure how supported it is .. i cant remember every line of dialog ok) while the hyrulean monarchy and its uwu blonde god descdendants are never even confronted with the horrible shit they did, bc its fine if they torture and murder people (OOT and possibly more), chase them into the void or persecute their own servants bc da king got afraid they could rise up against him- with their only choice being give up their tech and knowledge to live under the royal rule (botw/totk ancient shiekah- shiekah, and its presented as a good thing, we are all happy beign the eternal servants of the monarchy :)))) or be killed, and the ones resisting are eviiiill and now a cult and also very stupid and silly and not to be taken seriously (yiga) while its mentioned once as a fun fact and never ever mentioned again, bc, the hyrulean monarchy is all god descendant uwu white blonde people that are so good you guys, everything they do is in the name of good uwu and neva to be questioned uwu bc obviously everyone that opposed to them is evil bc they are the perfectest good guys uwu

youd think, and i hoped, they would do better by now, in botw, the gerudo are not well done at all, different than before but still bad, but at least they introduced other people with darker skin tones that arent Gerudo so they are not the literal only people with non white skin anymore- but with totk espeically, they had the chance to make Ganondorf into an interesting villain with a point, maybe not even full blown villain, bc he has a point- he does but its not treated as such, its treated as if he is the most blatantly flat evil guy ever- even more flat and one note evil than all his previous appearances, which is frankly, quite insulting to say the least

look i wanted to keep it short but here we are, i dont know if this anon was genuinely being genuine or not (since bigots like to act all non offensive and like to ask you to explain your very obvious point ..) but i dont htink i ever talked about it as a whole so eh- i probably missed stuff but anyway, heres a good video about it for zelda in particular

[beloved-of-storms-and-sands]

Where you can see Sutekh:

In the morning sun.

In red berries. Especially when you feel their juice on your teeth.

In dandelions. Whether grown on the ground or asphalt, these plants always find the strength to live and tell everyone to go to hell.

In dark heavy clouds. Such bear His gifts more often.

In the rain.

In the thunder.

In lightning.

In storms.

In the winds. His whisper, gentle and strong.

In the rainbow.

In natural disasters. Sometimes His wrath is too strong.

In earthquakes.

In the snow and blizzards.

In the deserts.

In the oases.

In the eyes of animals. He flashes through them, like their desire to survive.

In donkeys. Inconspicuous animals, they are strong enough to replace dogs to protect herds.

In pigs. Unloved by many, but who can grow large and strong enough to be intimidating.

In rock and electric guitar.

In abandoned things and people.

In things that are broken but found new life.

In the image of the phallus and dicks.

In the word "no" when you defend your boundaries.

In a crowd at a rally, riot or uprising, whether in the people or the spirit itself.

In cheeks reddened from prolonged laughter or alcohol.

In new and old weapons.

In strategy games, especially military ones.

In cacti, succulents, feather grass, wormwood, camel thorn and other plants, that can survive in the desert.

In Ursa Major, because that is where His home is.

In falling stars and meteorites.

In various shiny things.

The collection contains various trinkets and sparkles that are pleasing to the eye.

In things created with your own hands, especially imperfect ones.

In vegetables, especially green ones, and especially in lettuce.

In food and people from other countries.

In the language and culture of foreigners.

In protecting and supporting those who need it.

In accepting your gender and sexuality.

In accepting your weirdness and negatives.

In funny jokes that you can see here and there.

In eclipse.

In red. In red things, food, clothes, symbols.

In fire.

In desire and action to continue to fight.

And in many, many other things. He is in every thing for me. I see His limitless forms in everything. Dua, Perfect God! Dua, Sutekh!

Translation of my post below on russian.

[oldhalloweentape]

🪨Venture (OW II) x (fem) reader ⛏️

(Gamer Girl Reader Edition!)

(Picture’s not mine!)

(Request here! Yeah so, here’s this! Not much to add, I’ll probably start working on the Junkrat headcanons now there aren’t any more asks for Venture at the moment)

- I think the idea of Venture, a very outdoorsy and adventurous person with you, a girl who is more inclined to stay inside and play your games could be really cute :))

- Despite their keen interest in getting out of there and exploring they’d happily stay inside to spend some time playing games, especially with you!

- In their opinion, it’s like exploring whole new world’s without the hassle of exerting themselves physically (they like doing it nonetheless ofc) besides giving themselves a hand cramp or two.

- If there’s a game you especially like in particular, they take notice and either play it with you or play it later if it’s single-player only— 80% chance of them becoming obsessed with it as well.

- Lore??? Yes please, they want it so bad that they can make a billboard of everything so they can try to “crack” the game franchise.

- 100% buys merch for you AND themselves, cause I feel like they’d do it either due to them wanting to be supportive or partaking in the games fandom themselves.

- Specifically, I think they’d like certain games such as:

- Tomb Raider: I mean, look at it— It has artifacts, parkour, and a badass main character (I can see them crushing on Lara Croft as a little kid, can and will die if you ever cosplay as her). Self-explanatory.

- Minecraft: Endless possibilities, worlds, scenarios, they can make blocky replicas of real-life historical architecture— “…You wanna put our Minecraft beds together?”

- Spore: A little more niche with this one but this game is all about literally building up an organism and giving them culture and civilizations, come on they’d totally love a game like this… Dig it even.

- Assassin's Creed Unity: This game literally helped with the reconstruction of THE Notre Dame— THAT’S how accurate and intricate the amount of detail that went into the world-building of this game is. It’s like a love letter to them.

- Stardew Valley: As much as they like adventure (and Stardew provides that in the mines anyway) it’s nice to play a game that’s focused on something as simple yet intricate as this… That and I know a clueless player who still has fun regardless when I see one.

- BG3: It has adventure, mystery, a medieval aura, great character dialogue, and animal companions that are all so different and so charming… A large, HOT, silly tiefling woman (again if you cosplay as her they will not recover) who could throw them against the wall like they’re a bag of half-empty chips. 10/10.

- ANYWAYS, back on you two, if you make time to do what they like they’ll do so in return. Making an effort as they try to get a few pointers from the Queen of gaming herself— D.Va.

- Helps happily of course thinks y’all are adorable and reassures Venture that when she’s done with them they’ll know everything there is to know when it comes to dating a gamer girl. It’s so fucking stupid but the intent that Sloane had for wanting to impress you is still apparent.

- The information helps surprisingly, to woo you successfully, which D.Va actively boasts about whenever she can after asking how y’all are doing.

- For sure goes on mall dates with you to get gaming stuff, prefers it over online shopping. Buying things like shirts over your shared favored games, and sharing them. Loves to be able to smell you on them (not in a creepy way) while away at work for a prolonged period.

- Loves to distract you from playing your games, sitting behind you, arms wrapped around your waist as they lean against your back, head either on your shoulder or the top of your head.

- Sometimes feeling a bit flirty and kissing the back of one of your ears, rubbing your sides, mumbling honeyed and lustful words, things like “You look gorgeous to me right now mi corazón, how about you put that controller down and let me prove it?”

- They’re like a spoiled cat when it comes to your attention, I would know because I have three, and one is currently making my other arm fall asleep.

(There!! Sorry if this came out a little later than it should’ve, I’m a little exhausted from some real stuff, and I stayed up over midnight for this one. The Venture effect lol)

[felassan]

Image credits: David Gaider [source link below]

Article: 'Who is qualified to make a world? In search of the magic of maps'

"You're travelling with your imagination..."

An extensive feature article about maps, map creation and world-building. It refers to David Gaider and the team's early world-building and early-days process of creating the universe that would become Dragon Age. It includes this early series of original sketches of the map of Thedas through time that Gaider drew when the world was being created.

Excerpts under the cut (due to length):

"Dragon Age. That's the game Gaider was working on - or rather, it was the world he would dream up. Ideas had been swirling about what Dragon Age would be for a few months. The team knew it would be like D&D but would not be actual D&D, because BioWare was sick of licensed games at the time. They knew they were going for Tolkien rather than Conan or Diablo. "We definitely had at least some idea of the kind of RPG this was going to be," Gaider tells me when in a video call. But BioWare didn't have a world. One day, Gaider was handed a historical atlas of Europe and tasked with going away and coming up with a fantasy world for players to explore. And almost immediately, he sketched a map." - "What is it about a map that gives it magical powers to bind us and pull us in? I wanted to know more, and through talking to David Gaider and learning about his creation of the map for Dragon Age, I hoped I might find out." - "In fact, he corrects me, "I sketched a lot of maps." But they were the same map, replicated over and over, because in order for a world to make sense to Gaider, it needed history. "I drew this coastline and then made a bunch of photocopies of it," he says, "and did this series of sketches, like, 'Okay in this era, this is where people lived and where they migrated and created different cultures,' and those cultures changed over time as they got conquered. Much like the book of European maps I had, I was doing it in eras and forming an idea in my mind about how these groups all mingled together. David Gaider was kind enough to share his original sketches of the Dragon Age world with me, and in them, you can see an emerging flow of history. You can see the spread of the Tevinter Empire as the race of Men lands in the north and then begins to spread out. You can see, in the earliest images, there's still a kingdom of Elves in the forest of Arlathan, nearby. Then, they are forced out by the growing Tevinter Empire, south to the Dales, where we encounter them in the Dragon Age games, subjugated to being a kind of slave race. Tribes give way to kingdoms, and names we're familiar with begin to appear." - Caption on the sketches: "David Gaider's original sketches of the Dragon Age world. Wherever you see a name typed in, it's because it was changed by EA's in-house sensitivity team, which cross-checked place names with real-world names in case there was a clash. The area of Antiva, for example, used to be called Calabria, but Calabria is the name of a region in southern Italy. "Well, if you do something with the Calabrians that real Calabrians don't like, they might get upset," the sensitivity department at EA told Gaider. "So I was like, 'Oh fine, I'll change it,'" he says." - ""My feeling on history when it comes to worlds," Gaider says, "is that you need to have a lot of it." Without it, he says a world will feel like a facade. "Sometimes you'll see worlds where they've made only what is needed for their current story, and it's like an old Western set: it feels right, it looks right, but then you slowly get a sense of, 'Oh, there's nothing behind those doors.' Before he sat down to draw, Gaider already knew some of the geographical elements he wanted. He knew he wanted a topsy-turvy 'South was cold and North was hot' idea for the continent, to play with people's expectations, and he knew he wanted a large waterway - that he likens to the Mediterranean - carving its way far inland. Today, we know this as the Waking Sea, and it's an incredibly important feature in the Dragon Age games. Gaider also knew he wanted islands far up in the north, from which an unknown race could invade. "I knew that I wanted an 'other' race that would come along," he says, "which ended up being the Qunari." Gaider also knew he wanted untouched areas for adventure, like forests and mountains, just in case the game would need them. "I didn't want every place to be so civilised that when it came time for 'we need ruins' or 'we need massive wilderness', we've got nowhere to go because I've civilised the entire thing," he says."

"Because remember, the team didn't yet know where the game they were making would be set. That's why so much of the continent you see in the sketches is as yet unused in Dragon Age games - the series hasn't needed all of it by this point. Continents are vast, after all, and realising them in 3D for players to explore is a mighty task. "I guess in my head," Gaider says, "we would be probably either on the north of Ferelden, on what became the Free Marches, or maybe off in the west more towards the Tirashan Forest or the Hunterhorns. That was a very wild area and I was like, 'That's a good place for an adventure to be.' Atlas at hand, photocopies in front of him, Gaider set about his work of growing a game world from a bunch of maps, and with not a small amount of trepidation. There was a lot riding on the world after all; it was a far cry from the worlds he'd created and freely abandoned as a teenager. "This is going to form the foundation, ideally, for a lot of games," he says, "and a lot of people are going to do work [on it]. And the trepidation is like, 'I don't know what I'm doing.' I'm essentially the equivalent of a 13-year-old just going, 'La la la, I'm going to call this Ferelden!'" - "Some things bother David Gaider about the Dragon Age 1 map, still, and they occurred when artists prettied his sketches without his involvement. "Oh," he said awkwardly when they were presented to him. "I didn't want it to look like this, exactly." He says they added a lot more rivers and mountains, and flipping between his sketches and the Dragon Age: Origins map, you can see some have moved around, or gained prominence, and places like Redcliffe have shifted. Apparently people would take to the BioWare forums after the game came out to complain about the map's geography. "And I'm like, 'You know what? You got a point,'" Gaider says. This is mostly anger at himself, though, for not doing more about it. Similarly, he wishes he'd been able to sit down with artists and work out what the rest of the continent you don't see in his sketches looked like, so they didn't have to have "the continent just keeps going..."-like messages at the edge of it. "But to where?" Gaider says. But it speaks to something he's noticed in his decades working in games about artists and writers. "They really speak two different languages," he tells me. They process things differently and they tend to care about different things. There were reams of history and lore written in a "world bible" for the Dragon Age team, but getting artists to read it was another matter. They wanted clear visual cues, not piles of backstory. Dragon Age: Origins eventually found its setting in Ferelden, the kingdom in the bottom right bulge of the sketches, so it left a huge portion of the sketched world unused, which the team presumed no one would ever see. "We thought that was going to be the only one," he says of Dragon Age: Origins. "That's why when you get to the end of Origins, there's so many epilogues that cast off far into the future, which, if we'd known that we were going to keep going and keep going with history, we wouldn't have said, 'Oh, in fifty and one hundred years, this is going to happen.' I think we would have played our cards a little closer to our chest. EA apparently found the game very old-fashioned and thought no one wanted turn-based role-playing games like that any more, which of course now seems ridiculous given the success of Baldur's Gate 3. "Baldur's Gate just goes to show how wrong people are when it comes to industry wisdom," Gaider says."

-

"Nevertheless, when Dragon Age 2 eventually was green-lit, the scope of it, and the focus of it, would completely change. With it, BioWare and EA would push towards a console RPG experience that stopped and started less, and had more action-packed combat. And EA only gave BioWare 18 months to make it, so BioWare decided to make a much smaller, more tightly focused game. It seemed like a good idea at the time. "People at BioWare convinced themselves that the fans would be okay - it'll be fine if it's a smaller game," Gaider says. "And I don't know why we thought that was the case, but for a moment there in time, we were like, 'Yeah, sure, it'll be fine.'" As for the mapping, a tighter focus meant centering on one place rather than a whole region, so the city of Kirkwall on the Waking Sea became the heart of the game, and BioWare developed a time-jumping idea for the game so you could see it at various different points in your character's lifetime, which I still think is really neat. And because there wasn't a large region to explore, the game didn't need a sprawling map, so BioWare turned the map on its side to give Kirkwall some height and majesty instead. It wasn't particularly memorable, but it looked nice. The game didn't go down well. "Its highs were really high, and its lows were really low," Gaider says now. "It was very unpolished. If it even got six months more polish, I think the reception would have been a lot different." More importantly, it meant everything would need to change again for Dragon Age 3." - "In Dragon Age: Inquisition, the third game in the series, the map plays a starring role. It's built into the game world specifically so you and your Inquisition advisors can gather around it and push pieces about as you choose where to go next. Thematically, this fits neatly with the theme of running an organisation like the Inquisition, but the map was also required to cover a lot of ground. One thing BioWare knew the moment it started making the game was that it needed to be bigger than DA2. This time, the game would spread across areas of Ferelden we hadn't been to as well as some we had; up to Kirkwall and into surrounding Free Marches, and then west to the city of Orlais and onwards until it reached past the Waking Sea and arid desert land. But the sense of scale was an illusion. Dragon Age: Inquisition wasn't a continuous, open world, but a fragmented one, made up of a few open-world-like zones, some small parts of cities, and many 'you can't actually explore there, but you can read about it' text-window interactions. Again, this was Gaider's idea, to give the game "a feeling of breadth" without needing the art department to render it all in 3D. By the time Inquisition came out in 2014, the world of Thedas - the name an amalgamation of "the" and "Dragon Age Setting" by the way - had been reinterpreted for three games and touched by many pairs of hands. Gaider's writing team had plugged the holes he, as a single writer, couldn't fill, and the art team had shown us what the world looked like. There was even, fittingly, a Dragon Age encyclopaedia released, compiling the teetering piles of lore and backstory, and maps and imagery that BioWare created for it. People were now joining the team who were already fans of the series. This was no longer an imaginary world; Thedas felt real. And perhaps it no longer needed Gaider to steer it."

- "So Gaider left BioWare in 2016, having worked there for 17 years, most of it spent on Dragon Age. Really, he'd had enough of wizards and demons, and Anthem wasn't the tonic he sought. Eventually, he'd move all the way from Canada to Australia for a fresh start, where he'd start Summerfall Studios and make a role-playing musical called Stray Gods, which was released last year. That game, incidentally, only featured a small map for travelling between city locations. Today, he awaits the arrival of a new Dragon Age game - Dragon Age: Dreadwolf - like the rest of us, having had no direct input. It's an anxious wait, as you can imagine. "I was Mr Dragon Age for ten years," he says, "so there is a certain amount of attachment. I'm not sure how I will feel when Dragon Age 4 comes out. I have a hard time believing that if I play it, I won't spend a lot of the time second guessing any choices I see, like, 'Oh, hmm, I wouldn't have done that.' What if they bring back some characters that I wrote? They're going to Tevinter so what if Dorian's there? Gah! I don't know; I am of two minds as to whether or not I will even play it." "It makes me wonder about these people who create worlds, who draw them into existence - whether that's in a preliminary sketch or a lavish piece of artwork - and whether there's always a point where success comes with the consequence of ceding control. Had Gaider kept the world of Dragon Age to himself, a photocopied map, folded and stuffed in a back pocket, we'd never have played it. And had millions of people not played and enjoyed it, I wouldn't be writing about it now and have that feeling when I look at an image of one of Gaider's photocopies, that I'm in the presence of something special, something powerful. But it's no longer Gaider's map, and no longer Gaider's world. It's all of ours."" - "For Gaider, maps are snapshots of history, photocopied slideshows explaining how places came to be. And of course they are, because he was thinking about Dragon Age when he started in on maps, which meant that he was thinking about geography, sure, but also the passing of time, and the way the latter affects the former."

[source and full article]

[sentfromwolves]

◈—⌈ SENTFROMWOLVES ⌋ writeblr introduction ²⁰²⁴

Hi everyone, and welcome to my writeblr 2024 introduction. My name is Eran (they/he & freshly thirty) and I've been on writeblr for awhile, so you might've seen me around. ( •̀ ω •́ ) This is my yearly post to introduce the projects I'll be working on this year, what I write, and who I am. I'll be keeping it short and sweet.

I'd love to meet more writers this year, so if you write any of the following, or just like these genres, or even just wanna shout about ocs together, come holler and I'll give you a follow!

◈ — sci-fi and fantasy of any kind! cozy fantasy, romantasy, epic fantasy, space opera? this is my bread and butter, and I love shouting about it from the rooftops with others! ◈ — found families, ot3s, complicated soulmates. I am almost always writing about soulmates who have either killed each other at least once in the past or are planning some sort of murder. Complicated relationships, especially found families that aren't all rainbows and butterflies, are right up my alley. ◈ — queer and trans protagonists, large queer casts! all of my wips feature trans/nonbinary leads, and I'm always looking for more queer writer friends to connect with! ◈ — hope at the end of the tunnel, but hell to get to. I write stories with hopeful endings, with the sun on the horizon, with the promise that something better might now at long last be on the way. I love seeing characters get put through hell, but I love it even more when they make it to the other side. (if you write tragedy though, please know I will still cry on your doorstep if you'll have me) ◈ — corruption arcs, redemption arcs, sometimes both! Deeply nuanced characters with messy attitudes, and even messier actions. I'm just as equally obsessed with cool worldbuilding as I am with character-driven things, and I will yell about ocs all day, and maybe draw them too >:3 ◈ — big, epic, and sweeping worldbuilding! I am a huge fan of delving into the worldbuilding aspect of my wips. I love building magic systems, cultures, geographies, and more. One of my 2024 projects is doing a worldbuilding experiment blog at some point. I am always down to clown over worldbuilding, whether to sound board or just holler together!

There's a lot more I could say here, but this post can only get so long! Σ(っ °Д °;)っ my dms are always open, and I will follow back most of the time! But just to get all of the basics outta the way:

◈—« here's a quick and dirty rundown of how I work! »—◈

➺ I interact and follow from @calamityeden, so if you see that username, it's just me.✌️I am most active on discord, and if we become friends, you're more than welcome to ask to add me there. ➺ I am open to being tagged in writeblr games! Just know that I am not online all the time, and might be slow to respond to them. 🐌 ➺ My ask box and DMs are open, just please be respectful. I love meeting new writers and talking about projects! I am happy to chat and make new friends. You're always welcome! 💌 ➺ This is a strictly 18+ writeblr. Please DNI with me if you are a minor and respect my boundaries.

🪄You can find my core tags here under my writing and my graphics, as well as writer reminders, game train and catharsis. (❁´◡`❁) And now onto the fun part! My 2024 main project line up!

I have my main four listed here that you'll probably hear me yelling about pretty consistently, but I've also got a lot of other projects rattling around in my brain. So if you're ever curious about a project that's not here, feel free to yell at me about it! >:3

Genre: Dark Urban Fantasy Standalone.

Status: First Draft Complete (117k)—Revising for beta round one.

There's a clock tattooed on Nemesis's wrist, and when it reaches midnight on his 21st birthday, it will kill him. It doesn't help that his mom is the one that cursed him, and the demon currently possessing his car ate her before Nemesis could convince her to break the damned thing. Thankfully, Judge came prepared with an alternative: help him break into a mythical living city and steal its heart, and in return, he'll shatter Nemesis's curse for free. Accompanied by a three-headed hellhound, a haunted holy sword, and an excommunicated exorcist, Judge and Nemesis set their sights on an impossible heist. But the closer Nemesis gets to the heart, the more he begins to realize that he isn't the only one under a curse. And if he doesn't find a way to break Judge's soon, his own life will be forfeit as well.

Genre: Space Opera

Status: 2024 zero drafting from scratch

Two hundred years ago, humanity expanded to the stars only to find a cosmos filled with graves. But then their children began displaying the strange ability to commune with the alien ruins scattered across the planets, waking ancient, extrasolar mecha from their sleep, and turned the struggling colonies of space explorers into the fledgling galactic nation of Sol Galatea.  Now, Wren Akane is on the run from the whole galaxy, wanted for the strange alien powers throbbing through his veins. His luck runs out when he accidentally awakens an ancient Relic in the desert of his planet, only to be embedded with the memories of its last pilot and the revelation that the war that littered the cosmos with graves is far from over. But no one believes Wren when he tells them that continuing to wake the Relics will bring the hostile alien empire that destroyed them back to Sol Galatea’s doorstep. Only Wren’s rival pilot, Marek Khalid, seems interested in a word Wren has to say. But Marek doesn’t want to save Sol Galatea. He has big plans for what to do when the aliens arrive, a rebellion to lead, and if Wren isn’t on his side, he’s in his way. With time running out, Wren must soon decide how far he’s willing to go to save the people that never tried to save him—or if Marek is right, and he should let the stars burn instead.

Genre: Adult Romantasy

Status: First Draft (1k/100k)

Once a year, Celestials from all across the Lumina Kingdom gather together for Eventide, the season of courtship, hoping to win the hand of the most eligible star at court. Sirius knows the game they play all too well: by day, he is the forgettable, miserable daughter of the Lumina Family, least of his seven siblings and wanted only for the royal blood running through his veins.  By night, however, Sirius is the Starweaver—the mysterious dressmaker taking the kingdom by storm. Everyone wants to know the identity of the one responsible for elaborate outfits that turn even the quietest Celestial in the room into the star of the show, outshining even Sirius’s luminous sibling, Diana. When the infamous King Beyond Midnight arrives with the intent to wed Diana, Sirius finds his secret in jeopardy when the condition for their hand in marriage is a simple challenge: reveal the Starweaver's true identity. There’s no outsmarting Octavian for long, and soon, Sirius will have to make a choice: give up on his passion and stay hidden forever, or risk everything to stay true to who he really is.

Genre: Second World Urban Fantasy

Status: Outlining

Something changes the day that Nakano Touya returns to the crumbling city of Soma Lux. It starts with voices in the radio static, blurry figures caught on camera, always out of focus. When a monster crawls out of Touya's television screen and eats him, the last thing he expects is to find a strange, shadowy otherworld lurking on the other side. But his biggest problem isn't the monsters of the otherworld that want to eat him, or the talking cat that saved him, now living in his apartment without a care in sight. Soma Lux is experiencing a strange new epidemic—one that Touya is completely unaffected by. But when his half-sister falls comatose, Touya knows he has to get to the bottom of it all to save her—and find out why he's the only one immune. Accompanied by his jaded ex-boyfriend, Touya’s nosy classmates, a part-time fortune teller, and a cantankerous old hag, Touya dives into the murky underbelly of Soma Lux, where the realities have begun to bleed together between his world and the next. 

That's all for now! >:3 Here's to an amazing 2024! (also my actual blog is a mess right now please do not mind it ksjndfskfn)

[blackautmedia]

Tears of the Kingdom and the Orientalism of the Mummy - Dehydrated Ganon

Plenty have talked about the portrayal of Ganon and the problems with both him and the Gerudo as a whole. I haven't seen as much talk about dehydrated Ganon specifically and wanted to share some of what I'm aware of.

TotK in many ways can be read with the number of plot points it lifts from classic mummy films, which in turn means it also picked up all the racial history and tropes that come with that.

Dehydrated Ganon and Phantom Ganon are mummies. He's explicitly referred to as such several times in the game and the game's opening relies on a number of classic mummy movie tropes in its presentation as introducing a corpse-like Ganon.

Here's an excerpt from the The Mummy On Screen: Orientalism and Monstrosity in Horror Cinema.

Male archaeologists, heroic adventurers and female heroines are all drawn to enigmatic corpses and/or racial ‘Others’, being variously hypnotized, transformed, romanced, coerced and/or transported away from their humdrum lives, sometimes through time to re-experience an ancient past in which they once lived, sometimes through space to Egypt where the monster stalks or seduces them.

Helen in The Mummy (1932) is a woman who succumbs not only to the influence of the Mummy but also to the lure of Egypt itself and its ancient ways that still hold sway.

 If one accepts Wood’s thesis, one can see the Mummy film as having a formidable formula, with the Orient serving as an effective site and its chief monster functioning as a potent medium for the release of the suppressed.

The game is built on Zelda being zipped to the past and her experiences in an ancient, mystical world and seeing the founding of Hyrule while Link is integrated into the resources left behind.

After Link and Zelda were drawn in by the Mummy's call to investigate beneath Hyrule following the rise in illnesses from the gloom.

Zelda is whisked away to ancient Hyrule where she spends time with her very heavily Native coded (which would need an entirely separate post on the tropes associated with that and the way the game uses Anti-Native tropes) Zonai pals.

She's in a rush to return home, but this new space also ends up being a big learning environment for her. She's exposed to this ancient and alluring culture that fascinates her and provides many of the wants and needs she expressed in BoTW.

She's given the supportive parents she's needed--a supportive father figure who explicitly supports her utilizing study to achieve her goals and a loving mother to teach her how to use her powers. She even gets a cool engineering/history auntie who shares a lot in common with her.

All of these things are stolen from Zelda because of the evil mummy.

The game makes great effort to play into the exoticized idea associated with the Zonai, right down to infusing Link and Zelda in their culture with Zelda given a new outfit, home, and lifestyle, and Link gifted with Rauru's power.

The Zonai in TotK are characterized less by their beliefs or the perspective of Mineru or Rauru and more framed in relation to the resources they provide others--the secret stones, the Zonai devices, the exotic, mysterious, ancient powers and knowledge, the zonaite you mine, Rauru's arm, etc.

That leads into another issue with how Tears reinforces the idea of Native extinction in how the Zonai are more characterized for the resources everyone is extracting from them rather than their actual peoples' thoughts and feelings and how that form of erasure harms real Native people outside of the fiction.

There's also the aspect of how the land and resources of these Native people are almost destined to fall into the hands of largely white, "civilized" Hyrule leaders with every other group serving under Hyrule's order geographically and narratively while the Zonai are people we only interact with in memories or as spirits.

The Orient until the second half of the nineteenth century had largely proven a fruitful terrain for colonial conquest and achievement for the British, but from the Indian Mutiny of 1857 towards the end of the century various military setbacks began to point worryingly to a decline in British power…In the aftermath of such events, rather than being perceived as ‘passive’, with ‘no capacity for violence’ (Mercer and Julien 1988: 108), the inhabitants of the Orient became more forbidding, a change in perspective reflected in the literature of the period that simultaneously portrayed anxiety concerning Britain’s own newfound sense of vulnerability.

Richard Marsh’s The Beetle...depicted Egypt as every bit as capable as Transylvania of bringing a primitive threat to the civilized West.

As Marsh’s novel exemplifies, the legacy of the ancient Egyptians had transformed over the course of the nineteenth century from one that bestowed valuable knowledge into one that offered secrets best left unearthed, being increasingly tainted as the years unfolded through its association ‘with the mysterious and supernatural, the questionable and disreputable’.

Mummy films rely very heavily on presenting the "other" as an exotic and almost tempting place for the civilized white protagonists to find and change themselves.

They also acted as a way to depict non-white people to bypass several censorship restrictions in earlier decades, so you often see them framed as romance films with an emphasis on a commentary about that dangerous, tempting allure of the mummy being used as a commentary on interracial relationships and intermingling of the civilized and uncivilized with a white gaze in mind.

Many mummy films also would utilize racial coding to characterize the mummy as hostile, dangerous, tempting or seductive in relation to the white, civilized character, something done with several other movie monsters like Dracula, King Kong, etc.

No matter the Zelda game, the structure ends up being largely the same with Ganon in that Hyrule or wherever is shown to be peaceful until the "evil man of the desert" invaded and defiled their space with his wickedness and disrupting the order of the gods and the status quo.

Dehydrated Ganon specifically is another extension in linking Ganon and his wickedness and evil to his heritage and status as a SWANA-coded character, in a lot of using tropes associated with Black people, etc.

He's not just evil because he's a selfish overlord, he's an evil "other" Middle Easterner invading the pure and peaceful environment the game made the effort to set up, and his constant presence looms in the game in how his corpse-like mummy servant is busy carrying out his will.

The Mummy and Nubian were a particularly suitable pairing considering contemporaneous racial stereotyping...Elizabeth Young years later highlighted others, identifying the black ‘brute’ as a stereotype that ‘carried particular force’ in 1930s cinema as ‘a monstrous beast.

Cultural attitudes towards African Americans manifestly became intertwined with contemporary ones concerning those of North African Egyptian Mummies in this version of the play.

In addition to Zelda being taken to the ancient past, we have the element of Ganon stalking and scheming to his rise to power in how he defiles the sanctity of ancient Hyrule continuing in the pattern of referring to him as the "man of the desert," another means of codifying Ganon as inherently evil by way of his heritage. There's almost constant reference to his home, the desert and anything else associated with othering him.

Ganon has previously used religious iconography in how the Gerudo crest used to very closely resemble the symbol of Islam.

He also uses racial coding associated with antisemitism in how he's a green-skinned, hook nosed magic-wielder.

There's Anti-Black imagery in his muscularity and chains and how he devolves into a mindless, savage brute.

There's all the decades of sentiments toward SWANA people wrapped up in him and the mummy is a continuation of that in how dehydrated Ganon is presented as a stalking, corrupting presence who defiles the sanctity and draws the civilized white protagonists in with his tempting allure. Phantom Ganon is a looming threat who can arise out of nowhere.

I know dehydrated Ganon is the same dude as regular Ganon, but I do think there's an extra element to discuss in how Tears uses decades of old mummy horror and the racial coding that comes with that to further the idea that Ganon is an evil SWANA man who needs to be feared and eradicated.

[moonshynecybin]

YESSSSSSS you see the visionnnn

Like I love oxleybom for their deep love of the sport and knowledge of the culture and explaining all the technicalities and how they perceive the narrative. but sometimes I remember these are middle aged men longing for the glory days of the 80s and the utter shambles they would be in for not anticipating this. Mat having been in the paddock all these years, visited vale in his club tax evasion flat (def stocked w poppers) absolutely tearrrringgg his proverbial hair out that he was so blind. 

I think they would rise to the occasion in spinning this into their motorbike yarns but you just knowwwwwww that would be a mindfuck for them.  

Part of their journey recontextulising vale/Marc rivalry has to be a fraught realisation that they’ve labelled the only two (known) gay people in MotoGP grinning assassins & they have to release an emergency statement that they don’t think all gay people at killers, just these two, and that they support gay killer same sex love too ❤️

just the comedy of the sporting world reeeeeling from rosquez announcement is my fave campy bedtime delusion (homophobia doesn’t exist.) like MotoGP accounts overcompensating w the rainbowwashing, Insta captions like“Hi Gay 😃 Joan Mir says the Honda RC213V's Unrideable! Speaks on new contract extension for 2 years” 

i just think it would be really funny in the sense that. okay so as a journalist you are kind of being paid to explain this sport to people in a way that captures their interest. this can be done on the technical side (rules, tires, machinery, braking) ORRRR the human side (narrative, character, plot). a good journalist can usually balance these factors and write about them in such a way that a layman can access them and be. well entertained ! it’s an entertainment game here. so when we look at how these prevailing narratives are made in sport, we often have to take a look at what the journos report on and how they do it. of course as fans we can draw out own conclusions from the words directly out of these athletes mouths, but it’s the reporters who ask the questions that create those narratives, and then work to shape them into something cohesive. stories are allowed to live and allowed to die through the press corp writ large. it’s on them.

all this to SAY. that if the largest plot line between the two biggest stars in motogp that stretches back almost a DECADE in one of the most absurdly hypermasculine sports in the WORLD was suddenly revealed to be a torrid gay DIVORCE. i don’t know if these guys would know how to ACT. i mean i suspect their status as content peddlers would immediately become VERY apparent but watching them have to. essentially reshape their perceptions around these events as something that is NOT entirely based in sporting challenges/professional competition but also as something deeply personal that happened to these guys’ RELATIONSHIP (which paddock pass pod gets at in their 2015 restrospective but doesn’t like. commit to, bc they are primarily dealing with the sporting side. like they are like WOW marc and vale only seem concerned with each other not the championship. weird.) would be interesting ! so often the rosquez divorce is talked about as something that happened entirely on the track and. well i don’t get the sense marc and vale really entirely feel that way AT ALL

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Hello Lady Raven! How do you do? I hope you're having a good day.

I was looking stalking at your blog when I saw your post which contained a world map of the game. This made me really curious: what informations do we have about the countries, kingdoms and other lands that appear in the map? Specially the Land of Dawning, Sunshine Lands and Kingdom of Heroes. Does the world of Twist have other lands that do not appear in the map? Are the shaftlands some sort of Twist Europe (as in; a bunch of countries that signed a agreement to be sort of unified)? And what is that big empty land north of the shaftlands?

I'm really curious about the countries and their cultures in the Twist world, I feel like we don't really have a lot of info on them, and as someone that really loves geography and history, that makes me a bit sad 😂.

I hope you're healthy, thank you for your time!

Oh, the map from this post?

Hello, hello!

Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m able to compile ALL lore we have on all available countries, cities, and towns into a single post (especially when there’s a lot of other questions that have also been posed + need answering in your ask). That’s way too large of a scope for a single post. I did compile lots of food/related lore here if you want to take a look, as I find the food and food customs in a region say a lot about its culture and history. (Plus, I’m just very interested in food!)

If you’re curious about each location, you can find the bulk of information yourself in related hometown events—however, tons of lore tidbits are also dropped in non-hometown events (ex: Floyd talks about land training camp in the second beans day event), voice lines (ex: Dorm Uniform Leona says that in his home land, scars are seen as signs of bravery), and vignettes (ex: In Jade’s School Uniform vignette, Kalim talks about how serving very sweet tea is a luxurious way to welcome guests to your home in the Scalding Sands). There’s lots out there if you’re willing to search for it!!

Please be aware that we haven’t visited most of the areas on the map, so we are still missing a lot of information on them. The Land of Dawning, Sunshine Lands, and the Kingdom of Heroes are particularly lacking in information. They’ve been mentioned offhandedly every so often. Platinum Jacket vignettes feature the boys visiting the National Museum of Art in the Land of Dawning, and there are sometimes bits of lore which mention these lands. The Mermaid Princess that strengthened the bond between merpeople and humans married a prince from the Sunshine Lands, I believe. In his Broomquet card, Idia says there is a place called “Hydra Valley” in the Kingdom of Heroes (which probably is a reference to the place Hercules defeated the hydra at). Finally, Crowley went with Idia’s parents to the Land of Dawning with to discuss important matters yet to be explained to us. The Land of Dawning is also referenced in a call for evacuation in book 7.

The map you see above is definitely incomplete. We don’t see several vital spots marked even though we’ve visited them: the City of Flowers/Fleur City, the Scalding Sands (and Silk City), Clock Town, Fairest City, the Land of Swords, Dawn City, and more. Heck, the continent that contains Briar Valley isn’t even labeled but somehow Briar Valley itself is. We cannot tell if this is even the entire world map or just a portion of it, since Lilia describes “a land to the east”/the Land of the Crimson Long, but the most eastward locations depicted seem to be the Queendom and the Afterglow Savanna. I definitely feel like there has to be more to it than what we currently see.

I would caution against saying that “[TWST location] = irl location” as even though there are oftentimes strong parallels or inspirations drawn between the two, they shouldn’t be conflated for one another. TWST often forms cultures of its own or borrows from many inspirations to create these places and to present them to us. Comparisons can be made, but let’s remain cautious to not veer too much into that since there’s no clear 1:1. For example, the Shaftlands could be interpreted as “twisted Europe”, but not really because the area often considered “twisted Britain” (which is a part of Europe) is seemingly separated and located on the other side of the map. And then you notice that this “twisted Britain” has a collection of islands that very much resembles irl Japan, an eastern country. So… in essence, sure, the City of Flowers/Fleur City resembles Paris, Fairest City feels very European and German, and Harveston is a blend of Nordic inspirations, but at the end of the day, they’re their own thing.

We don’t know what the land right above the Shaftlands is as of right now. For all we know, it could just be even more of the Shaftlands since the country seems to be a large expanse of land with variable weather depending on the region.

[olderthannetfic]

People going on about how they're representing this whole Greek thing are missing that that one anon had a pretty good point about how "cultural appropriation" rhetoric gets misused. People do really need to be more specific about what the issue is, or it very easily turns into basically just arguing for cultural segregation. I've seen that happen numerous times on this website over the years. I've seen people argue that it's appropriative to do something like *learn about* another culture or learn its language. I think it's really important for people to keep an eye on what are the actual issues with cultural appropriation (mostly about exploitation and colonialism) and not just the idea that cultural mixing is bad, or that being interested in a culture that isn't your own is bad. Because the truth is, whether you intend this or not, if you're just arguing that everyone should only keep to the culture of their ethnicity or their place of origin or both, then you're basically in agreement with white supremacists. It's not that cultures mixing is bad; most culture is a result of some mixture. It's when it's done in a way that's exploitative and/or disrespectful: like reducing sacred symbols like indigenous war bonnets to a fashion accessory, or incorporating the art of another culture into your own art without giving credit and without paying anyone from that culture who taught you or added to your work.

FTR, I don't think you can "appropriate" ancient mythologies. I think people are getting twisted around though because there is a genuine history of colonial exploitation of Greek artifacts by colonial powers to fill their museums, as with the Elgin marbles. I do think it's still a good idea to be properly informed about them, regardless, at the very least because those make for the more interesting retellings. For all that people (who IME, largely haven't read it, I'd love to hear if people who have read it disagree though) rag on Song of Achilles, I actually thought it was a pretty good example of a retelling because the author, who has an educational background in mythology, takes great pains to try to recreate the society and cultural norms of Greece at that time rather than sugarcoat it. Achilles may be even more of a jerk than he was in the original Iliad, tbh. It's telling to me that the author's other books that are less "shippy" don't have as negative of a reputation on here in that regard as Song of Achilles, despite being fairly similar, and it makes me wonder how much of that is because it's popular among "fujoshi fandom" so people just assume it MUST be shallow and fandomified, and I was super shocked at how much it really wasn't that at all. As well as I saw that a lot of people expecting something more like that were disappointed by all the period-accurate misogyny and so on.

Which brings me to another point: another reason I'm skeptical of a lot of this discourse is that it seems like often it's more of a high-culture, low-culture thing. A thing that is popular with M/M fanfic writers can't POSSIBLY be doing it right. A thing that is a popular video game or Tony-winning Broadway musical that is popular with the fandoms for those things, can't possibly be accurate. And I get that a lot of that is because a lot of populist things that took from Greek mythology have been inaccurate (Disney's Hercules, for instance) but if you're going to criticize the accuracy of something, I think it is worth engaging with the original work and what it actually does rather than just assuming It's Popular It Must Suck. It feels like a lot of this turns into lording that you were into it before X over others. And being aware that Tumblr Recommendations often do a poor job of actually giving you a good idea of what the work is really like.

As well as, of course, asking yourself - as we should with any sort of historical inaccuracy etc. - if the inaccuracy was deliberate or not. Sometimes people are not really telling that story in order to tell the most accurate version of something but to make a different kind of point, and so the changes might be deliberate. I would argue this is true with something like Hadestown.

That doesn't mean you can't still dislike it for that reason, of course. I know a lot of classical musicians who dislike the movie Amadeus for being so inaccurate about Mozart's and Salieri's lives. I like it despite that because I think the point it is trying to make is stronger for not sticking to the historical fact. I just wish more people did know the historical fact, though.

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One would think the "Is it bad if I learn to cook Thai food?" thing was a strawman... but I've seen it in the wild far too many times.