#but they're cool and thematic

[lands-of-fantasy]

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

[cloudydayjoy]

Duke Dominion here to make life worse for everyone and capture some sick footage for her metal music videos while she wrecks planets

Her helmet has a camera lens.

[pixelsjoy]

Me playing Tears of the Kingdom: As much as I miss the champions, it makes sense they're not mentioned much. It's been a hundred years since they died. Even if they survived the Calamity, most of them would probably be dead at this point. The only exception being Mipha, who would have been the only one that would still be alive if she survived the calamity due to her age. The reason they're still remembered so much in Breath of the Wild is because the Divine Beasts, one of the last remaining connections to them, are still active and looming in Hyrule. Impa also said that their spirits feel uneasy knowing their task of defeating the Calamity wasn't done. They were at peace when the Calamity was defeated and passed on. They're not brought up from that point on because them and their era are over and can be laid to rest.

Also me playing Tears of the Kingdom: - holding back tears - Damn I miss the champions

[whale-in-that-case]

I judge the inherent quality of elder scrolls protagonist OCs by how much their very being pisses off and baffles other major players in their respective storyline. Like yeah a Nord Dragonborn is fun but but have you considered a nonbinary Imperial tax collector? Wouldn't your Hero of Kvatch be better if she was a buffy Orc lady whose dream is to become a famous cook? The Nerevarine has a headstart in this because their very existence is a pain in the ass of multiple deities who wish to hunt them down for fun and profit but why not have her be a nun of the Divines in addition? And if you really want a Dunmer for the themes or whatever he must at least be a cringefail botanist sorry i don't make the rules.

[ccarrot]

Consider the sex appeal and very magic power of chuuya + a badass eyepatch.

[nine-fingered-entity]

Hunter x Hunter arc progression:

competition/training arc

meet the family

training arc

combo revenge quest/fundraising/mafia arc

"enter a videogame" arc (training arc)

the horrors of humanity

[cantolopejeevas]

I'm nearing the end of my first run of Baldur's Gate 3, so here's a little ship meme thing with my first Tav and my first Romance! They're God's most special little princesses, for better or for worse, lol

Art without the meme under the cut!

[icharchivist]

But honestly, Maleagant's speech moved me to tears. Just. Being subjected to all of that horror just because of the way you were born. Being ostracized and hated and treated as less than human just because of the way you are... As a LGBTQ person, that hits close to home. That's really relevant in today's times and I'm glad the subject matter was treated with respect and they weren't made out to be the villains because they retaliated against the oppressive system. It was just really good. cries

honestly yeah, same. it genuinely messed me up.

i don't really talk about it on here but hhh my Mom is of Jewish and French&Algerian descent, and while she didn't pass down anything culturally speaking (she considers herself atheist and she did everything in her life to conceal our heritage, so i don't know as many cultural stuff that isn't just. the Trauma:tm: or just things my mom unconsciously passed down), the conversation, especially, about how much our family had lost to the holocaust when her family lived in France, and then to the Algerian war after they moved there have been.... a lot. this is something we talk about a lot.

like. i think it's why i also kinda flew off the handle a little at receiving dick jokes out of it because to me it's just. Yeah. Yeah i those are conversations that hit extremely deep especially in term of generational trauma, and, of course, current politics as well.

I think it's also like. something i'm kinda eyeing Lancelot about in case his Valiant heritage ever happen to be relevant. Because i know i've seen people brush it off like it doesn't matter because Lancelot doesn't seem to feel anything with the dragons around him or not but there's... definitely something to be had with a heritage to a culture you weren't taught anything about and yet still the ghost of knowing it could fall down on you at anytime.

I think it's really hard to find a story that really talk about genocide while also being like. fair to the victims. More often than not fantasy stories in particular end up falling into the trap of saying that there was a reason it happened, actually, or that well it's from the past you can't punish the people now :/ or stuff like that and it's. wehh.

Personally, it made me think especially about the Ainu people in Japan. I am not really well versed on the topic, but there was basically a whole genocide on the Indigenous people of Hokkaido, and i know in recent years, Japan has been trying to take some lands that belonged to the Ainu in order to build in some themeparks, and when the Ainu survivors tried to make their plea heard and have Japan acknowledge their warcrimes, the government denied it fully. (and it's not to mention how Koreans have been asking for the past decades for Japan to recognize their warcrimes and the gov still fully in pure denial it even happened. which is a similar topic that is worth mentioning)

in the past few years Japan has been under fire for their complete refusal to address the genocides and warcrimes they had commited, and there's been a really big public outcry around the world about the state denial going on and the way it also transcribe on how those genocides are... well... /not/ taught.

so i do think it's like, extremely relevant to Japanese politics. I even saw a seiyuu mention how topical this event is. This is an event that directly criticize the current Japanese policy of constant denial and stuff.

and, obviously, it can apply to any other situation where rights are denied to people for various reasons, which is extremely relevant all around the world because of the rise of fascism and the way most governments these days are completely lost in the history revisionism sauce, and it's genuinely alarming. Look at any country's politics and all of them are trying to rewrite history in some way and it's sickening.

I personally immediately connected to it because, on top of my history awareness, it's just like. conversations i regularly have with my mom when we discuss our family's past. It stung extremely close from home. even if i'm also LGBT+ this was where my thoughts immediately went.

but therefore, it's something that applies to any experiences of oppressed people who are currently having their history erased by fascist government that are trying to get rid of "the undesirable"

i genuinely think granblue dealt with the topic with a lot of grace, and Maleagant genuinely managed to pass down the politics, the pain, the history, the old hurt as well as the new hurt, just so well.

it really struck a cord with me. It was really well done.

so yeah feeling you fully on this one friend.

I think this event was pretty graceful at addressing this topic while also really anchoring itself as anti-fascist and it was honestly a breath of fresh air.

[honestlyvan]

(Crossposted from DW)

I know this, also, is not really what they’re thematically about, but along with Ouroboros^2, I would have liked it a lot if there had been some kind of... developing dynamic between the two Ouroboros forms. As it is, the Interlink forms are still very strongly divided based on dominance, each form having the Glowing Eye Of Hemisphere Priority, and being colour-coded to match their kingdom. The rigid division is maintained throughout the plot even though we see mutual influence between the pairs in the character development side.

I also really felt like the gameplay mechanics weren’t explored to their full potential, with Interlinks being unable to participate in Chain Attacks and not having fusion arts of their own.

It would have been nice to see some exploration of what that sort of intimacy would actually do to a relationship. It would have been cool seeing them take over each other’s Ouroboros forms, have stronger mechanical rewards for chaining arts between the two forms, maybe even have the differences start blurring until the Interlink is more of a mixture of the two features, with the voiceblending matching the ambiguity of who’s in the driver’s seat.

Basically, I wish the game had made good on the idea that they’re not Kevesi Ouroboroses, nor Agnian Ouroboroses, but rather a secret third thing.

[tyrian-sexual]

the evil crew rocking on up to the gate

[fiercest-eigengrau-skies]

i love love love the duology of characters

wip under cut!

composed! how she normally looks (technically an illusion)

feral! off the shits! is no longer holding up the illusion

[rivilu]

Sighh Another day of needing to make up fey related stupids about my characters myself because they're never basegame anywhere

[paper-mario-wiki]

ok but wait. is the Hamlet thing real

Yeah! It's a super interesting paper on ethnocentrism and an argument against the idea of "universal values".

Essentially what happened is an anthropologist went to spend time writing an ethnography on a rural tribe in the Indian Bush called the Tiv. During her stay she told them the story of Hamlet, and in doing so it made clear the very glaring differences in the culture of the tribe vs the culture of Europe through their interpretations of events.

I'm sure you've heard of Translators vs. Localizers right? A translator tells you what is said, and a localizer takes the information and changes it to fit a different culture.

We can see that kind of early on in the article when, to make the story understandable at all to the tribe, she has to change nouns around so that there's no lost info while still maintaining the core of the story.

Later on it greatly affects not only the tangible aspects of the story, but also the thematic meaning behind the actions each character takes.

And it culminates in the thesis statement: most people around the world, no matter where they're from, are predisposed to seeing their perspective as universal.

It's a super cool essay.

If you'd like to read it, it's called "Shakespeare in the Bush: Diversity or Universality?"

[wileycap]

So, uh, Netflix Avatar, huh? Yeah. I guess I'll make a really long post about it because ATLA brainrot has is a cornerstone of my personality at this point.

So.

It's okay. B, maybe a C+.

That's it.

Now for the spoilers:

The biggest issue with the Netflix version is the pacing. Scenes come out of nowhere and many of the episodes are disjointed. Example: Aang escaping from Zuko's ship. We see him getting the key and going "aha!", and in the next scene he's in Zuko's room. And then he just runs out, no fun acrobatics or fights, and immediately they go to the Southern Air Temple where he sees Gyatso's corpse, goes into the Avatar state, and then sees Gyatso being really cheesy, comes out of it, and resolves that conflict. Nothing seems to lead into anything. The characters don't get to breathe.

The show's worst mistake (aside from Iroh fucking murdering Zhao) is its' first one: they start in the past. Instead of immediately introducing us to our main characters and dropping us into a world where we have a perfect dynamic where Aang doesn't know the current state of the world and Katara and Sokka don't know about the past, thus allowing for seamless and organic worldbuilding and exposition, they just... tell us. "Hey, this is what happened, ok, time for Aang!" There's no mystery, no intrigue, just a stream of information being shoved down the audience's throats and then onto the next set piece.

The visuals are for the most part great, but like with most Netflix productions, they just don't have great art direction. It feels like a video game cinematic, where everything is meant to be Maximum Cool - and none of the environments get to breathe. It's like they have tight indoor sets (with some great set design) and then they have a bunch of trailer shots. It's oozing with a kind of very superficial love.

Netflix still doesn't know how to do lighting, and with how disjointed the scenes are, the locations end up feeling like a parade of sets rather than actual cities or forests or temples. As for the costumes, Netflix still doesn't know how to do costumes that look like they're meant to be actually worn, so many of the characters seem weirdly uncomfortable, like they're afraid of creasing their pristine costumes.

The acting is decent to good, for the most part. I can't tell if the weaker moments come down to the actors or the direction and editing, but if I had to guess, I'd say the latter. Iroh and Katara are the weakest, Sokka is the most consistent, Zuko hits the mark most of the time, and Aang is okay. I liked Suki (though... she was weirdly horny? Like?) but Yue just fell kind of flat.

The tight fight choreography of the original is replaced with a bunch of spinny moves and Marvel fighting, though there are some moments of good choreography, like the Agni Kai between Ozai and Zuko (there's a million things I could say about how bad it was thematically, but this post is overly long already.) There's an actually hilarious moment in the first episode when Zuko is shooting down Aang, and he does jazz hands to charge up his attack.

Then there's the characters. Everybody feels very static - Zuko especially gets to have very little agency. A great example of that is the scene in which Iroh tells Lieutenant Jee the story of Zuko's scar.

In the original, it's a very intimate affair, and he doesn't lead the crew into any conclusions. Here, Iroh straight up tells the crew "you are the 41st, he saved your lives" and then the crew shows Zuko some love. A nice moment, but it feels unearned, when contrasted with the perfection of The Storm. In The Storm, Zuko's words and actions directly contradict each other, and Iroh's story gives the crew (and the audience) context as to why, which makes Zuko a compelling character. We get to piece it out along with them. Here - Iroh just flat out says it. He just says it, multiple times, to hammer in the point that hey, Zuko is Good Actually.

And then there's Iroh. You remember the kindly but powerful man who you can see gently nudging Zuko to his own conclusions? No, he's a pretty insecure dude who just tells Zuko that his daddy doesn't love him a lot and then he kills Zhao. Yeah. Iroh just plain kills Zhao dead. Why?

Iroh's characterization also makes Zuko come off as dumb - not just clueless and deluded, no, actually stupid. He constantly gets told that Iroh loves him and his dad doesn't, and he doesn't have any good answers for that, so he just... keeps on keeping on, I guess? This version of Zuko isn't conflicted and willfully ignorant like the OG, he's just... kind of stupid. He's not very compelling.

In the original, Zuko is well aware of Azula's status as the golden child. It motivates him - he twists it around to mean that he, through constant struggle, can become even stronger than her, than anyone. Here, Zhao tells him that "no, ur dad likes her better tee hee" and it's presented as some kind of a revelation. And then Iroh kills Zhao. I'm sorry I keep bringing that up, but it's just such an unforgiveable thematic fuckup that I have to. In the original, Zhao falls victim to his hubris, and Zuko gets to demonstrate his underlying compassion and nobility when he offers his hand to Zhao. Then we get some ambiguity in Zhao: does he refuse Zuko's hand because of his pride, or is it his final honorable action to not drag Zuko down with him? A mix of both? It's a great ending to his character. Here, he tries to backstab Zuko and then Iroh, who just sort of stood off to the side for five minutes, goes "oh well, it's murderin' time :)"

They mess with the worldbuilding in ways that didn't really need to be messed with. The Ice Moon "brings the spirit world and the mortal world closer together"? Give me a break. That's something you made up, as opposed to the millenia of cultural relevance that the Solstice has. That's bad, guys. You replaced something real with something you just hastily made up. There's a lot of that. We DID NOT need any backstory for Koh, for one. And Katara and Sokka certainly didn't need to be captured by Koh. I could go on and on, but again, this post is already way too long.

It's, um, very disappointing. A lot of telling and not very much showing, and I feel like all of the characters just... sort of end up in the same place they started out in. I feel like we don't see any of the characters grow: they're just told over and over again how they need to grow and what they need to do.

To sum it up: Netflix Avatar is a mile wide, but an inch deep.

[alithographica]

As promised, welcome to

Fun biology in TOTK’s designs

I'll keep this post updated as I go through the game. I'm going to skip the more general identifiable things like apples (they're based on apples!) because there are tons of more unusual species to talk about.

Overall, the really interesting thing I've noticed is that many of the more unique Earth-based lifeforms in TOTK are super ancient, like predating dinosaurs ancient, which is a really cool tie-in to the overall time-hopping plotline of TOTK. Specifically, they're found in the new areas (caves, depths) while the surface remains a bit more normal.

(There will be no plot spoilers in this post, and also I've barely gotten into the plot because I'm spending all my time wandering, so shhh no spoilers in the tags for like a month please.)

Most recent additions: More lilies, irises, wild ginger, spiny bones, pigeon extravaganza, plus added some more real photo comparisons to old stuff.

PLANTS

Bryophytes my beloved. Bryophytes are among the earliest land plants, waaaay predating flowers and even seeds. In our world, they’re small by necessity—they lack vascular systems to help move water around like other plants, so they have to stay small and moist (hence their frequency in caves in TOTK—though they do need some light in real life.)

In TOTK they’re quite large and I think that’s very sexy and art directors should give us big bryophytes more often

Anyway, there are three types of bryophytes: mosses, liverworts, and hornworts. First image pair is a moss, second is a liverwort. Those red-brown and palm-tree-like structures, respectively, are their reproductive structures.

Real liverwort photo © Graham Calow, NatureSpotUK

Not yet spotted: Hornworts! Did they forget the third bryophyte sister :(

I think these next guys are probably lycopods (specifically club moss, which is not a true bryophyte moss, thanks science.) Very old, but vascular, so they're a bit more evolutionarily recent than bryophytes.

Real photo © Gloria Hanley Schoenholtz, virginiawildflowers

All the enormous curly-topped trees in the depths: Ferns! They curl like that until they unfurl. Another very old plant, though younger than bryophytes and lycopods.

Real photo via The Cosmonaut, Wikipedia

Brightblooms and some of the other giant plants in the depths: Possibly based on a cycad? Again, a very ancient plant lineage. At this point, evolutionarily, they've developed seeds—that giant cone in the center is called a strobilus, and that's the seed structure.

These next few plants are angiosperms, meaning they produce flowers. Angiosperms are a more recent evolutionary lineage—still many millions of years old, but it took a while to develop flowers as a reproductive tactic.

Sundelions (left) are a fun recolor of a lily. There are also some scenery lilies (right) in various places—there are yellow ones that spring up when you turn on a lightroot (which gives them literal and thematic connection to the surface) and several other varieties, including tiger lilies, throughout Hyrule. Fun note, the sundelions appear to only have 5 stamen, while other lilies in the game (correctly) have 6. Seems to be an intentional decision to make it a more distinct fantasy species.

These next ones are Peruvian lilies/Alstroemeria, just used as a scenery plant but a very fun inclusion. Fun fact, not true lilies, so they're not deadly to cats like true lilies are.

Real photo © Dick Culbert, Wikipedia

Plum trees: These are also called out as plum trees in game! There's a journal in Kakariko that refers to the plum orchards.

Okay I'm a little proud of figuring this one out. Bomb flowers blend a few botanical references. Superficially, the fruit resembles a type of seed pod called a capsule—specifically it's very similar to a poppy capsule. The little red thing in the center is a nice addition to resemble both a flower stigma (reproductive part that leads to the ovary) and a bomb fuse. Now, poppy capsules disperse their seeds via wind, but there are other plants who do explode their seeds outwards as a dispersal tactic! This is called explosive dehiscence.

There is one tree in particular called the sandbox tree, AKA monkey-no-climb or dynamite tree (yes, really.) Their capsules look more like little pumpkins, but are known for violently exploding when ripe—they can launch seeds at 150 miles per hour (250 km/h) and spread them roughly 200 feet (60 m) away. The photo comparison is a poppy capsule but you should def go look up dynamite tree videos.

Real photo © PommeGrenade, pixabay

Fire fruits (and the other elemental fruits) grow on the same generic plant that looks kind of like it has grape leaves. Fire fruits resemble a specific botanical thing too though—the black netting is a papery calyx (part of the flower) seen in a nightshade genus, Physalis (golden berries, tomatillos, etc.)

Real photo © Helene Rogers, Alamy

I think this stuff is an Asarum, AKA wild ginger. I was actually puzzling over it until I walked past some today and went HEY

Not sure of the exact species but they're very green and heart-shaped and love being dense and low to the ground.

Real photo via David Stang, Wikipedia

Irises: Love irises, one of my favorite flowers and words, very happy to see them in game.

MISCELLANEA

Cup lichen! Lichen is not a plant, but a symbiotic structure of an algae + a fungi. Cup lichen is just a type of lichen formation that has a kind of vertical cup-like structure.

Real photo via Bernard Spragg

Geology crossover! Go look carefully at some of the whiter walls in the depths—they look like they have fossils of coral and other undersea hard-structured animals in them.

ANIMALS

Sticky lizards: Based on Diplocaulus, a very early (now extinct) amphibian! Their skulls are wacky. We're not sure whether the long sides stood out separately or were smoothly connected to the body by skin flaps, but the separate arrow-like shape is the most popular rendition.

Deep firefly: Might be a stretch because it could just be a multi-winged fantasy critter, but I think the "wings" and antennae are very reminiscent of Anomalocaris, an ancient aquatic arthropod.

Update: Other folks in the notes/tags have pointed out that they're probably based on a cryptid that's especially popular in Japan: skyfish AKA rods! They show up in photos and people think they're an alien lifeform. In reality, they're an optical blur created when a lower quality video captures intermittent flaps of an insect's wings, leaving sort of a many-winged smear in the photo. Thanks to all who left info!

Little frox: Another stretch because it totally could just be a Hinox-like frog, but every time I see the little ones I can't help but think of like...Ichthyostega, Mastodonsaurus, Eryops, and other early amphibians. They were pretty hefty—little frox size or bigger—and had with little waddling legs. This is less "I think it's definitely this" and more "it makes me happy when I picture frox as primitive amphibians."

I haven't detailed many of the scenery animals around Hyrule because most are identifiable with the camera function—it'll tell you that a certain animal is a heron or porgy, for example, and those groups are real, even though the exact species is made up. But I think the pigeons are fun because they're all crested pigeons. Pink-necked green pigeons may have also been the inspiration for the color palettes on the wood and rainbow pigeons.

Both pigeon photos via JJ Harrison, Wikipedia

Spiny bones: Not a specific critter, but those spiny bones that you can find lying around Eldin Canyon are vertebrae—possibly from the same thing that left those big rib cages around? The top spike is the spinous process where muscles attach, the littler spikes on the side are the transverse and articular processes. The dark O in the center is the spinal cord.

Also I made a friend who finally recognizes my purpose in Hyrule.

That's all I've got for now! Will add more as I keep playing.

[river-taxbird]

The Endless Ocean games on Wii!

Endless Ocean 1 and 2 are an awesome duology of Wii games where you scuba dive, learn about fish, and collect treasure. The main gameplay loop consists of exploring vast underwater environments, find hidden treasure, and interact with fish to fill up a fish-dex. Playing it as a kid even encouraged me to try scuba diving!

They look fantastic too, it's like, still the PS2 era graphics, but it's on Wii so it is like, the peak of that. It has that charming low poly look I have seen a lot of people craving.

Most of your time in the game is just exploring and taking in the environment, but there is always something to find. When you interact with fish, you fill up a fish-dex, and you can learn real world facts about them. If you play it, you'll have so many fish facts to share with people. (When they're accurate, the games are old)

They even have a story with pretty good human characters. The environments are fantastical, you visit ancient ruins, ship graveyards, even sunken castles, but the human characters means it always stays grounded and has some pathos.

If you are into older games and you're looking for a shorter length game with low-fi graphics, gameplay that doesn't really resemble anything before or since, and to learn a bunch of cool fish facts, I can't recommend Endless Ocean enough. I think they might be kind of rare these days, but they work great, and are thematically appropriate, on Dolphin, and should work fine with a normal controller, especially Endless Ocean 2 as it had Classic Controller support.