#also America having a family outside Arthur and Matt is really makes sense to me

[ameliafuckinjones]

The thought of Amelia/Alfred declaring independence and then being immediately thrust into parenthood appeals to me. Imagine if you will shortly after the Revolution the emergence of State Personifications coming about with each admission to the Union (Delaware was the first one). Whether they appear miraculously or are birthed via (unwilling) parthenogenesis (which I prefer) the bottom line is that suddenly America has all these kids to take care of, all of who grow up just as fast as America did. Regardless of how they came to be or how fast they grow, America loves them with his/her whole being and creates a system in which they are always protected and accounted for by the larger government. America promises to be there for them the way England never was.

Then fast forward to the Civil War, and America is waging a bloody war against half of her/his children that see hundreds of thousands of their people dead. Brother against brother, father against son, cousin against cousin. And each secession feels like a small death because they are part of America just as much as America is a part of them, practically inseparable, or at least America thought so. To add even more complexity, not all of America's children were white or white-passing. America being neglected because s/he was to far away or denied certain rights for not being British enough was bad on its own, but imagine your parent not being able to claim you or fully protect you or give you basic human rights without public/social/political backlash because your skin is darker and you're legal property in half the country. Or imagine having powerful politicians who want to keep people who look like your children in bondage and you have to compromise with them to keep the Union whole, knowing the opinions they would have if they even knew you had children who were black (some of them do know and make sure their opinions are known). Or your other children starting a war to selfishly keep this system in place at the expense of their black siblings. The relationship between America and his/her children, with America acting as both the federal government that protects the states as well as the greater whole that represents the Union and the states as the children, each an extension of America, an integral part of America's being, pushing back against the sometimes overbearing hovering of their parent, impeding on states rights (whether they believe America is in the right or not) and protecting others and sometimes America will helplessly throw his/her hands in the air and say "fine, ill let YOU decide on this issue because I am not a dictator, despite what some of you like to think, but if you fuck up im stepping in" because America doesn't want to make the same mistakes England made in the past but then America has to deal with the negative consequences of her/his children's actions when they do something unbelievably stupid while trying not to seem like a fire-breathing tyrant. Which, they end up thinking anyway, regardless if America wasn't entirely in the wrong about butting in and taking hold of the situation before it escalated. The negative reaction only serves to make America step away AGAIN so as to not seem completely authoritarian in their eyes. It's a never-ending cycle. Not to mention the complex relationships the states have with each other, especially the southern states among themselves and the southern vs northern states rivalry.

Edit:

also whenever America takes his/her eyes off the states for 1mili second to see what the rest of the world is up to (hopefully not another world war) while usually being like 'back off, geeze! 🤬' America's children immediately switch to 'how come you're not paying attention to ME instead 🥺 you always focus on the world instead of ME 😢'

#i have a lot of thoughts about the states #hetalia #aph america #aph states #hetalia civil war #i can only imagine Thanksgiving at the Jones family estate 😭 #also America having a family outside Arthur and Matt is really makes sense to me #why else would America be so absorbed with itself if not because of its over dramatic children known as the states??? #not even England and Canada and the entire world can draw America's attention away from them #and if for a moment America steps away to bang a few heads together America immediately steps right back to hover over its children #like an overprotective mama eagle #and America totally doesn't have favorites!!! (its New York California Louisiana Florida the Man and Texas the Problem Child in that order) #the other states obviously know the main favs are NY CA FL and TX but they're always surprised when they realize its also Louisiana #and that's because Louisiana reminds America of France with its unique and charming American Franco hybrid culture #also as the years go by America begins to understand a few things about England a LOT more #still feels s/he does the parenting thing better (debatable but not entirely unfounded)

[entergamingxp]

Five of the Best: Snow • Eurogamer.net

Holy macaroni it’s the final Five of the Best of the year! This is our weekly series where we sprinkle some love on the overlooked parts of games. We’ve talked about potions, caves, hands, shops, hubs, maps, mountains and many more. There’s a Five of the Best archive if you fancy a butcher’s.

Snow! I wonder about snow. Hardly any falls where I live so whenever it does, everyone gets very excited for it. The ugly grey concrete we see every day is hidden under a fluffy white blanket, as if to say, “Don’t worry about all that stuff, unless of course you walk into it, but go out and do something else instead. Be with friends! Be with family! The trains don’t bloody work anyway.” So the country grinds to a halt and we all rush outside to slide down hills on sledges, baking trays, dustbin lids, plastic bags – anything we can find. There’s no thought for safety as people plummet down, careering into people walking up – I once saw someone perform a whole impromptu somersault – and we all return home at the end of the day with bruises and a spot of hypothermia. It’s a great day out.

So when I see snow in a video game, the same butterflies of excitement flutter around inside me. But I wonder, is it the same for those of you who live where it snows a lot? You must see so much you are sick of the sight of it. Do you like snow in games or does it give you nightmares? Do let me know!

Nice specs. Ahead of his time, really.

Fortnite

Fortnite’s always had a bit of Animal Crossing swirling around in its DNA, so it’s no surprise, really, that it’s so very good at winter. First your breath starts to mist in the air, and then one day you wake up and snow has fallen across the map. Lovely snow that crunches underfoot and that makes the island new again.

This island is always changing, but there’s a purity to the fall of snow that makes it very special. It’s not snowing because there’s a movie tie-in looming or because everyone’s about to get extra XP. It’s snowing because it’s winter. Lovely.

Steep

This is a sports game with an unparalleled sense of place. I don’t remember the events or the moves and I struggle to recall all of the different winter activities you can switch between. What I remember is the mountain, the glorious scale and beauty of it, and the snow, powdery one minute, thick and crunchy the next, giving way to jutting spars of ice when you reach lower expanses.

Steep grabs you. You drop in for five minutes and end up spending an hour or two. And it’s the snow that keeps you there, I think: beckoning you forward, making the landscape strange and exciting and romantic.

Journey

It’s hard to think of Journey without thinking of sand, with those rounded dunes directing the eye and giving each minute or two a sense of occasion as you crest them and see what’s next.

But the tail end of the game – once you’re approaching the summit of the game’s mountain – belongs to snow. And the snow is terrifying, whirling in and forming a sort of granular wall that you have to battle against. It’s not a battle you can ultimately win, either – at least not in the traditional sense. Everybody who plays Journey remembers that moment of giving up, I think, that moment of collapsing in the drifts. How cold it still feels!

Red Dead Redemption 2

Forget horse testicles, the snow in Red Dead Redemption 2 is a-maz-ing. You leave footsteps as you crunch through it and plough furrows as you wade through piles thigh high. It’s so satisfying.

But it’s more than that, too – more than set dressing. The snow is almost a character. It’s the wilds, alive, and the game is reminding you how inhospitable and impassable a place like North America can be. There’s even a quest early on, in the survive-the-winter part of the game, where you see exactly what happens to a person like you who loses their horse in weather like this – which they can easily do because of unseen holes or dangers in the snow. A person like you gets stranded and freezes and dies.

Without your horse, Arthur Morgan, you ain’t much.

This video is absolutely incredible! It’s Arthur playing in the snow while stirring, romantic music plays. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

Long Dark

The Long Dark doesn’t have the most realistic snow (its stylised low-poly aesthetic somewhat puts pay to that), but it certainly has presence. It’s picturesque, yes, but it’s also an ever-present force of hostility, draining your life force through plummeting body temperatures and sodden clothes. And there’s never an escape; you’ll hear it in the relentless crunch of snow underfoot as you roam the unforgiving Canadian wilderness, see it in the staccato clouds of your own breath in the biting, post-apocalyptic air.

It’s there in the languid dance of snowflakes in the morning light, and there as the weather turns, whipped into howling wall of fog and ice. And even the seeming safety of indoors can’t mask its chill presence for long; snow drifts through broken windowpanes as you huddle against the dying embers of a makeshift fire, while the muffled rattle and bang of the elements serve as a constant reminder that your end is as inevitable as the cold, no matter how much you fight, no matter how much you run.

Matt Wales

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2019/12/five-of-the-best-snow-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=five-of-the-best-snow-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net