Sideblog for my hyperfixation. Will mostly reblog here, but also share my own art/thoughts here. Updates/meta to "Verschlimmbessern" will also be posted here.
Avatar Frontiers of Pandora (official Infos/spoilers)
What we know from Ubisoft:
Release is on December 7th, 2023, it’ll be a single player ego game (though you have the option to play the story with 1 friend via online Co-Op), with customization options.
Story (spoilers)
We play as a Na’vi (so far probably female) who was abducted by the RDA and trained in combat to function as a soldier. The operation was dropped after the Hallelujah mountains, and the protagonist was put into cryo. 15 years later we awake as strangers to our own world, and set off to rediscover what it means to be Na’vi, to find our place among the people. But when the RDA returns, we must fight to protect our home.
Game Versions
Pre-order is avaiable from now on through the official website or Ubisoft, and comes in 3 versions for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S:
Standard - includes the basic game and pre-order bonus “Child of two Worlds” pack [skin]
Gold - includes the basic game, “Child of two Worlds”, and season pass with 2 DLCs, bonus missions, resistance banshee mount [skin], and resistance equipment pack [gear set + weapon
Ultimate - includes the basic game, “Child of two Worlds”, digital artbook, season pass, and pre-order bonus Sarentu inheritance cosmetic- and hunter pack [1 character/weapon/ikran skin + weapon arsenal & special weapon]
Pre-order games will show up in your Ubisoft library on release day, but can be downloaded in advance, DLC content will be automatically implemented upon release.
Under the cut are screenshots from the panel (12/06/2023)
getting close to 1 year of Frontiers, and the second DLC being right around the corner, I have one main issue/complaint about the game (which is so minor I'm surprised about myself):
Our Initial Ikran should have been customized along with our MC.
I'm talking a full editor with colour palletes and selectable patterns, just like we had for the Sarentu.
For me it was one, If Not The biggest immersion breakers to Play The cinematics with The Default skin until we choose Our own. It Just blew the Magic in that Moment.
I know why Ubisoft didn't went with a customizable Ikran in the First place (I'm Not going to Count the skins in the Shop).
HOWEVER they could've still included the Editor AND buyable skins.
Many would've still gotten those Packs even with an one of a Kind self selected skin.
But hey, when was the Last Time Ubisoft considered what the Players wanted
saw this prompt list floating around and wanted to give it a go. Given my current energy levels there's no way I'd be able to do nice colored images for daily prompts (probably won't manage to do it "daily" at all, but rather small batches like this), but I can at least try do some simple sketches.
a few people have mistaken Neynari for albino (she's actually leucistic) so here's a quick doodle of her with an actually albino Na'vi!
autistic infodumping about albinism vs. leucism under the cut (lots of cool animal pictures)
Albinism is a genetic condition that prevents the production of pigment, specifically melanin...which for mammals would be all pigment since mammals only produce melanins, but some types of reptiles, birds, etc. also have other types of pigments that are unaffected by albinism, which is why you can get, for example, an albino ball python that still has bright yellow markings. That's a tangent though, and yes I know that being aliens and all Na'vi skin is colored by "cyanin" not melanin but for simplicity's sake let's assume that the Pandoran equivalent to albinism affects cyanin the same as melanin in Earthen species, and since the Na'vi are clearly a mammalian equivalent let's assume that they don't have fancy extra types of pigment.
This lack of pigment production means that albino individuals end up with white hair/fur/feathers/scales and pinkish skin (it's unpigmented but will still appear pinkish instead of pure white because there's still red blood/muscle/etc. underneath. So, no, an albino Na'vi probably would not actually look like all those AI-generated "snow Na'vi" images floating around 😅)
It can also makes the eyes appear red or pink because without pigment in the way you can see the red of the blood vessels behind them. That said, depending on the opacity of the structures inside the eyes, this won't always be the case; if they are opaque enough you won't be able to see those blood vessels and the eyes will appear a pale gray or bluish.
Speaking of eyes, it turns out that the presence of melanin is actually pretty important in ocular development, so albino individuals often have impaired vision.
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Leucism, on the other hand, is an umbrella term that covers a range of conditions that cause partial lack of pigment in some way, shape, or form (as opposed to the total lack seen in albinism). Leucistic phenotypes can be quite varied depending on what's causing the pigment malfunction.
Some leucistic conditions cause a lack of pigment in hair/fur/feathers but not skin or eyes. This results in a white coat that is often mistaken for albino. The main way to distinguish this type of leucism from true albinism is to look at the eyes (and sometimes skin, like on the nose or pads). Leucistic conditions do not affect the eyes, so if the animal has a standard eye color for its species, it's leucistic, not albino. If it has red/pink or unusually pale grayish eyes along with pinkish skin, it's albino.
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Another leucism condition causes uneven distribution of pigment-producing cells, giving the individual normal coloration interspersed with unpigmented splotches. This condition is also known as piebald and can produce some really stunning patterns!
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Yet other leucism conditions reduce pigment production, but do not completely halt it. In other words, these individuals do produce pigments in all their integuments, just not as much as their standard-colored counterparts...so they retain most of their natural markings/patterning, but with a pale "washed-out" appearance (this is the type Neynari has!)
Might as well start with Neynari. Probably the most striking thing about her visually is that she has a condition called leucism, which causes an underproduction of pigment. In Neynari's case, her leucism is a random mutation that resulted in the malfunction of her pigment-producing cells, rather than a genetic trait inherited from her family. Needless to say the clan was quite surprised when she was born hrh
Speaking of which, Neynari was born in the Aranahe clan to a couple by the names of Seylana and Vontxu. She was an only child and has an especially close relationship with her mother. Her father, Vontxu, was very quiet and reserved; he rarely spoke and was difficult to get to know. Seylana found his soft demeanor charming, but while Neynari loves her father and knows he loves her too, his personality made it harder for her to bond with him, so she was never quite as close to him as she was to her mother.
Her pale skin makes her a poor hunter--prey can see her coming from a mile away--but she more than makes up for her lack of hunting ability with excellent craftsmanship. Growing up in the Aranahe clan she is of course well versed in weaving and dyeing, but her true passion is beading. She absolutely loves making beads of all varieties and incorporating them into her weaving projects. Vontxu is actually the one who first taught her how to make them, and it was one of the few activities she felt she and her father could bond over. She used to sit for hours in the weaver's den with him, not speaking, just carving beads to their hearts' content.
One day a group of Aranahe artisans, Neynari among them, set off on a trading route to visit the Anurai clan. Neynari knew the Anurai clan also had a reputation as skilled artisans and was keen to compare their crafts. It was on this trip that she met Se'txelu...
(rewinds tape recorder) alright let's talk about Se'txelu now hrh. I mentioned how Neynari has a condition called leucism. Well, Se'txelu has the opposite: melanism (or I guess for a Na'vi it would be called cyanism). So while Neynari's body underproduces pigment, Se'txelu's overproduces it. Unlike Neynari whose condition was a random mutation, Se'txelu's is one that I headcanon as a rare but established recessive trait among his clan, the Anurai (actually google tells me that irl melanism is dominant but shhhhhh this is imaginary alien version I can do what I want with it lol). This Pandoran version of the condition, in my headcanon, requires just the right combo of genes to show up in the phenotype, so while several of the Anurai are carriers of the gene(s), it's very rare to have more than two or three indivduals who actually display it living in the clan at the same time, and sometimes there are none at all. At the time of this "story" there are only two: Se'txelu himself, and the current tsahìk, Awlun (who happens to be his great-aunt.) Before them, the most recent person to have it was Se'txelu's great-grandfather.
The Anurai don't use human terms like melanism or cyanism of course; they refer to this condition as txonleng (shortened from txonä ta'leng, meaning "skin of night"), and because the dark color resembles the hide of the mighty palulukan which the Anurai canonically revere, it is generally believed that individuals born with txonleng are blessed by Eywa and destined to be legendary hunters, especially nocturnal hunters...which there may be a sliver of truth to, since they are naturally better at blending into the shadows.
In Se'txelu's case, though....well, he is good at camouflage, but alas, he's also kinda clumsy, which kinda cancels out any stealth bonus granted by his condition 😅 Despite his clumsiness, he is still a decent hunter at least, albeit a long ways off from "legendary" status (uh oh, potential source of angst for this usually happy-go-lucky dork).
When the Aranahe artisans visited his clan to trade, Neynari immediately caught Se'txelu's attention. He'd never seen anyone who looked like her before, and on top of that, she was quite beautiful. He was infatuated immediately. Lucky for him, she took notice of him too (they both kinda stand out in a crowd lol). Now, while Se'txelu had never seen anyone with leucism like Neynari, he had met two other people with his own condition, txonleng—his great-grandfather (although his memories of him are hazy since he was quite young when he died (of old age)), and Awlun (who of course is still alive and kicking)—so though his condition was rare he had never really felt alone because of it. Neynari, on the other hand, had never seen another Na'vi who wasn't standard blue, so meeting someone else who stood out like that was shocking and intriguing.
The Aranahe trading party stayed with the Anurai for about a week. Se'txelu tried to work up the nerve to actually talk to Neynari. One day, she noticed him up in a tree and waved at him. Remember when I said Se'txelu was clumsy? Well, he tried to wave back...but in doing so let go of the branch he was gripping and fell out of the tree. Onto his face. And lost a tooth in the process.
Neynari felt awful because she felt like the accident was her fault, and she came to check on Se'txelu once his bloody mouth had been cleaned up. But despite the initial awkward guilt, with that incident the ice, much like Se'txelu's face, was broken lol. They ended up talking for a long time after that, and clicked pretty hard. Neynari even gave him the joking nickname Sre'tìkelu ("tooth-lack") in reference to the now permanent gap in his smile. They continued to bond over the next few days, and when it came time for the Aranahe party to return home, Neynari found herself not wanting to join them...
Neynari's closest friend back home had always been her mother, Seylana. But tragically, Seylana had passed away of sickness about two years prior to Neynari's trip to the Anurai. With the loss of her mother back home, but the promise of a potential future with Se'txelu here, Neynari was wondering if she should stay and ask to join the Anurai clan...but would that be fair to her ancestors, and to the clan who had raised and loved her?
The night before the Aranahe were meant to leave, Neynari asked Se'txelu to take her to the nearest spirit tree. She connected to Eywa and spoke with Seylana's spirit, pouring her heart out to the memory of her mother and explaining her dilemma. Seylana comforted her daughter and encouraged her to stay with the Anurai. She wanted her daughter to have a bright and happy future and if she found that in another clan, so be it.
Now with her mother's blessing, Neynari spoke with Awlun, the Anurai tsahìk, as well as with the leader of the Aranahe trading party, and explained the whole situation. She was allowed to join the Anurai, and she and Se'txelu began courting officially, and became mates not long after.
But wait! All these words and we haven't even mentioned Rolukx yet! Rolukx is Se'txelu's older brother, by roughly five or six years. When the boys were young, their father, Tanu, was involved in a hunting accident and almost died. He survived and is fine now, save a few scars, but there was a period of time where his condition was critical and his survival unclear. Se'txelu doesn't really remember this incident because he was too young, but Rolukx does, and it really affected him. Up until that point, he, like many young children, thought of his dad as invincible...this brush with death shattered that innocent belief for poor Rolukx; he became a lot more nervous and paranoid about safety and, well, mortality. One way he dealt with this trauma was becoming very protective of his little brother, even after they became adults (and to be fair, his worries over Se'txelu's safety aren't entirely unfounded because, again, clumsy dork lol).
Though he spends a lot of his time keeping an eye on his brother, Rolukx is actually a musician and instrument maker by trade, and he's very good at it. The knife he carries is not (usually) used for hunting or cooking, but rather for whittling bone (and other materials, but Anurai clan so mostly bone lol) into intricate flutes and whistles. He plays them beautifully as well, but unfortunately suffers from stage fright and dislikes playing in front of others. The only person he'll consistently play for is his mother Lunaya, who was always very encouraging of his talents (he's a bit of a mama's boy).
Rolukx was a little wary of Neynari at first, as he felt like Se'txelu was rushing into this relationship with some random girl from another clan way too fast. But Se'txelu seemed happy, and when Neynari showed genuine interest in Rolukx's whittling skills, offering to teach him some Aranahe beading and weaving tips in exchange for some whittling and music ones, he warmed up to her and they wound up being pretty good friends, so Rolukx approves of his brother's relationship.
Lunaya, the boys' mother, happens to also love beaded accessories and hit it off with Neynari right away. Neynari appreciates having her around because she reminds her of her own mother, even if Lunaya is much more extroverted and eccentric than Seylana was.
(deep breath) sooooooooooo.....I think that covers most of it. those are my dumb dumbs, enjoy
Kaltxì!
A while back I had a weird lightbulb moment considering the Ikran colouring, and wondered if it makes sense (please bear with my half cooked ADHD shenanigans).
While most of Pandoras wildlife (which we know of) seems to have a rather set colouration, with little to none differences between individuals (e.g. Pa'li or Nantang), no Ikran looks like the other (maybe similar, but markings still set them apart).
Sooo, what if the colour does not just work for individual identification, but also represents the personality of their (potential) Makto?
Like, bright colouration + “unusual” marking speaks for an extroverted character, and a “common” colouration is a “normal” person?
Idk if that’s too much interpretation, but with having this whole “inner conection to your Ikran” it would make some sense >.>
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Ohhh I really like that!! That’s so cool and I think would add a lot of depth to the tsaheylu bond!
Idc if people don't like avatar or don't want to watch it, but I do think we as a fandom should be active in regards to amplifing indigenous peoples causes
Want to support an indigenous cause directly related to AtWoW? Look into the Lummi nation’s fight to protect and preserve the Southern Resident Killer Whales, their fight to return stolen sister Tokitae/Lolita to the Salish Sea from Miami Seaquarium, and donate to the Center for Whale Research
