#tilda van der meer

[championari]

I feel like there's a lot to be discussed about how the Horizon video game series frames relationships: as a form of home.

Rost wanted Aloy to “embrace the tribe”, despite already being her support system. It wasn't just about having a support system, it was about belonging somewhere. Of having an origin point.

Aloy encouraged Varl to pursue Zo because she wanted Varl to not be alone like her, and to have a support system. Punctuated by her looking at Elizabet’s necklace, a reminder of the legacy she feels she needs to uphold alone.

Tilda described herself as spending many years alone and that “By my thirties, I thought that was simply my fate in life". She explicitly mentioned Liz losing her mom a few years prior and speculated that she "filled a void".

Walter Londra made his Quen actors repeat a line from his wife's films, "How could I go back? Being with you, it feels like home."

Aloy ran in The Proving to learn who her mother was, and why that potentially made her an outcast (excluded from Nora society).

I think Aloy's confession to Seyka manages to bring it all together. She speaks about home not being a place but people. And each of these relationships in some way transcends place: different tribes, different stages of life, different social standings, etc.

(I am 100% about people expanding on this, see this post as a starter to a wider discussion)

[stealingpotatoes]

to celebrate finishing hfw and finally being able to unblock the spoiler tags, here's a couple doods i did in my 2 weeks of hfw insanity <3 (there is much more art to come) (this is a threat)

(commission info // tip jar!)

[hattersarts]

tildoy my beloved

[horizon-forbidden-memes]

Sorry, Tilda! At a thousand years old, you're definitely too old to play with Lego Aloy!

[saewokhrisz]

"hopeful visions"

spread i did for the Focus Network zine! we are having left over sales currently so if you missed out on grabbing a copy during preorders, nows the chance to go grab a copy it really is a beautiful zine 😭🫶

[heksahela]

Sketch.

Tilda van der Meer.

[theartofloss]

I've got my own thoughts about the Burning Shores, but I don't think Aloy falling for someone is out of character, because they've been slowly building up to that moment in HFW:

This extremely awkward conversation with Avad, who is trying to court her (a reminder that people are romantically interested in her)

Zo and Varl's relationship - I personally don't think her reaction was necessarily jealousy, just her being confronted with the possibility of falling for someone for the first time (after years of living as an outcast)

Finding out about Elizabeth's past relationship with Tilda, and that she wasn't as untouchable as she thought her to be

And finally, her conversation with Talanah at Barren Light about first love (or crush) - all but predicting BS

She simply found a home with people that she loves and trusts, and now feels safe enough to open her heart for the first time.

[all-encompassing-hero]

One thing I love about the Horizon franchise is how both Zero Dawn and Forbidden West make it explicitly clear that while the current threat might be the machines and rouge AI threatening Aloy and her people, the true evil behind everything is and always has been capitalism and, to an extent, the One Percent.

[Spoiler warning for both Zero Dawn and Forbidden West]

Obviously, there's Ted Faro, a man who, through a combination of overinflated ego and massive incompetence, doomed the world twice over. First, accidentally, by designing war machines capable of consuming organic matter as fuel and programmed with code so complex, it took several hundred years to crack. And then, on purpose, by deleting thousands of years of human knowledge and history in some misguided attempt to help the future generations. A man who not only built the Torment Nexus from the book "Don't build the Torment Nexus" but then deleted all records of both his construction and the story from which it came so that future generations would not be able to learn from the mistakes of those who came before them.

Now, while the Zeniths are not as heavyhanded about the themes of the evils of capitalism compared to Ted Faro, they do still uphold that narrative. Remember that the Zenith crew was composed almost entirely of the rich and famous. Rich and famous who would rather save their own skins rather than try to help humanity in its final hours. When they managed to do the impossible and achieve immortality, what did they do with it? Squandered it by becoming lazy, only using it to essentially prolong their own pleasure. Some even became greedy enough to go beyond physical immortality, and when that greed caused the destruction of their home and threatened the new life that had begun on Earth, what did the remaining Zeniths do? Turned tail and ran. Because the only thing that matters to them is self preservation.

Tilda might actually be the worst of them. Because while the others may not care that they're in the wrong, Tilda is the only one who believes she is in the right. Tilda, the woman who was arguably the closest to Elizabet, who watched her choose to stay to help develop the Zero Dawn project rather than abandon Earth, who has been grieving that loss for over a thousand years, believed that, given a second chance, Elizabet would choose to abandon Earth. Tilda, who believed that she was doing the right thing even as she was attempting to force Aloy to abandon her people the same way she wanted Elizabet to abandon Earth. Tilda, who died believing that the woman she loved died a pointless death even after seeing the new world created by Zero Dawn.

The Horizon franchise is and always has been a story about technology. How technology can do so much good in the hands of the right people, but also so much evil in the hands of the wrong people. And it keeps telling us that the "wrong people" are the rich and greedy, the ones who only look out for themselves, the ones who would leave humanity to die if it meant saving themselves.

My biggest hope for Horizon 3 is that it continues this message. That it continues to show that technology can be used for good, but only when in the hands of people who have the best interest of others at heart rather than their own.

[padmerrie]

#mood

[thisismylaststraw]

This is how Tilda and Sylens coming face to face for the first time went, right?

Yeah, totally.

[lodgeofeilhart]

[setavvo]

For Kotaloy Elysium’s Horizontober (Week 2: Monsters)

[defaultjane-official]

[Horizon Forbidden West/The Golden girls]

[hattersarts]

some more tildoys.

[horizon-forbidden-memes]

All space billionaires get a free arrow to the face

[incorrectfandomsapphic]

Horizon: Forbidden West #056

Source: The Onion

Headline: Things To Never Say To Someone Who Just Came Out [Photo of Aloy] Erend: "Are you queerbaiting me?" Seyka: "I knew the second you told me you were gay." Varl: "How do you know?" Alva: "I'm gayer." Kotallo: "You still owe me $45." Zo: "Would you like to go on record stating that for our organization's diversity initiative?" Beta: "I was planning to come out this very moment, and you just stole my thunder." Sylens: "A little on the nose to do it during Pride Month, no?" Tilda: "In that outfit?"