Chut & lun story

Here's something else I wanted to fan cast for a while.
George A. Romero's Day of the Dead is one of my all-time favorite movies. For a lot of you who don't know what I mean about the Original Screenplay we couldn't see, I'll catch you up to speed...
One of the original drafts of the script Romero wrote was drastically different than the version that would ultimately get filmed and released to the public. The original budget was going to be $7 million dollars, due to it being a major fx film, with Tom Savini calling it the Ben Hur or the Raiders of the Lost Ark of zombie movies. But unfortunately, possibly due to the United Film Distribution Company (who was financing the film) losing money when Romero did Creepshow and Knightriders, the head producer Salah M. Hassenein wasn't willing to hand over $7 million, especially with Romero's insistence on shooting the film Unrated. For those who don't know, back then if you released a movie with no rating, then it was considered a Rated-X, which means local theaters wouldn't advertise it, you'd have to call them up and ask about it which would guarantee a loss in profit. So because of this, the budget went from $7 million to $3.5 million, so Romero had to scale the screenplay back DRASTICALLY.
The original screenplay can be found here: https://imsdb.com/scripts/Day-of-the-Dead.html
ANYWAAAAAY, what I would like to do is a full-fledged remake of Day of the Dead, and have it based strictly on that original screenplay that I just posted. I have read this script multiple times and here's some key differences:

There's more than one smart zombie in this movie, but Bub is the best prospect
Captain Rhodes is somehow even more despicable - he also takes orders from a very fat, boisterous former Governor named Henry Dickerson
Sarah in this original script is possibly Latin-American, so she will be cast accordingly.
Dr. Logan (Frankenstein) is somehow even more unhinged and crazier.
There are going to be a lot of characters in this original screenplay that weren't in the movie at all, so I will do my best to provide a short description of them.
A lot of the elements of the original screenplay would wind up in George Romero's fourth "Dead" movie Land of the Dead, so yes, there are some familiar elements that you'll find if you do wind up reading the original script.
Surprisingly a lot more gore in this one than in the final movie we got.

Okay... so let's get started:
STORY:
It's been five years since the Night of the Living Dead, and now, the world has been completely taken over by flesh-eating zombies. Somewhere off the coast of Florida is a small island known as "Gasparilla's Island," where scientists, soldiers and the worthy are living safely underground while the "rejects" live above ground surrounded by shoddy electric fences. Sarah arrives on the island and is rescued by John and McDermott, and she winds up getting caught up in the middle of an oncoming revolt against the soldiers led by the ruthless Captain Rhodes, who oversees the scientists as they look to domesticate the dead. But morality falls into play as there are some rebels who want to take extreme measures regardless of who gets hurt along the way.
Directed by LEE CRONIN
Music by CODY CARPENTER
Special FX Make-Up by DAVID LEROY ANDERSON of AFX Studios
CAST:
Ana de Armas (Knives Out & Blade Runner 2049) as SARAH - a former member of a nomadic group of guerrilleros from South America.
Winston Duke (Us & Black Panther) as JOHN - a Jamaican and religious survivor in Gasparilla's Island's above ground encampment and a member of the resistance.
Ben Barnes (Marvel's The Punisher & Westworld) as CAPTAIN RHODES - the abusive and sociopathic Captain of Gasparilla's Infantry who oversees the soldiers and the scientists' day-to-day operations.
Pruitt Taylor Vince (Identity & The Walking Dead) as HENRY DICKERSON (A.K.A. GASPARILLA) - the overweight, egomaniacal and lecherous former Governor of Florida and "ruler" of the Island who barely does anything other than party with the elitists.
Dylan Moran (Shaun of the Dead & Black Books) as WILLIAM "BILLY" MCDERMOTT - the Irish boozer and John's right-hand man.
Dacre Montgomery (Stranger Things & Power Rangers) as PVT. TOBY TYLER - a good person and a member of the Gasparilla Infantry and Rhodes' nemesis, who constantly assigns him on shit detail.
Alicia Vikander (Tomb Raider & Ex Machina) as DR. MARY HENRIED - lead scientist in charge of domesticating the Dead. Toby Tyler's girlfriend and Rhodes' ex-lover who still lusts for her, much to her disgust.
Peter Capaldi (Doctor Who & The Suicide Squad) as DR. MATTHEW LOGAN (a.k.a. "FRANKENSTEIN") - the head "doctor" of the above-ground encampment, a once-brilliant man who has now gone off the deep-end in the name of religion.
Austin Metelson (AEW's "Luchasaurus") as DIESEL - a strong and quiet Nordic man and member of the resistance.
Millicent Simmonds (A Quiet Place & A Quiet Place: Part Two) as SPIDER - a deaf mute member of the resistance and Diesel's friend.
Liu Hua (Don Quixote & Romance of the Three Kingdoms) as LUKEY - Dr. Logan's Chinese assistant
Thomasin Mckenzie (Jojo Rabbit & Last Night in Soho) as JULIE GRANT - Dr. Mary Henried's young and meek assistant.
Brandon Soo Hoo (Tropic Thunder & Incredible Crew) as PVT. TRICKS - member of the Gasparilla Infantry and Toby Tyler's friend.
Richard Cabral (End of Watch & Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones) as MIGUEL SALAZAR - leader of the nomadic guerrilleros and Sarah's ex-lover. He's too far gone.
A.J. Castro (NCIS: Los Angeles) as TONY TORREZ - member of the nomadic guerrilleros
Aimee Garcia (George Lopez & Lucifer) as MARIA TORREZ - member of the nomadic guerrilleros and Tony's Wife.
Efren Ramirez (Napoleon Dynamite & Employee of the Month) as CHICO - member of the nomadic guerrilleros and Sarah's friend.
James Ransone (It: Chapter Two & Sinister) as "BUB" - the everyman Dead who wields two six-shooters.
Winston James Francis (Harbinger Down) as "BLUTO" - the big man Dead, named after Bluto from the "Popeye" cartoon due to his large stature.
Jonathan Joss (King of the Hill and The Magnificent Seven) as "TONTO" - the tall, Native American Dead.

Hey Reddit!
I’m a 24-year-old engineering student on an exciting mission to find my tribe in the vast Reddit universe. I'm passionate about hobbies that make life incredibly fun, and I can’t wait to share what makes me tick!
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I’m eager to make new friends who are passionate about their interests. Whether through deep discussions, sharing discoveries, or just having a good laugh, I’m here for it all!
If you’re into tech, gaming, food, anime, books, and living life to the fullest, reach out! DM me or leave a comment below – I’m excited to start this adventure with you all! 🌈💖
Only those over 18, please!

Recently, i suddenly remebered a conversation i'd had with one of my cousins (i think he's 21 now?) who got out of prison a while back. While we were chatting over the phone one day, the discussion on how out family is kinda messed up came up in conversation. He mention that while in prison, he and his cellmates would chat and occasionally talk of home life came up. Whenever he'd bring up his past life, his cellmates would be shocked and try to explain to him some of the stuff he was saying/happening at home was pretty f***ed up. (He never thought his mom was abusive but turns out she was a nightmare incarnate, wont go into details) Mind you, he only realized this IN PRISON, when he was finally away from her & was forced to look at things from a more outside perspective. Recently, i've begun to wonder, what things in my life are like that? How many others have had a similar epiphany? Naturally, i cant identify all the traits, but i've begun to suspect some. Am i overthinking it? am i just privelaged? or are things really not quite right?

My mom and I moved constantly, to the point we never stayed in one place longer than a year. This persisted until i was 15 and she couldn't afford to move due to rent raising in places.
Mom never really hugged me/ had an aversion to physical (and somewhat verbal) affection. This also persisted until i was 15-17 before she made a friend who was a hypnotherapist & helped her with some issues.
I frequently had to remind mom to praise me for things (say thank you) , as otherwise i wouldn't get the positive feedback 9.5 times out of 10.
I think i've been homeless at least 3 times growing up/ we were always hella broke.
I went to the dentist maybe 1-2 times a year. I've been to an optometrist maybe 1-2 times in my life.
Mom didn't care about my grades and never told me them before i was in fostercare. She would just ask "did you do your best?" and the answer to that question was more important than the letters/numbers on my report card. When i was in fostercare, grades were everything. I didn't know c was a passing grade until i was in college. (mom wasn't aware i had this misconception & i didn't mention it cuz i thought it was true)
(not mom this time shockingly) when i was 9, i often found myself trying to be 'responcible'. I took pride in being the 'responcible' one. There was a toddler in our neighborhood who would wander into the parkinglot on her own (even the street once or twice) & I would go over and kinda babysit her in the front yard or bring her back to my house until her mom noticed she was gone. I thought this was just expected, since i was older & sometimes people are just forgetful. Nobody is perfect after all.
I was a 'tattletail'/ teacher's pet & Being ostrasized and put down by others was a normal thing, i just had really thin skin.
When i was 10-12, I was often home alone all day when mom would work. We lived in a trailer park at the time.
This one i'm just kind of annoyed about still. Mom has that thing where if you see puke, you start to gag/puke too. So, since i could remember, i was always the one to clean up whenever one of our pets threw up. She once called me out of the shower to come take care of it.
Me and the older kids were expected to look after the younger ones so the adults could have a break/talk.
mom never went about seeing someone till after i was in college.
each time my aunt & little cousins moved in with us, i had to vacate my room so they could move in. after mom eventually got custody over the 2, & i was in college, i never got my room back and was essentially homeless/couch surfing when i wasnt in a dorm.
You shouldnt bother people with your problems when they're dealing with their own stuff.
If i was going to cry/meltdown, i should leave the room/ get away from people first.

Those normal or not really? any similar stories/ misconceptions/preconceptions?
Edit: oh yea, forgot a couple improtant ones "Adults need to deal with shit on their own/ adults don't ask for help, when you get older you just get strong enough to deal with stuff" "Always think of/prioritize others first." "struggling with and failing to do things was just making excuses/not trying hard enough

.

There’s a lone peasant on the beach of Saru Island in Ghost of Tsushima’s Iki Island DLC.
Last night he burned the final pieces of wood from the Bamboo Strike to stay warm under the moonlight. If Jin wishes to practice his swordsmanship, he’ll need to supply his own wood.
…at this point in the game you have 9827346 bamboo pieces. A few to spare should do no harm.
After three perfect slices, Jin and the Peasant exchange words again. Noticing the lack of any other humans in the area, Jin asks why the peasant makes his home in a location so remote. The Peasant replies:
“As you just demonstrated, the quiet helps one focus.”
--
Ghost of Tsushima (GoT) is a game ~~about slicing up bad guys while dressed as a cool samurai-ninja dude~~ heavily tied to nature and spirituality. It mirrors and puts to use a staple of Japanese culture; Shinto — a spiritual tradition which holds that deities are found in nature.
I do not pretend to be an expert on Shinto or Japanese culture. Au contraire, I'm a basic-bitch white dude in America. I just like writing about video game elements that catch my attention, and GoT uses nature in ways that really capture me. If you'll allow me to explain with a nice wall of text...
ELEMENTAL EMPHASIS
You don’t need me to tell you that GoT is a visually and audibly incredible game.
You don’t need me to remind you of its golden forests, its snowcapped mountains and its rugged seaside cliffs — you’ve seen them for yourself.
It’s clear that jaw-dropping visuals and natural environments were something the devs wanted players to experience rather viscerally — take, for instance, sunrise and sunset being their own distinct times of day, not just a few scant moments between the day/night cycle. Or the sheer dramatic bombast of the autumnal forests, floral fields or sun-splashed mountains of Tsushima and Iki.
The realism in audio as well still impresses me — crackling bamboo forests, crashing waves, rushing waterfalls and powerful wind gusts all sound incredible. They sound more than that, they sound enveloping, three dimensional — they sound as they should; like you’re really there.
These are all great, yeah, but plenty of games look and sound great. What I noticed was the subtle ways the devs prompt additional emphasis on them.

Minimal HUD for maximum eye candy
Minimal music during open world traversal to lean into the sounds of nature
Rule of Thirds camera angle at all times gives plenty of room to see the sights
Camera pull-outs on horseback and in select locations (shrines, certain mountains & fields) to drink in even more beauty
Incredible vistas and plenty of rocks, mountains and hills to summit to view them from

Naturally, you’ll slow down to appreciate these at least a little, even if you are the most impatient kind of player (assuming the game doesn’t get in your way when you try).
Again, the game was crafted in such a way that tells me that the devs want you to slow down and experience these things. Take, for further evidence, some of the game’s activities and waypoints:

Hotsprings — encourage the player and Jin to reflect on the story
Haikus — encourage the player to meditate on circumstance and emotion
Sanctuaries — encourages Jin to reminisce on his childhood and contemplate music’s place in his life
Keirei (Bowing) Interaction — encourages Jin to honor and then interact with the locale’s fauna
Freeing Caged Animals — encourages the player and Jin to value natural life

Reflect. Meditate. Reminisce. Honor. Value.
GoT’s activities aren’t all combat, time-trials and races. They’re communion with nature, and GoT is telling you that it must be achieved slowly, with respect and in the quiet.
“As you just demonstrated, the quiet helps one focus.”
ELEMENTAL POWER
But the landscapes and vistas of GoT aren’t just pretty pictures for the sake of being slowly-consumed eye candy. Sucker Punch leans deeper into Shinto than just the aesthetic, nearly personifying Tsushima’s natural wonders.
Nature is Spiritual

Jin’s honoring of deities at Shrines (all placed in secluded, naturally wonderful locations) grants him gifts and upgrades.
Haiku meditation grants Jin a vanity piece, but also represents his grappling and overcoming of circumstance and emotion, balancing his spiritual well-being
Yuriko mentions that Jin’s deceased father, Kazumasa, is the Guiding Wind and his late mother the Golden Songbird
Foxes leading you to Shrines of Inari are implied to be Inari themselves leading you to their graces

Nature is Knowing

There’s a subconscious realization that nature sees you in GoT
The Guiding Wind points you on your way, it knows where you are and where you need to go
The more Ghost actions you perform, the more stormy Tsushima becomes. Nature sees your actions and reacts to them.
Inari foxes and Golden Songbirds know where you are on the map and jump in to help you when you’re near something you could miss. In both instances, that thing makes you stronger, leading me to…

Nature is Powerful

Hotsprings add to your maximum health
Charms gifted by Mother Nature bolster Jin’s abilities
Storms sweep the trees and send startling cracks of thunder across the land
Mount Jogaku is frigid and dangerous to summit without additional sources of warmth
Jin & co. rely on the strength of a storm to aid their final attack on the Khan

Be it spiritually, intellectually or physically, nature holds power in GoT.
WHERE MAN MEETS NATURE
So GoT emphasizes natural wonder and gives it agency… Cool, whatever.
Where do we come into this? Where do man and nature meet and how do they interact in GoT?
SuckerPunch (and myself) are hitting you over the head with it; Man meets nature respectfully, in the tranquility of the quiet. When he does so, he receives its blessings.
He becomes stronger of body (hotsprings, shrines) and sounder of mind (haikus, sanctuaries).
GoT interactions, activities and more demonstrate to us that when man communes with nature and approaches it carefully with reverence and appreciation, he grows.
He learns, he sees, he remembers, he feels, he discovers, he opens.
Even the seemingly trivial headband vanity rewards we receive at haikus represent this — their namesakes denote some mastery or acceptance of the quality, circumstance or emotional subject of the poem. Consider the Handbands of Strife, Fear, Uncertainty, Perseverance, Rebirth and Hope, for example.
Jin is facing his mental struggles and conquering them not with force or ignorance, but with quiet contemplation using nature as the vessel.
Respecting nature brings it joy (Keirei interactions at signposts). It allows nature itself to thrive (sanctuaries) and allows us to thrive (haikus). Even freeing hawks and monkeys at Mongol camps grants us additional awards.
Conversely, when man meets nature violently, destruction is usually reciprocated in return.
Consider the storminess of the game’s major battles, or the increase in rainfall as you perform stealth kills and your Ghost Meter fills. The Mongol’s burning of the Endless Forest leaves death and devastation; their final battle with Jin is shrouded in storm.
Antagonistic and wrathful actions bring about destruction — they upset nature’s balance.
WHERE JIN MEETS NATURE
What if, genetically speaking, you were… “the lightning in the storm?”
That sounds an awful lot like destruction.
And that is the fate of Jin Sakai. Aside from the fact that the devs have more-or-less confirmed this, consider not just Kazumasa’s words above, but also… well, the game’s default sword kit, passed down in Jin’s family — it’s the Storm of Clan Sakai.
Not to mention Jin’s ownership and use of the flute, a mechanic that allows him to change the weather.
Jin is the storm. We, the player, are the storm.
We sweep across Tsushima, wreaking havoc in our wake of bloodshed, piling up countless Mongol corpses and stirring the island’s inhabitants.
Jin’s descent from honor into becoming the Ghost is his own internal storm (represented externally by, well, storms), and creates a similar uncertainty and disjointedness in Jin’s character as the island of Tsushima is experiencing under the Mongol invasion.
With such internal and external unrest, how can Jin achieve his goals and halt the Mongols?
PERFECTLY BALANCED
Jin may be the storm literally genetically, but remember that only half of his parenthood bore the Sakai name.
If Jin’s father — by his own admission in so many words on Iki Island — embodies a wildness, a propensity for conquest and might, then Jin’s mother brought him the opposite.
Indeed, it was two mothers — one biological, and one of nature.
We mostly learn of Jin’s biological mother through his own recollections at Sanctuaries. I wish I had a bank of this dialogue for further support here — I couldn’t find it while searching around.
What I remember is that she contrasted Kazumasa.

Where he brought wildness, she brought calm.
Where he brought brute force, she brought emotion.
Where he brought seriousness, she brought lightheartedness.
Where he brought conquest, she brought peace.
Where he was uncertain, she brought thoughtfulness.

Raised by the opposing sides of a single coin, Jin is naturally bound to land somewhere in the middle.
But, under the stress of a terrifying invasion on his homeland and, as a result, mentally and emotionally unbalanced, he’s bound to land more on his father’s side. He’s bound to bring that wildness to his endeavors and potentially cause unnecessary harm and destruction.
Thankfully, with his mother’s principles swirling subconsciously, Jin remembers the importance of the land around him. He remembers to honor the very ground he is trying to liberate.
Rather than rushing Castle Shimura off rip, Jin engages with the land of Tsushima.
He rests at hotsprings, contemplates haikus, pays homage at shrines and reaps the physical, mental and emotional benefits that follow his reverence.
He does not ever quell the storm that lies inside of him — no, he is clan Sakai — but because of his attention towards and engagement with nature, he does gather it. He does control it. He does master it.
Through his late mother and through mother nature herself, Jin takes the weight of saving an entire island off his shoulders. Sound of body, mind and spirit, he becomes perfectly balanced. As all things should be.
--
Jin can do incredible things on the battlefield and in the shadows. He’s an absolute freak of nature when it comes to swordsmanship and athleticism.
Jin Sakai is, indeed, the lightning in the storm. All its power, all its might, all its destruction — importantly — captured in one single space. Honed into one prong, one moment, one man.
By prioritizing Shinto practices, Jin is not a reckless, swirling, chaotic typhoon — he has balanced his internal turmoil with peace and meditation and is now a controlled force, focused vigilantly at Khotun Khan.
“As you just demonstrated, the quiet helps one focus.”

There’s a lone peasant on the beach of Saru Island in Ghost of Tsushima’s Iki Island DLC.
Last night he burned the final pieces of wood from the Bamboo Strike to stay warm under the moonlight. If Jin wishes to practice his swordsmanship, he’ll need to supply his own wood.
…at this point in the game you have 9827346 bamboo pieces. A few to spare should do no harm.
After three perfect slices, Jin and the Peasant exchange words again. Noticing the lack of any other humans in the area, Jin asks why the peasant makes his home in a location so remote. The Peasant replies:
“As you just demonstrated, the quiet helps one focus.”
--
Ghost of Tsushima (GoT) is a game ~~about slicing up bad guys while dressed as a cool samurai-ninja dude~~ heavily tied to nature and spirituality. It mirrors and puts to use a staple of Japanese culture; Shinto — a spiritual tradition which holds that deities are found in nature.
I do not pretend to be an expert on Shinto or Japanese culture. Au contraire, I'm a basic-bitch white dude in America. I just like writing about video game elements that catch my attention, and GoT uses nature in ways that really capture me. If you'll allow me to explain with a nice wall of text...
ELEMENTAL EMPHASIS
You don’t need me to tell you that GoT is a visually and audibly incredible game.
You don’t need me to remind you of its golden forests, its snowcapped mountains and its rugged seaside cliffs — you’ve seen them for yourself.
It’s clear that jaw-dropping visuals and natural environments were something the devs wanted players to experience rather viscerally — take, for instance, sunrise and sunset being their own distinct times of day, not just a few scant moments between the day/night cycle. Or the sheer dramatic bombast of the autumnal forests, floral fields or sun-splashed mountains of Tsushima and Iki.
The realism in audio as well still impresses me — crackling bamboo forests, crashing waves, rushing waterfalls and powerful wind gusts all sound incredible. They sound more than that, they sound enveloping, three dimensional — they sound as they should; like you’re really there.
These are all great, yeah, but plenty of games look and sound great. What I noticed was the subtle ways the devs prompt additional emphasis on them.

Minimal HUD for maximum eye candy
Minimal music during open world traversal to lean into the sounds of nature
Rule of Thirds camera angle at all times gives plenty of room to see the sights
Camera pull-outs on horseback and in select locations (shrines, certain mountains & fields) to drink in even more beauty
Incredible vistas and plenty of rocks, mountains and hills to summit to view them from

Naturally, you’ll slow down to appreciate these at least a little, even if you are the most impatient kind of player (assuming the game doesn’t get in your way when you try).
Again, the game was crafted in such a way that tells me that the devs want you to slow down and experience these things. Take, for further evidence, some of the game’s activities and waypoints:

Hotsprings — encourage the player and Jin to reflect on the story
Haikus — encourage the player to meditate on circumstance and emotion
Sanctuaries — encourages Jin to reminisce on his childhood and contemplate music’s place in his life
Keirei (Bowing) Interaction — encourages Jin to honor and then interact with the locale’s fauna
Freeing Caged Animals — encourages the player and Jin to value natural life

Reflect. Meditate. Reminisce. Honor. Value.
GoT’s activities aren’t all combat, time-trials and races. They’re communion with nature, and GoT is telling you that it must be achieved slowly, with respect and in the quiet.
“As you just demonstrated, the quiet helps one focus.”
ELEMENTAL POWER
But the landscapes and vistas of GoT aren’t just pretty pictures for the sake of being slowly-consumed eye candy. Sucker Punch leans deeper into Shinto than just the aesthetic, nearly personifying Tsushima’s natural wonders.
Nature is Spiritual

Jin’s honoring of deities at Shrines (all placed in secluded, naturally wonderful locations) grants him gifts and upgrades.
Haiku meditation grants Jin a vanity piece, but also represents his grappling and overcoming of circumstance and emotion, balancing his spiritual well-being
Yuriko mentions that Jin’s deceased father, Kazumasa, is the Guiding Wind and his late mother the Golden Songbird
Foxes leading you to Shrines of Inari are implied to be Inari themselves leading you to their graces

Nature is Knowing

There’s a subconscious realization that nature sees you in GoT
The Guiding Wind points you on your way, it knows where you are and where you need to go
The more Ghost actions you perform, the more stormy Tsushima becomes. Nature sees your actions and reacts to them.
Inari foxes and Golden Songbirds know where you are on the map and jump in to help you when you’re near something you could miss. In both instances, that thing makes you stronger, leading me to…

Nature is Powerful

Hotsprings add to your maximum health
Charms gifted by Mother Nature bolster Jin’s abilities
Storms sweep the trees and send startling cracks of thunder across the land
Mount Jogaku is frigid and dangerous to summit without additional sources of warmth
Jin & co. rely on the strength of a storm to aid their final attack on the Khan

Be it spiritually, intellectually or physically, nature holds power in GoT.
WHERE MAN MEETS NATURE
So GoT emphasizes natural wonder and gives it agency… Cool, whatever.
Where do we come into this? Where do man and nature meet and how do they interact in GoT?
SuckerPunch (and myself) are hitting you over the head with it; Man meets nature respectfully, in the tranquility of the quiet. When he does so, he receives its blessings.
He becomes stronger of body (hotsprings, shrines) and sounder of mind (haikus, sanctuaries).
GoT interactions, activities and more demonstrate to us that when man communes with nature and approaches it carefully with reverence and appreciation, he grows.
He learns, he sees, he remembers, he feels, he discovers, he opens.
Even the seemingly trivial headband vanity rewards we receive at haikus represent this — their namesakes denote some mastery or acceptance of the quality, circumstance or emotional subject of the poem. Consider the Handbands of Strife, Fear, Uncertainty, Perseverance, Rebirth and Hope, for example.
Jin is facing his mental struggles and conquering them not with force or ignorance, but with quiet contemplation using nature as the vessel.
Respecting nature brings it joy (Keirei interactions at signposts). It allows nature itself to thrive (sanctuaries) and allows us to thrive (haikus). Even freeing hawks and monkeys at Mongol camps grants us additional awards.
Conversely, when man meets nature violently, destruction is usually reciprocated in return.
Consider the storminess of the game’s major battles, or the increase in rainfall as you perform stealth kills and your Ghost Meter fills. The Mongol’s burning of the Endless Forest leaves death and devastation; their final battle with Jin is shrouded in storm.
Antagonistic and wrathful actions bring about destruction — they upset nature’s balance.
WHERE JIN MEETS NATURE
What if, genetically speaking, you were… “the lightning in the storm?”
That sounds an awful lot like destruction.
And that is the fate of Jin Sakai. Aside from the fact that the devs have more-or-less confirmed this, consider not just Kazumasa’s words above, but also… well, the game’s default sword kit, passed down in Jin’s family — it’s the Storm of Clan Sakai.
Not to mention Jin’s ownership and use of the flute, a mechanic that allows him to change the weather.
Jin is the storm. We, the player, are the storm.
We sweep across Tsushima, wreaking havoc in our wake of bloodshed, piling up countless Mongol corpses and stirring the island’s inhabitants.
Jin’s descent from honor into becoming the Ghost is his own internal storm (represented externally by, well, storms), and creates a similar uncertainty and disjointedness in Jin’s character as the island of Tsushima is experiencing under the Mongol invasion.
With such internal and external unrest, how can Jin achieve his goals and halt the Mongols?
PERFECTLY BALANCED
Jin may be the storm literally genetically, but remember that only half of his parenthood bore the Sakai name.
If Jin’s father — by his own admission in so many words on Iki Island — embodies a wildness, a propensity for conquest and might, then Jin’s mother brought him the opposite.
Indeed, it was two mothers — one biological, and one of nature.
We mostly learn of Jin’s biological mother through his own recollections at Sanctuaries. I wish I had a bank of this dialogue for further support here — I couldn’t find it while searching around.
What I remember is that she contrasted Kazumasa.

Where he brought wildness, she brought calm.
Where he brought brute force, she brought emotion.
Where he brought seriousness, she brought lightheartedness.
Where he brought conquest, she brought peace.
Where he was uncertain, she brought thoughtfulness.

Raised by the opposing sides of a single coin, Jin is naturally bound to land somewhere in the middle.
But, under the stress of a terrifying invasion on his homeland and, as a result, mentally and emotionally unbalanced, he’s bound to land more on his father’s side. He’s bound to bring that wildness to his endeavors and potentially cause unnecessary harm and destruction.
Thankfully, with his mother’s principles swirling subconsciously, Jin remembers the importance of the land around him. He remembers to honor the very ground he is trying to liberate.
Rather than rushing Castle Shimura off rip, Jin engages with the land of Tsushima.
He rests at hotsprings, contemplates haikus, pays homage at shrines and reaps the physical, mental and emotional benefits that follow his reverence.
He does not ever quell the storm that lies inside of him — no, he is clan Sakai — but because of his attention towards and engagement with nature, he does gather it. He does control it. He does master it.
Through his late mother and through mother nature herself, Jin takes the weight of saving an entire island off his shoulders. Sound of body, mind and spirit, he becomes perfectly balanced. As all things should be.
--
Jin can do incredible things on the battlefield and in the shadows. He’s an absolute freak of nature when it comes to swordsmanship and athleticism.
Jin Sakai is, indeed, the lightning in the storm. All its power, all its might, all its destruction — importantly — captured in one single space. Honed into one prong, one moment, one man.
By prioritizing Shinto practices, Jin is not a reckless, swirling, chaotic typhoon — he has balanced his internal turmoil with peace and meditation and is now a controlled force, focused vigilantly at Khotun Khan.
“As you just demonstrated, the quiet helps one focus.”

There’s a lone peasant on the beach of Saru Island in Ghost of Tsushima’s Iki Island DLC.
Last night he burned the final pieces of wood from the Bamboo Strike to stay warm under the moonlight. If Jin wishes to practice his swordsmanship, he’ll need to supply his own wood.
…at this point in the game you have 9827346 bamboo pieces. A few to spare should do no harm.
After three perfect slices, Jin and the Peasant exchange words again. Noticing the lack of any other humans in the area, Jin asks why the peasant makes his home in a location so remote. The Peasant replies:
“As you just demonstrated, the quiet helps one focus.”
--
Ghost of Tsushima (GoT) is a game ~~about slicing up bad guys while dressed as a cool samurai-ninja dude~~ heavily tied to nature and spirituality. It mirrors and puts to use a staple of Japanese culture; Shinto — a spiritual tradition which holds that deities are found in nature.
I do not pretend to be an expert on Shinto or Japanese culture. Au contraire, I'm a basic-bitch white dude in America. I just like writing about video game elements that catch my attention, and GoT uses nature in ways that really capture me. If you'll allow me to explain with a nice wall of text...
ELEMENTAL EMPHASIS
You don’t need me to tell you that GoT is a visually and audibly incredible game.
You don’t need me to remind you of its golden forests, its snowcapped mountains and its rugged seaside cliffs — you’ve seen them for yourself.
It’s clear that jaw-dropping visuals and natural environments were something the devs wanted players to experience rather viscerally — take, for instance, sunrise and sunset being their own distinct times of day, not just a few scant moments between the day/night cycle. Or the sheer dramatic bombast of the autumnal forests, floral fields or sun-splashed mountains of Tsushima and Iki.
The realism in audio as well still impresses me — crackling bamboo forests, crashing waves, rushing waterfalls and powerful wind gusts all sound incredible. They sound more than that, they sound enveloping, three dimensional — they sound as they should; like you’re really there.
These are all great, yeah, but plenty of games look and sound great. What I noticed was the subtle ways the devs prompt additional emphasis on them.

Minimal HUD for maximum eye candy
Minimal music during open world traversal to lean into the sounds of nature
Rule of Thirds camera angle at all times gives plenty of room to see the sights
Camera pull-outs on horseback and in select locations (shrines, certain mountains & fields) to drink in even more beauty
Incredible vistas and plenty of rocks, mountains and hills to summit to view them from

Naturally, you’ll slow down to appreciate these at least a little, even if you are the most impatient kind of player (assuming the game doesn’t get in your way when you try).
Again, the game was crafted in such a way that tells me that the devs want you to slow down and experience these things. Take, for further evidence, some of the game’s activities and waypoints:

Hotsprings — encourage the player and Jin to reflect on the story
Haikus — encourage the player to meditate on circumstance and emotion
Sanctuaries — encourages Jin to reminisce on his childhood and contemplate music’s place in his life
Keirei (Bowing) Interaction — encourages Jin to honor and then interact with the locale’s fauna
Freeing Caged Animals — encourages the player and Jin to value natural life

Reflect. Meditate. Reminisce. Honor. Value.
GoT’s activities aren’t all combat, time-trials and races. They’re communion with nature, and GoT is telling you that it must be achieved slowly, with respect and in the quiet.
“As you just demonstrated, the quiet helps one focus.”
ELEMENTAL POWER
But the landscapes and vistas of GoT aren’t just pretty pictures for the sake of being slowly-consumed eye candy. Sucker Punch leans deeper into Shinto than just the aesthetic, nearly personifying Tsushima’s natural wonders.
Nature is Spiritual

Jin’s honoring of deities at Shrines (all placed in secluded, naturally wonderful locations) grants him gifts and upgrades.
Haiku meditation grants Jin a vanity piece, but also represents his grappling and overcoming of circumstance and emotion, balancing his spiritual well-being
Yuriko mentions that Jin’s deceased father, Kazumasa, is the Guiding Wind and his late mother the Golden Songbird
Foxes leading you to Shrines of Inari are implied to be Inari themselves leading you to their graces

Nature is Knowing

There’s a subconscious realization that nature sees you in GoT
The Guiding Wind points you on your way, it knows where you are and where you need to go
The more Ghost actions you perform, the more stormy Tsushima becomes. Nature sees your actions and reacts to them.
Inari foxes and Golden Songbirds know where you are on the map and jump in to help you when you’re near something you could miss. In both instances, that thing makes you stronger, leading me to…

Nature is Powerful

Hotsprings add to your maximum health
Charms gifted by Mother Nature bolster Jin’s abilities
Storms sweep the trees and send startling cracks of thunder across the land
Mount Jogaku is frigid and dangerous to summit without additional sources of warmth
Jin & co. rely on the strength of a storm to aid their final attack on the Khan

Be it spiritually, intellectually or physically, nature holds power in GoT.
WHERE MAN MEETS NATURE
So GoT emphasizes natural wonder and gives it agency… Cool, whatever.
Where do we come into this? Where do man and nature meet and how do they interact in GoT?
SuckerPunch (and myself) are hitting you over the head with it; Man meets nature respectfully, in the tranquility of the quiet. When he does so, he receives its blessings.
He becomes stronger of body (hotsprings, shrines) and sounder of mind (haikus, sanctuaries).
GoT interactions, activities and more demonstrate to us that when man communes with nature and approaches it carefully with reverence and appreciation, he grows.
He learns, he sees, he remembers, he feels, he discovers, he opens.
Even the seemingly trivial headband vanity rewards we receive at haikus represent this — their namesakes denote some mastery or acceptance of the quality, circumstance or emotional subject of the poem. Consider the Handbands of Strife, Fear, Uncertainty, Perseverance, Rebirth and Hope, for example.
Jin is facing his mental struggles and conquering them not with force or ignorance, but with quiet contemplation using nature as the vessel.
Respecting nature brings it joy (Keirei interactions at signposts). It allows nature itself to thrive (sanctuaries) and allows us to thrive (haikus). Even freeing hawks and monkeys at Mongol camps grants us additional awards.
Conversely, when man meets nature violently, destruction is usually reciprocated in return.
Consider the storminess of the game’s major battles, or the increase in rainfall as you perform stealth kills and your Ghost Meter fills. The Mongol’s burning of the Endless Forest leaves death and devastation; their final battle with Jin is shrouded in storm.
Antagonistic and wrathful actions bring about destruction — they upset nature’s balance.
WHERE JIN MEETS NATURE
What if, genetically speaking, you were… “the lightning in the storm?”
That sounds an awful lot like destruction.
And that is the fate of Jin Sakai. Aside from the fact that the devs have more-or-less confirmed this, consider not just Kazumasa’s words above, but also… well, the game’s default sword kit, passed down in Jin’s family — it’s the Storm of Clan Sakai.
Not to mention Jin’s ownership and use of the flute, a mechanic that allows him to change the weather.
Jin is the storm. We, the player, are the storm.
We sweep across Tsushima, wreaking havoc in our wake of bloodshed, piling up countless Mongol corpses and stirring the island’s inhabitants.
Jin’s descent from honor into becoming the Ghost is his own internal storm (represented externally by, well, storms), and creates a similar uncertainty and disjointedness in Jin’s character as the island of Tsushima is experiencing under the Mongol invasion.
With such internal and external unrest, how can Jin achieve his goals and halt the Mongols?
PERFECTLY BALANCED
Jin may be the storm literally genetically, but remember that only half of his parenthood bore the Sakai name.
If Jin’s father — by his own admission in so many words on Iki Island — embodies a wildness, a propensity for conquest and might, then Jin’s mother brought him the opposite.
Indeed, it was two mothers — one biological, and one of nature.
We mostly learn of Jin’s biological mother through his own recollections at Sanctuaries. I wish I had a bank of this dialogue for further support here — I couldn’t find it while searching around.
What I remember is that she contrasted Kazumasa.

Where he brought wildness, she brought calm.
Where he brought brute force, she brought emotion.
Where he brought seriousness, she brought lightheartedness.
Where he brought conquest, she brought peace.
Where he was uncertain, she brought thoughtfulness.

Raised by the opposing sides of a single coin, Jin is naturally bound to land somewhere in the middle.
But, under the stress of a terrifying invasion on his homeland and, as a result, mentally and emotionally unbalanced, he’s bound to land more on his father’s side. He’s bound to bring that wildness to his endeavors and potentially cause unnecessary harm and destruction.
Thankfully, with his mother’s principles swirling subconsciously, Jin remembers the importance of the land around him. He remembers to honor the very ground he is trying to liberate.
Rather than rushing Castle Shimura off rip, Jin engages with the land of Tsushima.
He rests at hotsprings, contemplates haikus, pays homage at shrines and reaps the physical, mental and emotional benefits that follow his reverence.
He does not ever quell the storm that lies inside of him — no, he is clan Sakai — but because of his attention towards and engagement with nature, he does gather it. He does control it. He does master it.
Through his late mother and through mother nature herself, Jin takes the weight of saving an entire island off his shoulders. Sound of body, mind and spirit, he becomes perfectly balanced. As all things should be.
--
Jin can do incredible things on the battlefield and in the shadows. He’s an absolute freak of nature when it comes to swordsmanship and athleticism.
Jin Sakai is, indeed, the lightning in the storm. All its power, all its might, all its destruction — importantly — captured in one single space. Honed into one prong, one moment, one man.
By prioritizing Shinto practices, Jin is not a reckless, swirling, chaotic typhoon — he has balanced his internal turmoil with peace and meditation and is now a controlled force, focused vigilantly at Khotun Khan.
“As you just demonstrated, the quiet helps one focus.”

There’s a lone peasant on the beach of Saru Island in Ghost of Tsushima’s Iki Island DLC.
Last night he burned the final pieces of wood from the Bamboo Strike to stay warm under the moonlight. If Jin wishes to practice his swordsmanship, he’ll need to supply his own wood.
…at this point in the game you have 9827346 bamboo pieces. A few to spare should do no harm.
After three perfect slices, Jin and the Peasant exchange words again. Noticing the lack of any other humans in the area, Jin asks why the peasant makes his home in a location so remote. The Peasant replies:
“As you just demonstrated, the quiet helps one focus.”
--
Ghost of Tsushima (GoT) is a game ~~about slicing up bad guys while dressed as a cool samurai-ninja dude~~ heavily tied to nature and spirituality. It mirrors and puts to use a staple of Japanese culture; Shinto — a spiritual tradition which holds that deities are found in nature.
I do not pretend to be an expert on Shinto or Japanese culture. Au contraire, I'm a basic-bitch white dude in America. I just like writing about video game elements that catch my attention, and GoT uses nature in ways that really capture me. If you'll allow me to explain with a nice wall of text...
ELEMENTAL EMPHASIS
You don’t need me to tell you that GoT is a visually and audibly incredible game.
You don’t need me to remind you of its golden forests, its snowcapped mountains and its rugged seaside cliffs — you’ve seen them for yourself.
It’s clear that jaw-dropping visuals and natural environments were something the devs wanted players to experience rather viscerally — take, for instance, sunrise and sunset being their own distinct times of day, not just a few scant moments between the day/night cycle. Or the sheer dramatic bombast of the autumnal forests, floral fields or sun-splashed mountains of Tsushima and Iki.
The realism in audio as well still impresses me — crackling bamboo forests, crashing waves, rushing waterfalls and powerful wind gusts all sound incredible. They sound more than that, they sound enveloping, three dimensional — they sound as they should; like you’re really there.
These are all great, yeah, but plenty of games look and sound great. What I noticed was the subtle ways the devs prompt additional emphasis on them.

Minimal HUD for maximum eye candy
Minimal music during open world traversal to lean into the sounds of nature
Rule of Thirds camera angle at all times gives plenty of room to see the sights
Camera pull-outs on horseback and in select locations (shrines, certain mountains & fields) to drink in even more beauty
Incredible vistas and plenty of rocks, mountains and hills to summit to view them from

Naturally, you’ll slow down to appreciate these at least a little, even if you are the most impatient kind of player (assuming the game doesn’t get in your way when you try).
Again, the game was crafted in such a way that tells me that the devs want you to slow down and experience these things. Take, for further evidence, some of the game’s activities and waypoints:

Hotsprings — encourage the player and Jin to reflect on the story
Haikus — encourage the player to meditate on circumstance and emotion
Sanctuaries — encourages Jin to reminisce on his childhood and contemplate music’s place in his life
Keirei (Bowing) Interaction — encourages Jin to honor and then interact with the locale’s fauna
Freeing Caged Animals — encourages the player and Jin to value natural life

Reflect. Meditate. Reminisce. Honor. Value.
GoT’s activities aren’t all combat, time-trials and races. They’re communion with nature, and GoT is telling you that it must be achieved slowly, with respect and in the quiet.
“As you just demonstrated, the quiet helps one focus.”
ELEMENTAL POWER
But the landscapes and vistas of GoT aren’t just pretty pictures for the sake of being slowly-consumed eye candy. Sucker Punch leans deeper into Shinto than just the aesthetic, nearly personifying Tsushima’s natural wonders.
Nature is Spiritual

Jin’s honoring of deities at Shrines (all placed in secluded, naturally wonderful locations) grants him gifts and upgrades.
Haiku meditation grants Jin a vanity piece, but also represents his grappling and overcoming of circumstance and emotion, balancing his spiritual well-being
Yuriko mentions that Jin’s deceased father, Kazumasa, is the Guiding Wind and his late mother the Golden Songbird
Foxes leading you to Shrines of Inari are implied to be Inari themselves leading you to their graces

Nature is Knowing

There’s a subconscious realization that nature sees you in GoT
The Guiding Wind points you on your way, it knows where you are and where you need to go
The more Ghost actions you perform, the more stormy Tsushima becomes. Nature sees your actions and reacts to them.
Inari foxes and Golden Songbirds know where you are on the map and jump in to help you when you’re near something you could miss. In both instances, that thing makes you stronger, leading me to…

Nature is Powerful

Hotsprings add to your maximum health
Charms gifted by Mother Nature bolster Jin’s abilities
Storms sweep the trees and send startling cracks of thunder across the land
Mount Jogaku is frigid and dangerous to summit without additional sources of warmth
Jin & co. rely on the strength of a storm to aid their final attack on the Khan

Be it spiritually, intellectually or physically, nature holds power in GoT.
WHERE MAN MEETS NATURE
So GoT emphasizes natural wonder and gives it agency… Cool, whatever.
Where do we come into this? Where do man and nature meet and how do they interact in GoT?
SuckerPunch (and myself) are hitting you over the head with it; Man meets nature respectfully, in the tranquility of the quiet. When he does so, he receives its blessings.
He becomes stronger of body (hotsprings, shrines) and sounder of mind (haikus, sanctuaries).
GoT interactions, activities and more demonstrate to us that when man communes with nature and approaches it carefully with reverence and appreciation, he grows.
He learns, he sees, he remembers, he feels, he discovers, he opens.
Even the seemingly trivial headband vanity rewards we receive at haikus represent this — their namesakes denote some mastery or acceptance of the quality, circumstance or emotional subject of the poem. Consider the Handbands of Strife, Fear, Uncertainty, Perseverance, Rebirth and Hope, for example.
Jin is facing his mental struggles and conquering them not with force or ignorance, but with quiet contemplation using nature as the vessel.
Respecting nature brings it joy (Keirei interactions at signposts). It allows nature itself to thrive (sanctuaries) and allows us to thrive (haikus). Even freeing hawks and monkeys at Mongol camps grants us additional awards.
Conversely, when man meets nature violently, destruction is usually reciprocated in return.
Consider the storminess of the game’s major battles, or the increase in rainfall as you perform stealth kills and your Ghost Meter fills. The Mongol’s burning of the Endless Forest leaves death and devastation; their final battle with Jin is shrouded in storm.
Antagonistic and wrathful actions bring about destruction — they upset nature’s balance.
WHERE JIN MEETS NATURE
What if, genetically speaking, you were… “the lightning in the storm?”
That sounds an awful lot like destruction.
And that is the fate of Jin Sakai. Aside from the fact that the devs have more-or-less confirmed this, consider not just Kazumasa’s words above, but also… well, the game’s default sword kit, passed down in Jin’s family — it’s the Storm of Clan Sakai.
Not to mention Jin’s ownership and use of the flute, a mechanic that allows him to change the weather.
Jin is the storm. We, the player, are the storm.
We sweep across Tsushima, wreaking havoc in our wake of bloodshed, piling up countless Mongol corpses and stirring the island’s inhabitants.
Jin’s descent from honor into becoming the Ghost is his own internal storm (represented externally by, well, storms), and creates a similar uncertainty and disjointedness in Jin’s character as the island of Tsushima is experiencing under the Mongol invasion.
With such internal and external unrest, how can Jin achieve his goals and halt the Mongols?
PERFECTLY BALANCED
Jin may be the storm literally genetically, but remember that only half of his parenthood bore the Sakai name.
If Jin’s father — by his own admission in so many words on Iki Island — embodies a wildness, a propensity for conquest and might, then Jin’s mother brought him the opposite.
Indeed, it was two mothers — one biological, and one of nature.
We mostly learn of Jin’s biological mother through his own recollections at Sanctuaries. I wish I had a bank of this dialogue for further support here — I couldn’t find it while searching around.
What I remember is that she contrasted Kazumasa.

Where he brought wildness, she brought calm.
Where he brought brute force, she brought emotion.
Where he brought seriousness, she brought lightheartedness.
Where he brought conquest, she brought peace.
Where he was uncertain, she brought thoughtfulness.

Raised by the opposing sides of a single coin, Jin is naturally bound to land somewhere in the middle.
But, under the stress of a terrifying invasion on his homeland and, as a result, mentally and emotionally unbalanced, he’s bound to land more on his father’s side. He’s bound to bring that wildness to his endeavors and potentially cause unnecessary harm and destruction.
Thankfully, with his mother’s principles swirling subconsciously, Jin remembers the importance of the land around him. He remembers to honor the very ground he is trying to liberate.
Rather than rushing Castle Shimura off rip, Jin engages with the land of Tsushima.
He rests at hotsprings, contemplates haikus, pays homage at shrines and reaps the physical, mental and emotional benefits that follow his reverence.
He does not ever quell the storm that lies inside of him — no, he is clan Sakai — but because of his attention towards and engagement with nature, he does gather it. He does control it. He does master it.
Through his late mother and through mother nature herself, Jin takes the weight of saving an entire island off his shoulders. Sound of body, mind and spirit, he becomes perfectly balanced. As all things should be.
--
Jin can do incredible things on the battlefield and in the shadows. He’s an absolute freak of nature when it comes to swordsmanship and athleticism.
Jin Sakai is, indeed, the lightning in the storm. All its power, all its might, all its destruction — importantly — captured in one single space. Honed into one prong, one moment, one man.
By prioritizing Shinto practices, Jin is not a reckless, swirling, chaotic typhoon — he has balanced his internal turmoil with peace and meditation and is now a controlled force, focused vigilantly at Khotun Khan.
“As you just demonstrated, the quiet helps one focus.”

There’s a lone peasant on the beach of Saru Island in Ghost of Tsushima’s Iki Island DLC.
Last night he burned the final pieces of wood from the Bamboo Strike to stay warm under the moonlight. If Jin wishes to practice his swordsmanship, he’ll need to supply his own wood.
…at this point in the game you have 9827346 bamboo pieces. A few to spare should do no harm.
After three perfect slices, Jin and the Peasant exchange words again. Noticing the lack of any other humans in the area, Jin asks why the peasant makes his home in a location so remote. The Peasant replies:
“As you just demonstrated, the quiet helps one focus.”
--
Ghost of Tsushima (GoT) is a game ~~about slicing up bad guys while dressed as a cool samurai-ninja dude~~ heavily tied to nature and spirituality. It mirrors and puts to use a staple of Japanese culture; Shinto — a spiritual tradition which holds that deities are found in nature.
I do not pretend to be an expert on Shinto or Japanese culture. Au contraire, I'm a basic-bitch white dude in America. I just like writing about video game elements that catch my attention, and GoT uses nature in ways that really capture me. If you'll allow me to explain with a nice wall of text...
ELEMENTAL EMPHASIS
You don’t need me to tell you that GoT is a visually and audibly incredible game.
You don’t need me to remind you of its golden forests, its snowcapped mountains and its rugged seaside cliffs — you’ve seen them for yourself.
It’s clear that jaw-dropping visuals and natural environments were something the devs wanted players to experience rather viscerally — take, for instance, sunrise and sunset being their own distinct times of day, not just a few scant moments between the day/night cycle. Or the sheer dramatic bombast of the autumnal forests, floral fields or sun-splashed mountains of Tsushima and Iki.
The realism in audio as well still impresses me — crackling bamboo forests, crashing waves, rushing waterfalls and powerful wind gusts all sound incredible. They sound more than that, they sound enveloping, three dimensional — they sound as they should; like you’re really there.
These are all great, yeah, but plenty of games look and sound great. What I noticed was the subtle ways the devs prompt additional emphasis on them.

Minimal HUD for maximum eye candy
Minimal music during open world traversal to lean into the sounds of nature
Rule of Thirds camera angle at all times gives plenty of room to see the sights
Camera pull-outs on horseback and in select locations (shrines, certain mountains & fields) to drink in even more beauty
Incredible vistas and plenty of rocks, mountains and hills to summit to view them from

Naturally, you’ll slow down to appreciate these at least a little, even if you are the most impatient kind of player (assuming the game doesn’t get in your way when you try).
Again, the game was crafted in such a way that tells me that the devs want you to slow down and experience these things. Take, for further evidence, some of the game’s activities and waypoints:

Hotsprings — encourage the player and Jin to reflect on the story
Haikus — encourage the player to meditate on circumstance and emotion
Sanctuaries — encourages Jin to reminisce on his childhood and contemplate music’s place in his life
Keirei (Bowing) Interaction — encourages Jin to honor and then interact with the locale’s fauna
Freeing Caged Animals — encourages the player and Jin to value natural life

Reflect. Meditate. Reminisce. Honor. Value.
GoT’s activities aren’t all combat, time-trials and races. They’re communion with nature, and GoT is telling you that it must be achieved slowly, with respect and in the quiet.
“As you just demonstrated, the quiet helps one focus.”
ELEMENTAL POWER
But the landscapes and vistas of GoT aren’t just pretty pictures for the sake of being slowly-consumed eye candy. Sucker Punch leans deeper into Shinto than just the aesthetic, nearly personifying Tsushima’s natural wonders.
Nature is Spiritual

Jin’s honoring of deities at Shrines (all placed in secluded, naturally wonderful locations) grants him gifts and upgrades.
Haiku meditation grants Jin a vanity piece, but also represents his grappling and overcoming of circumstance and emotion, balancing his spiritual well-being
Yuriko mentions that Jin’s deceased father, Kazumasa, is the Guiding Wind and his late mother the Golden Songbird
Foxes leading you to Shrines of Inari are implied to be Inari themselves leading you to their graces

Nature is Knowing

There’s a subconscious realization that nature sees you in GoT
The Guiding Wind points you on your way, it knows where you are and where you need to go
The more Ghost actions you perform, the more stormy Tsushima becomes. Nature sees your actions and reacts to them.
Inari foxes and Golden Songbirds know where you are on the map and jump in to help you when you’re near something you could miss. In both instances, that thing makes you stronger, leading me to…

Nature is Powerful

Hotsprings add to your maximum health
Charms gifted by Mother Nature bolster Jin’s abilities
Storms sweep the trees and send startling cracks of thunder across the land
Mount Jogaku is frigid and dangerous to summit without additional sources of warmth
Jin & co. rely on the strength of a storm to aid their final attack on the Khan

Be it spiritually, intellectually or physically, nature holds power in GoT.
WHERE MAN MEETS NATURE
So GoT emphasizes natural wonder and gives it agency… Cool, whatever.
Where do we come into this? Where do man and nature meet and how do they interact in GoT?
SuckerPunch (and myself) are hitting you over the head with it; Man meets nature respectfully, in the tranquility of the quiet. When he does so, he receives its blessings.
He becomes stronger of body (hotsprings, shrines) and sounder of mind (haikus, sanctuaries).
GoT interactions, activities and more demonstrate to us that when man communes with nature and approaches it carefully with reverence and appreciation, he grows.
He learns, he sees, he remembers, he feels, he discovers, he opens.
Even the seemingly trivial headband vanity rewards we receive at haikus represent this — their namesakes denote some mastery or acceptance of the quality, circumstance or emotional subject of the poem. Consider the Handbands of Strife, Fear, Uncertainty, Perseverance, Rebirth and Hope, for example.
Jin is facing his mental struggles and conquering them not with force or ignorance, but with quiet contemplation using nature as the vessel.
Respecting nature brings it joy (Keirei interactions at signposts). It allows nature itself to thrive (sanctuaries) and allows us to thrive (haikus). Even freeing hawks and monkeys at Mongol camps grants us additional awards.
Conversely, when man meets nature violently, destruction is usually reciprocated in return.
Consider the storminess of the game’s major battles, or the increase in rainfall as you perform stealth kills and your Ghost Meter fills. The Mongol’s burning of the Endless Forest leaves death and devastation; their final battle with Jin is shrouded in storm.
Antagonistic and wrathful actions bring about destruction — they upset nature’s balance.
WHERE JIN MEETS NATURE
What if, genetically speaking, you were… “the lightning in the storm?”
That sounds an awful lot like destruction.
And that is the fate of Jin Sakai. Aside from the fact that the devs have more-or-less confirmed this, consider not just Kazumasa’s words above, but also… well, the game’s default sword kit, passed down in Jin’s family — it’s the Storm of Clan Sakai.
Not to mention Jin’s ownership and use of the flute, a mechanic that allows him to change the weather.
Jin is the storm. We, the player, are the storm.
We sweep across Tsushima, wreaking havoc in our wake of bloodshed, piling up countless Mongol corpses and stirring the island’s inhabitants.
Jin’s descent from honor into becoming the Ghost is his own internal storm (represented externally by, well, storms), and creates a similar uncertainty and disjointedness in Jin’s character as the island of Tsushima is experiencing under the Mongol invasion.
With such internal and external unrest, how can Jin achieve his goals and halt the Mongols?
PERFECTLY BALANCED
Jin may be the storm literally genetically, but remember that only half of his parenthood bore the Sakai name.
If Jin’s father — by his own admission in so many words on Iki Island — embodies a wildness, a propensity for conquest and might, then Jin’s mother brought him the opposite.
Indeed, it was two mothers — one biological, and one of nature.
We mostly learn of Jin’s biological mother through his own recollections at Sanctuaries. I wish I had a bank of this dialogue for further support here — I couldn’t find it while searching around.
What I remember is that she contrasted Kazumasa.

Where he brought wildness, she brought calm.
Where he brought brute force, she brought emotion.
Where he brought seriousness, she brought lightheartedness.
Where he brought conquest, she brought peace.
Where he was uncertain, she brought thoughtfulness.

Raised by the opposing sides of a single coin, Jin is naturally bound to land somewhere in the middle.
But, under the stress of a terrifying invasion on his homeland and, as a result, mentally and emotionally unbalanced, he’s bound to land more on his father’s side. He’s bound to bring that wildness to his endeavors and potentially cause unnecessary harm and destruction.
Thankfully, with his mother’s principles swirling subconsciously, Jin remembers the importance of the land around him. He remembers to honor the very ground he is trying to liberate.
Rather than rushing Castle Shimura off rip, Jin engages with the land of Tsushima.
He rests at hotsprings, contemplates haikus, pays homage at shrines and reaps the physical, mental and emotional benefits that follow his reverence.
He does not ever quell the storm that lies inside of him — no, he is clan Sakai — but because of his attention towards and engagement with nature, he does gather it. He does control it. He does master it.
Through his late mother and through mother nature herself, Jin takes the weight of saving an entire island off his shoulders. Sound of body, mind and spirit, he becomes perfectly balanced. As all things should be.
--
Jin can do incredible things on the battlefield and in the shadows. He’s an absolute freak of nature when it comes to swordsmanship and athleticism.
Jin Sakai is, indeed, the lightning in the storm. All its power, all its might, all its destruction — importantly — captured in one single space. Honed into one prong, one moment, one man.
By prioritizing Shinto practices, Jin is not a reckless, swirling, chaotic typhoon — he has balanced his internal turmoil with peace and meditation and is now a controlled force, focused vigilantly at Khotun Khan.
“As you just demonstrated, the quiet helps one focus.”

I feel like Instagram is getting very repetitive and tiring at this point and it has the same fate as Facebook. Remember how all of us used fb like crazy and now it's a thing of the past? I see IG going down the same route.
I open and see whatever I expected to see, can't even stand the reels section tbh. Stories full of thirstraps or random flexes, it's so annoying. The only time I really find myself using my phone is when I browse through reddit, use WhatsApp to chat a bit, Spotify and banking apps
Meta has made WhatsApp into this weird pre-historic version of IG, soon we'll have to follow people there as well (I heard you will able to talk to people w/o their numbers after a future update 🙃) I miss the old WhatsApp, they've basically killed the vintage vibe of all the apps or maybe we've just overused it. Even the UI of IG boils my blood 😭 I haven't opened the app since 2 months, my account is still there but frankly that's the only place left to socialise w people
I want to just get rid of it but I can't because I'll lose touch with everyone, I only keep the very close people in WhatsApp but my main motive of keeping ig was to check how & what my knowns were upto. It was nice back in the 2015-16 era where people used to post pictures of themselves or their travel pics only. Now with all the edits and girls thirstrapping it's become very unbearable (also yes I understand ig is where some people met their other halves thru thristraps or not 🥲 so pls understand, I'm just ranting/putting my opinion out there, nothing personal 🙏🏻)

There are a lot of based on a true story movies, some of which tackle well-known ones, but how many ones are there which are great and maybe well-known yet we've not seen a cinematic adaptation?
Are there any stories you think are cliched or covered a lot when it comes to based on a true story movies?
I don't think the John Darwin case will become one yet, despite its notoriety; although it did get the acclaimed miniseries The Thief, The Canoe, His Wife & The Canoe on ITV in the UK.
Are there any true stories you think would be fantastic for such a based on a true story movie?
I like a good based on a true story movie every so often, but equally, there are the greats and the... not-so-greats.
What's your take on this?

Long story short - I'm a Lead Software Engineer from NY & I've been working on online logo builder for the past 6 month.
I'm launching it today. Check it @ logo-ship.com
P.S. Created logos for this subreddit. Are they any good?
Cheers, Dan
https://preview.redd.it/fzdjuquz364d1.png?width=602&format=png&auto=webp&s=4b9a2475d781de2dd0a9898949ec93443fb56821

Long story short - I'm a Lead Software Engineer from NY & I've been working on online logo builder for the past 6 month.
I'm launching it today.
It's nothing fancy but gets the job done.
Backstory: As a multiple startup & business owner it was always a struggle for me to come up with decent logos for my new projects in the early stage. I wanted something quick and cool.
I did the research and didn't find good alternatives since I feel they are overpriced & don't offer free services.

# www.brandcrowd.com (same as design.com) - $15 per logo # www.looka.com - $20 per logo # logoai.com - $30 # smashinglogo.com - $179

Please use it and abuse it. I appreciate any feedback.
Cheers, Dan

33M - Inflamed feeling, tightness, very weak - Left breast & left lat/rib area 10 days+ - but has now mostly dissipated. Instead having fairly extreme shortness of breath. Worried I might me having mild reactions to Amoxillin
Doctors are not sure
33M, 92kg, exercise ~5 days/week, Stable, looking for help with potential diagnosis.
Doctors are struggling to understand my issues. At this point my symptoms are improving but I want to understand what happened. Any help is really appreciated.
19/05/24

start feeling a slight tightness in my chest under the armpit that wrapped on top of the breast like a band. Tighter on the breast but cant specifically pinpoint. 'inflamed and hard' is how I would describe it.

-mildly uncomfortable, but otherwise unaffected. Nervous as its in the heart region.-Continues more or less the same for a few days.
22/05/24
-then on May 22 woke up at 4am extremely dizzy & faint. Pain in chest. I've never felt like this. Could feel heart but I don’t think it was racing. Went to hospital. X-ray/urine/blood/trompoid/ekg all checked out. Was held for 8 hours, rerunning tests
-started getting light "thudding" pain in left upper chest region that came and went & burning sensantion. Tightness remains
-since then have been unable to sleep except sitting up or on my left side. Any other resting position causes burning and increased tightness that keeps getting worse rapidly as I stay in that position.
24/05/24
-on Friday 24 drove to town nearby as we had weekend plans which was 300m higher elevation. condition worsened while there.

Tried driving a bit, but going up higher to ~800m seemed to put too much “pressure” on my heart. It seems the tightness significantly increased. The town was at 400m.
Spent the weekend very weak. Walking fast would exhaust me, laying in bed was the only option.

25/05/24

Started feeling chest tightness across whole chest ~10pm. Took an ibuprofen
Struggling not to panic, dark times. Feelings of impending doom and ruined life heh.
Panicked around 1am on 26/04/24 and went to hospital. Again no issues on ekg/blood test/xray.
Given aspirin. That seemed to help.

26/05/24

Drove back down. 500mg Aspirin every ~4hr really seemed to alleviate the thudding pain and the 'inflamed feeling' across top left breast and down the left lat..
While driving, may be paranoia***,*** but it felt as if changing altitude quickly (up and down hills) would trigger the thudding pain...Irritate the 'inflamed' area.

27/05/24

I’m now getting light shoulder pain and inner elbow pain on my left arm and pain on top of my left foot (that may be unrelated?).... This may also just be from sleeping on my left side every night.

28/05/24

Go to doctor, another EKG, all good. Considers it might be Pleurisy. I was able to generate some light pain when breathing in as deeply as possible.
Prescribed Naproxen & Lansoprazole and Amoxillin. I have not taken the Amoxicillin due to paranoia, I dont want to start all the meds at once and the Naproxen hit me quite hard at first.
The tightness and burning sensation is still there on my left breast & random light pain comes and goes on top of left foot
The combination of left breast + lat Feels very much like it’s inflamed. Feeling by night by spreads to my back and dorsal lat on my back
Figured out if I put pressure on left side ribs, It causes thuds of pain that spread a little bit across left side. Same as if I push down on chest
Took 2 Naproxen and napped around 11am. Woke up very groggy, brain fog rest of day.
- Lowered dose to 1 in the evening (7pm)
- Went to bed sitting up.
- Around midnight feeling a lot of tightness in left breast & top of diaphragm. Thats new! Felt like tightness but could still breathe decently.
- Very rarely get sharp pain if breathe in deep quickly (maybe 3-4 times in 6 hours)
- Took another Naproxen - fell asleep around 2am.

29/05/04 - Took 2 Naproxen and napped around 11pm. Woke up very groggy, brain fog rest of day. - Lowered dose to 1 in the evening (7pm) - Went to bed sitting up. - Around midnight feeling a lot of tightness in left breast & top of diaphragm. Felt like tightness but could still breathe decently. - Very rarely get sharp pain if breathe in deep quickly (maybe 3-4 times in 6 hours) - Took another Naproxen - fell asleep around 2. - Woke up with same tightness ~7:30am. Easier to manage once walking around. - Very comfortable 9:30-11. - 11:30 symptoms worsened, Diaphragm very tight. Pressure band on upper left chest returned (mild tightness) - 12:30 Felt better, took 250mg (1 pill) Naproxen. By 1:30pm feeling almost normal with light diaphragm pressure while sitting and light discomfort in right chest while walking. When I sit down I can feel tightness in left chest area. - 9pm took naproxen (1.5 pills). went for walk to dinner at 8.. Symptoms worse, tight chest/diaphragm and burning sensation/tightness on left breast and lat :( right breast is fine. - 9:50: pain gone but groggy. Assume Naproxen kicked in
30/05/24 - 5am: woke up to little discomfort for once, bit of chest tightness, pain in top of left foot~5am - 8:45am: Had a bit of coffee+honey+cacao. Sat down to work, light thudding pain in left breast felt. Not sure if related to coffee. Light tightness across rib lat has returned. We are now 12hrs from last dose, Naproxen should be gone. - 9:30 - Naproxen - 16:30 - Started to deteriorate- chest tightness - 17:00 - Took amoxicillin. Around 18:30 chest feeling very tight around sternum and at bottom of each breast. - 8pm, feeling quite stable. Will take naproxen at 9. Accidentally ate so will not take lanzoprazole. - 10:30 first time in a long time able to lay on my chest for a little while.
31/05/24

woke up light nauseous at 7. Little/no pain
Took Amoxicillin 7:40
10:25 lanzoprazole. Not really in pain.
11:00 - (1) 250mg nazopren
1:45: Took Amoxicillin
4pm no pain except when lying down
5:30 - went to grocery story. A bit tired
7:43 -lanzoprazole - left upper chest area lightly aching while sitting on couch. Seems to improve when sitting forward
8:30 ? Taken Nazoprenx2 pain in left chest is significant and general chest tightness
9:40 - gotten worse. Left breast near armpit feels very inflamed. Chest very tight. Not sure what triggered this flare.

01/06/24 - 7:40 - woke, took Amxilin. no pain or Inflamed feeling on breast, chest a bit tight - 11 - took lanzó chest starting to feel a bit inflamed - 11:40 - not feeling pain. took 1.25 naproxen. - 3:50pm - Tightness worsening from ~3. Very light discomfort in left breast. Took amx - 7:30 take lzprn. Feeling a little groggy. - 8:15pm felt light thud pain in lbreast and left rib cage but now fine. Took 2xNaz @ 8pm - 9:30 chest tightness - Last amx ~ 11. Struggling to sleep - intense chess tightness, particularly behind ribs. Different from before where it was higher up - Salbutamol at 12:40 1 puff - Fell asleep around 3am. Felt like my body kept jolting me awake due to lack of breathing.
02/06/24 - 8am - slightly tight chest - 9:45 am - took amoxicillin, took ventolin - 10:40 - took lanzoprazone. Chest tightness is very significant. left side thudding chest pain appearing in area under armpit - intermittent. I’m very tired. Took ventolin - 11:40 - took nazoprene 1.25. walk to pharmacy. Slightly dizzy. Lower chest/diaphragm tightness is intense. Had to sit to calm down/ feel like I was getting air. Still very tight. Now have diarrhea - 1:12 - ventolin. Very tight lungs. Head feeling tight as well. Bleak.

MechWarrior Online :: Outreach HPG :: MWO