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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   26057 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 29, 2024

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I'm not sure whether it's better to respond with a furry fandom joke, a Baldur's Gate joke, or with a Vintage Story joke.

You're walking in the woods. There's no one around, and your phone is dead. Out of the corner of your eye, you spot him...

It's @SkookumTree, on his way through The Hock!

Who’s that behind him? Is that… Candlejack? Man I haven’t heard of him in a long t

This trend is actually propaganda by the bear mafia to increase optics for bears.

Seriously though, bears are portrayed more positively than men are in media and entertainment. I can't recall the last time I saw a bear portrayed as a threat or a cause of a dangerous scenario in a movie/tv show/game. But you have plenty of cute, cuddly teddy bears, bears as cartoon characters, sexy bears in Baldur's gate, etc. Or if the bear is an enemy that's because it's a bear rider in a video game and frankly speaking that is awesome.

They will absolutely wreck you in Vintage Story, to the point where they're more feared than most of the not!zombie enemies. Only the Bells, as mob-summoners, are really worse; even the T3 and T4 drifters can do comparable damage, but they're much slower, where your best hope when being chased by a brown bear before getting iron or steel armor involves trying to pit trap or outswim them.

Thems Fighting Herds has Huggles, who acts as the final boss for each arcade mode run, and is frankly unfairly hard. There's a bonus mode version you can play as that's even more overpowered, though it's intended for the rest of a multiplayer fight to team up against whoever gets to play the bear.

The Elder Scrolls have pretty consistently had bears as some of the most dangerous enemies, to the point where they could out-match some lesser dragons in Skyrim.

I've had Tribal runs in Rimworld wrecked by an early-game bear manhunter, though I dunno if that was vanilla or a mod. The Long Dark has some dangerous bears, though once you've got a good rifle setup and prep they're kinda loot pinatas.

I guess maybe Five Nights at Freddies, for a loose enough definition?

But yeah, they're definitely often treated as far less threatening or dangerous than they should be, even in some survival-themed games.

I can't recall the last time I saw a bear portrayed as a threat or a cause of a dangerous scenario in a movie/tv show/game.

The only quick example I can think of is The Revenant, which was from a while ago.

Well, Cocaine Bear is just from last year.

Another Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey got released in March too.

The Revenant had a brutal bear attack, but that’s pretty much the only one I can conjure off the top of my head.

Bears are still pretty common foes in video games - including Baldur's Gate 3, where the "sexy bear" in question is an Elf druid, Halsin.

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