#ds amelie
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#death stranding#death stranding fanart#death stranding cliff#death stranding amelie#cliff unger#cliff unger fanart#ds amelie#ds amelie fanart#sam death stranding#bb death stranding
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My traditional and digital styles have converged and I think that’s really cool
#I actually think my marker skills might be stronger at this point which is interesting because I’m way more comfortable with digital#death stranding#ds2#death stranding 2#DS Amelie#sam porter bridges#artists on tumblr#art#digital art#digital artist#artblr#sketchbook#traditional art#painting#copicart
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fusion
#death stranding 2#higgs death stranding#death stranding#death stranding amelie#higgs monaghan#hideo kojima#peter englert#ds2#ds
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happy mother’s day!
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Higgs Monaghan, "Beach Babies," and mind control
We know that the Bridge Baby dolls that Higgs and the Homo Demens used function completely differently than the human BBs invented by Bridges. But did you know they're also otherworldly vessels of extinction itself?
The novelization of Death Stranding suggests that these BB dolls from the Beach ("Beach Babies," as my husband and I refer to them) warp the minds of their users and bend human will towards the goal of extinction.
So... how many of Higgs Monaghan's decisions after meeting Amelie are his own?
The first thing to note is that Bridges BBs react negatively to the presence of these Beach Babies, as seen here when Sam encounters terrorists using them.
Lou does not like these things. Perhaps that's why she points the Odradek at Higgs during their first encounter with him?
The novel introduces us to a porter who visited the Evo-Devo Biologist (referred to as EV in the book) while equipped with one, a couple years before Sam's expedition. He was polite and overall pretty normal at first, but then on his next visit things get... weird.
So... there are holes in reality that using a Beach Baby allows you to see, and that's how the tar leaks from the Beach into the world of the living. Speculatively, this might be how Higgs is able to DOOMS-jump so easily and frequently (and summon tar), without getting exhausted or needing much focus at all, in addition to his level 7+ DOOMS.
Oh, but it gets weirder. And scarier, as soon as Extinction Entities are mentioned.
Wow... he sounds a lot like Higgs, doesn't he? Come to find out, Higgs gave it to him.
But surely this is just him echoing the party lines of Higgs' organization and repeating Higgs' same sentiments... right? Unless...
Important to note, this porter doesn't have DOOMS. He shouldn't be experiencing extinction nightmares, but his Beach Baby is showing them to him.
Whether directly or not, this thing talks to him. Like some eldritch call of the void or an element of a Lovecraft novel, it tells him that extinction is the only answer, the only solution.
EV is, understandably, instantly alarmed when she sees Sam with Lou, relating this story back to him. Sam is quick to connect the dots between that porter, the terrorists, Lou's terror at encountering these other BBs, and Higgs himself.
As they discuss further, a chiralgram recording from that porter begins to play, in which he takes credit for the voidout that killed Heartman's family and explains why he did it.
So then, how is Higgs affected by his own Beach Baby? From his perspective, it doesn't sound good.
We can infer a few things from this:
The Beach Baby acts as the vessel for Higgs' connection to Amelie and her Beach. By the nature of his powers, that's why he's able to DOOMS-jump constantly without getting exhausted, control BTs and timefall, and use telekinesis. Think of it like supercharging a battery; his powers are fueled by connection to the dead, and through Amelie, he's plugged into the dead of five mass extinctions, skyrocketing his DOOMS abilities to their maximum potential.
The Beach Baby (perhaps even Amelie directly, by using it) shows Higgs extinction nightmares beyond the scope of normal DOOMS nightmares, "speaking" to him and giving him forbidden knowledge that fills his mind with thoughts of extinction in terms of inevitability, even without Amelie telling him directly.
(Speculative): Higgs betrayed Fragile because of what the Beach Baby did to him, and perhaps doing so was Amelie's own will disguised as his idea. After all, he turned on Fragile immediately after connecting to the BB doll, severing his closest bond practically overnight. Further, Fragile states (at least in the book, I forget if she acknowledges this in the game or not) that it wasn't Higgs who prevented her from DOOMS jumping with the nuke in South Knot City, but "someone else," who she later determined to be Amelie. Amelie ensured that Fragile had no power in that situation, and that there was no way for her to escape without hating Higgs in the end. Personally, my reading is that Amelie wanted to be Higgs' only option and only remaining connection; she set herself up to be all he had left, the only thing he could focus on. It's easier to control someone who's isolated, scared, and alone otherwise, and would remove the risk of him having doubts about accepting extinction because he had nothing--and no one--left to lose.
(Speculative): The Beach Baby acts as a mind control utility. Whatever hopes, dreams, and beliefs a person has, this BB doll can override them and bend its user's will towards the goal of extinction instead, reshaping their ideology to fit the EE's goals. It's impossible to say how much of this control is direct and tangible, but it grants Amelie a high degree of influence over Higgs' inner world, removing any sense of rebellion against her or instinctive resistance to the concept of total human annihilation.
Established later in-text (too much content to cite and embed), Higgs experiences grandiose delusions surrounding his role in the extinction, falsely believing that he's the one in control, viewing himself as "the bridge that brings the extinction" and is destined to safeguard Amelie so mankind can meet its end. Despite the facts, he genuinely thinks it was all his idea, his plan, and he's the mastermind behind the whole thing, personally chosen by cosmic forces to deliver the apocalypse and usher in a new world after humanity is gone.
As soon as Higgs is disconnected from his Beach Baby by Fragile, his delusions completely shatter and he immediately reverts to cold, hard logic, albeit the kind steeped in self-hatred. His ego does an immediate 180 and he realizes, "it was all make believe,” and "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and righteous fury. Signifying nothing." It hits him all at once: he was nothing but a pawn, a tool, a means to an end, played for a fool. Upon seeing the error of his ways, he can only lament how blind he was. The book decidedly doesn't kill him, instead leaving him on the Beach, "alone, without a person in the world to connect to," thinking, "this is how I'm meant to be," as he remains stranded "with nothing else to do but continue to confess his endless sins."
We'll never know how much of Higgs' mindset and atrocities were truly his own, while acting as Amelie's herald, and how much of it was solely based on Amelie's unseen influence. Just like Lady Macbeth, Higgs is both villain and victim to a greater evil, so to speak.
#the other thing is i don't think amelie fully understood the beach babies. just as bridges didn't understand BBs all that well#she just found them (the first one just Appeared to Bridget on the Beach. nailed to a giant crucifix. and she just. kept it)#but in conclusion i am obtaining a restraining order against amelie on my boy's behalf. i'm suing. emotional damage!!!!!!! abuse!!!!!!!!!!#poor higgs. he really didn't stand a chance. he could've been someone incredible but amelie really said 'i can make him worse'#i'm standing firm on the narrative that higgs is thematically an abuse survivor. not just regarding his uncle#amelie abused him emotionally and psychologically. but y'all ain't ready to talk about that :)#love love love higgs as the imperfect victim. trauma expression and survival is not always pretty or acceptable. it is ugly and violent.#higgs monaghan#death stranding#ds analysis#ds novelization#logan.txt
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I'm so crazy, I replayed the fight with Higgs and it looked like his hair was already white even before the last part. It's really strange, because when he's wearing a hood, his hair should be darker, not lighter, I don't know…
Also, does anyone have any idea what that white, illuminated arch on Amelie's beach might be? I've seen it before, but never really stopped to look at it. It reminds me a lot of the lighting on the BB pod support…
#death stranding directors cut#death stranding#sam porter bridges#higgs monaghan#amelie#about-ds#my-games
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I'm a sucker for a liar in a red dress
Her eyes come alive in the sunset
She knows I can't help myself
I'm in love with the madness
pose insp: Paolo e Virginia by Alessandro Puttinati
color ver, notes
I've always thought they were an interesting pairing, and drawing them has been on my drafts for a while! if Higgs is the masked character, my headcanons are:
He worships Amelie so much that he decided to start a religion around her
He thinks he can be Amelie but better
Higgs was "seduced by her powers", but he could've been seduced by her in general. She's beautiful and powerful, and also happens to be blonde. (If Higgs and Fragile dated briefly, we see her old hairstyle is similar to Amelie's)
His powers are triggered by death, while Amelie can be interpreted as death/extinction personified. So it makes sense that he would idolize and/or be drawn to her. This is why I drew her in color and gave her a golden halo, like in religious paintings.
I've wanted to draw this gorgeous statue for a ship ever since I saw a picture of it:
I also hc that under their fatalism and talk of extinction, they both long for connections and companionship still.
I'm so excited for DS2! I don't know their ship name but maybe GoldenEntity for now?
#ameliehiggs#higgsamelie#death stranding#amelie strand#higgs monaghan#amelie x higgs#higgs x amelie#I couldn't find a ship tag (?) happens a lot with niche ships xD#goldenentity#ds fanart#ds#ds2#death stranding 2
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I’m probably overthinking it but do you think Higgs has a strong resemblance to Amelie in DS2 because the only time he felt powerful and that he had some semblance of control was when he was with her. Since she abandoned him and stripped away his powers do you think it’s a way of him trying to desperately hold onto her after everything. Do you think his fear of being weak and vulnerable is keeping him from letting go.
#i saw someone say that many characters in DS want to stay in the past but are forced to carry on which is why their souls are stuck#on the Beach whilst their bodies are free#and how they said that Higgs might be the opposite way around in DS2 with his body on the Beach and his soul in the real world#because he wants to move on but he’s trapped in the past#death stranding#death stranding 2#higgs monaghan#amelie strand
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You ever think about how Sam and Higgs are reflections of each other? Like purpose wise. Sam was raised by the E.E. As a way to stop extinction. Higgs was manipulated by the E.E. As a way to ensure extinction. It was just a “who’s going to win?” Situation while the E.E. Sat back and could rest on her laurels that “it wasn’t her choice” because someone “made her” do it.
#look I hate Amelie/bridgette#I hate her#higgs monaghan#sam porter bridges#death stranding#spoilers#ds spoilers#death stranding spoilers
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Trying so hard to upload this… internet …. Pls…..
#art#death stranding#higgs monaghan#Sam bridges#Lou death stranding#Cliff unger#Heartman death stranding#Deadman death stranding#Amelie death stranding#Die-Hardman death stranding#death stranding furry au#ds furry au
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From @LadyMarinne
Death Stranding Photo Mode
#higgs monaghan#death stranding photo mode#during my first DS playthrough I'm stuck in this place in the west and for a long time couldn't defeat the chiral monster#so I googled useful tips#and on the first link I found something like: your goal is to Save Amelie and Defeat Higgs#and I added in my head just don’t confuse save Amelie defeat Higgs don't get confused don't get confused between them two...#save Higgs defeat Amelie... hehe
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I reeeeally wanted to try out my new Posca markers, and since I don’t really care what happens to Amelie, I figured she was a great subject to try them on 🤷🏻
#death stranding#DS Amelie#Amelie strand#artists on tumblr#art#artblr#traditional art#sketchbook#sketch#drawing#I played around with the long perpsectives#I thought it made me creepier
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Hi I saw that you answered an ask* the other day and I wanted to know if you continued with your analysis or if you could continue. I was really interested and curious to know more about it. I really wanted to know what you had to say, seriously, I could read a bible of Death Stranding reviews!
*https://www.tumblr.com/myaoiboy/739740134244794368/death-stranding-gender-talk-you-say-count-me-in?source=share
Hi! I totally can keep talking about Death Stranding forever (I know it's a very divisive game but imo on the whole the writing is like a well-oiled machine in ways that MGS just barely started to scrape askdjfh)
For the most part I haven't talked a *ton* about it at length because the series is just getting started and I feel weird making assertions that are likely to be fully subverted within a year or two. MGS has like. well, now, 25 years of shit going on. Sequels, prequels, fanon, etc., that Death Stranding...hasn't really had time to grow into yet.
I also tend to intentionally only post for dead series because the fandoms tend to be chiller lmao
Plus the fact that I got into DS right around the time that DS2 was announced, so I'm sitting here twiddling my thumbs knowing that there's about to be more content and context that I just don't have access to yet. I already feel like there's a lot more to be learned about the first game, just from the latest trailer drop.
Honestly I think the thing that really gets me with DS is that despite the borderline insanity of the setting, to me, there's a lot of dramatic irony and meta knowledge that makes DS pretty easy to follow compared to, like, any single MGS game. Maybe I'm just the exact target audience that the writing was intended for, but most of the big reveals felt less like a sucker punch and more of a dramatic swell.
Some reasons for this (please be gentle i am taking cutscene SCs from youtube videos, they're gonna look like shit):
First of all, this is basically frame 1 of being formally introduced to Amelie, we see...this lens flare. Look familiar?
...how about now?
We are introduced to her instantly with a sign of danger. A pretty one, but a sign of danger nonetheless. The fact that it's an inverted rainbow is important! It shows up around timefall because of chiral air disturbance. We don't know that yet in-game, but if you know about how light works you know that there's something Wrong(tm) about this.
A regular lens flare shouldn't be causing an inverted rainbow if it's causing one at all. I think in this cutscene Amelie's presence is causing that inverted rainbow. Throughout the game, people come up with various theories of their own to excuse her connection to the beach. Little do they know at the time how right they are...
She's also heavily backlit, which hides her features in an unsettling manner. In fact, I really can't think of anyone else that this happens to throughout the game (if anyone knows of another example PLEASE let me know!!!)
She gets pretty damn close before that rainbow disappears, but this is where I very quickly lost my initial trust in her (as the player).
I jokingly called called this her "Fox News reporter look," but it's very much constructed in a way that made me suspicious.
Let's talk about that red dress.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: Kojima fucking LOVES using color language, especially red, blue, and gold. It's been super obvious and explicit since like 2012.
The fact that we meet her wearing a red dress is not a coincidence!!! It's a great big flashing warning sign! It says "hey, this person is going to betray you! Do Not Fucking Trust!!!"
Compare Amelie's name card to Paz's from Peace Walker:
The art styles are different, but there are a couple of main throughlines. Namely, both have an emphasis on the color red, both are young (looking) women who are lying about their identities in order to ask the main character a favor. Characters vouch for them, from trusted advisors, to the main character himself in DS. And then they try to bring about armageddon.
Basically what I'm saying is that they're both the embodiment of white woman tears a wolf in sheep's clothing, if the sheep's clothing was still dripping in blood. We (characters, and maybe the players) believe that she's on our side because we want to believe she's on our side, and because other people that we ostensibly trust tell us she's on our side, while the extremely dissonant narrative and imagery of the scene are SHAKING US BY THE SHOULDERS TELLING US TO SNAP OUT OF IT.
Add to that the fact that we kind of vaguely, through that intro cutscene post-central knot explosion, know that the beach is connected to dying somehow, and that amelie seems to be on it, doing very stereotypical little girl in horror things there, like singing nursery rhymes slowly while walking into the ocean.
So we've basically been told that Amelie is Not Good, but we have to spend the game piecing together what kind of Not Good she is. The first hint is (surprise!) also in this cutscene!
I don't recall off the top of my head if I knew at the time how heavily egyptian mythology plays into DS, but I do remember this cutscene giving me a bad gut feeling about the concept of the West.
Very few Big Concepts in these games (the West, strand(s/ing), patriotism/nationalism, etc) are only symbolic of one thing. That's also true across the board in basically all art, but I feel the need to point that out in public posts because I don't want someone to eg, think that I say something means one thing, and then back that up, and then people think that means it can't mean something else! It can (and often does) mean both! and sometimes that additional meaning is super important!
Anyways, Die Hardman refers to Amelie going West. We don't really use that phrasing much, so it stuck out to me as euphemistic. Especially since we saw her after we died, and there's so much euphemism going on from the bridges team anyways. I mean, cufflinks "symbolize our connection?" Girl, you locked me to my bed with them. You drain my blood with them to turn into weapons. Call 'em what they are.
You'll even notice in the same cutscene that Amelie says "we made it to Edge Knot City" and Sam replies with "all the way to the Pacific?" Not "all the way to the west coast," or even a single question about why she was on the/his beach.
If you know anything about egyptian mythology, you might know that west is considered the direction of death and the underworld. ancient egyptians buried dead people on the west side of the nile river. Osiris, god of death and mummification, and king of the underworld, is referred to as "foremost of the westerners" among his epithets.
So the vibe that I got instantly was "Amelie is already dead, she led her team to die, and they are basically sending Sam on a suicide mission" though I didn't realize exactly how I was right at the time.
The other big thing I recall setting off my alarm bells as the game went on was the fact that nobody you meet has ever met Amelie in person. It's a very slow reveal, especially since most people seem to see online meeting and in person meeting to be mostly the same, and we're told that she set out with bridges one. That she went west. Turns out that...also wasn't literal.
I don't remember exactly when I started wondering if *sam* had ever even met her outside of the beach, but I do remember thinking that there was something off. For a little bit my guess was that she was entirely fictional, some sort of AI (pretty influenced by all the "dead person brought back by AI/hypno bullshit ngl), or maybe that Higgs could somehow disguise himself in the Beach in ways i didn't understand yet.
But I didn't feel *worse* for being able to figure things out ahead of time, I felt clever that I could piece together all the little hints and have a good idea of what was going on. It made death stranding feel more like a coherent sci fi narrative rather than a cheesy action story that's expected to follow certain strict genre conventions.
Not that I'm saying mgs or action in general are bad, but rather that imo Death Stranding feels...more mature and confident in some ways (and also isn't bogged down by 20 years of previous work. which. i don't even like my own shit from a year ago half the time, i cannot imagine having to write within the constraints you created TWO DECADES prior kjhksjfh). Maybe it's that it feels like less of a genre subversion and has more genre utilization? dunno. Now I'm thinking too much like an english major lkajshdf
But yeah anybody who wants to talk about anything totally feel free. Or if you want to give me prompts to write about. I will always be willing to talk about things for way too long on the internet. I just don't always reply quickly because I start rambling....Like This.
#oops this got long#death stranding#samantha america “amelie” strand#amelie ds#analysis or something#anon ask
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Oh, who is she?
A misty memory
A haunting face
Is she a lost embrace?
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Themes of (presumably) Higgs’ appearance and transformation in Death Stranding 2.
1. The Rebis: the final product of the alchemical Great Work where male and female, two opposing aspects following a process of putrefaction and purification, are united in a single being. While this would appear in many ways to be (cyborg?) Higgs, it certainly isn’t wholly him, with elements of Amelie seen in the hair, the quipu, and the thematic colour of red.
2. Rubatosis: the uncomfortable awareness of your own heartbeat, where we see (cyborg) Higgs’ organs uncomfortably on display, intestines reminiscent of tentacles writhing in a BB pod.
3. Rubedo: a reddening. The final stage of the alchemical Great Work. Here corrupted, as rather than bringing Higgs/Amelie closer to the final transformation into gold, the Golden Mask has decayed into red.
Bonus 4. Rebirth: for obvious reasons.
#yeah idk where i’m going i’m still piecing this together#but have some thoughts#death stranding 2#higgs monaghan#amelie strand#ds meta#ds2#watch it not be him#or either of them
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Okay okay okay hear me out--
What if Higgs' being was split the same way Bridget and Amelie were? What if his body is alive but his soul is still on the Beach?
#the puppet catching his attention and him calling it 'another soulless husk' was... interesting. the boy projects like crazy. WHAT IF--#what if he's now the inverse of the extinction entity? the *opposite* of Amelie?#ds has so many themes that fit into the idea of eternal recurrence... this would further that narrative#sam is reliving his father's story and higgs is reliving amelie's#death stranding#higgs monaghan#ds2#logan.txt
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