A Virtual Pilgrimage to the Pregame Cities of SOTF

[MethodicalSlacker]

Four weeks ago, I started watching the seminal television series Twin Peaks directed by David Lynch and Mark Frost. I fell in love with the titular town, like many before me, and I started to draw parallels between Twin Peaks and several towns from Survival of the Fittest. I'm not super into television, so I'm not suggesting that Twin Peaks is unique in how it treats its setting with recurring locations and hangouts, but it reminded me of pregame in SOTF a bit. All of these storylines come together, united by the town, in various overlapping locations, not unlike some of the intricate storylines we can get in pregame. I watched through Season One and part of Season Two before I caved in and started googling the show, searching it on YouTube—I was able to avoid any major spoilers, but one place I was drawn was this video, entitled "Three Days in Twin Peaks."

The differences and similarities between Twin Peaks and the Snoqualmie area were intriguing to learn about, and that hyperreality the show is known for only grew stronger because of it. Many of the locations featured in the show still stand, and exist just as the show implies. This, again, got me to wonder about Survival of the Fittest. How do the pregame versions of cities like St. Paul, Seattle, Kingman, Chattanooga—and many other locales from other parts of the Survival of the Fittest storyline and alternate universes—compare to their real life counterparts?

We'll be looking at a variety of sources to examine each city in a variety of lights. Most prominently, the actual pregame locations of each pregame city will be evaluated in the context of potential real life locations that match (sort of like, if we were making an SOTF TV show and shot on location for these places, where would we go?), and how important those locations are to the city as a whole. City history will be explored, and links to video footage and travelogues of these cities will be provided. Testimonials from residents on public online forums will also be highlighted. Ultimately, the fictional interpretation will be weighed against the real world equivalent to measure how "true to life" SOTF's ideas are.

This is not a critique thread. While certain critical lenses might be applied, and subjective statements made, nothing said here is intended to be taken as critical, scholarly opinion. I'm focusing that energy on the research side of things. There's no grand thesis here besides literary, fandom inspired pilgrimage.

We'll be starting next Friday, October 23rd Sunday, October 25th FINAL DEADLINE: OCTOBER 31st (sorry I got caught up with schoolwork/my health and research has taken longer than expected) with V6's Kingman, Arizona. I've been watching a lot of videos on YouTube of people's experiences driving through Kingman, and I sort of developed a strange affection for this town and the surrounding desert by accident in the process. This evolved into something of a more regular habit of looking into online writings about the town. I'm very excited to start here, as I didn't get the most time to explore Kingman in pregame proper. Stay tuned!

[Sh4dE]

can't wait for you to watch denton

[MethodicalSlacker]

Our first stop on our Virtual Pilgrimage is Kingman, Arizona, home of the V6 Pregame. Founded in the 1880s, but discovered and inhabited long before then, Kingman has a long and interesting history, which is interesting when brought up in the context of SOTF. I primarily focused in this iteration of the document on using comparative geography to pinpoint possible real world locations (in film terms, where SOTF would be shot on location, I guess) for pregame locales. In the interest of not being indexed by search engines and wanting to include pictures, I've decided to present the travel guide in Google Doc format. You can read the guide here.

I'm going to pre-empt something I say in the guide and mention that this is a living document that I'll be coming back to on occasion and correcting/updating as I learn more. The current version is complete (I mean, by my judgement), but there might have been things I missed or didn't spotlight enough. Also the writing might be a bit clunky at times, so, fair warning there too. I'm going to take some time to focus on school before I decide the location of the next travel guide, but I'm looking at somewhere that's smaller and from an earlier point in site history, on either Main or Mini.

In any event; happy trails!