#I have more but these were top of mind

[winterdeepelegy]

My Thoughts on Dawntrail

So having finished DT, here are some of my thoughts on the expansion as a whole. Expect spoilers below the cut, do not click if you haven't finished. Again these are entirely my opinions, I don't intend to present this from a perspective of fact.

Hmm. I don't hate DT, but it's not high on my list: 1. Shadowbringers 2. Heavensward 3. Stormblood 4. Endwalker 5. Dawntrail 6. ARR That said, I don't hate any of the installments of this game, but there are some definitely high and low points. Let's rip the bandage off and get the blanks out of the way: 1. DT has a dialogue problem. I don't hate Wuk Lamat as a character, it was kind of refreshing to see a green, earnest character take center stage while our characters stepped aside and provided a guiding hand. The big problem I have with her is her dialogue. She's basically a shounen character, complete with the 'I'm gonna be king of the pirates'/'I'm gonna be hokage!' schtick, and it really wears on me after a while. That's not the character's fault so much as it is the writing team. That being so, this game is best played in short stints, 1-2 hours at a time instead of trying to marathon the whole thing in short order. Any more than that and it really becomes repetitious. If they want to script it to sound like an episodic anime series, it will be best enjoyed in smaller bites. Sphene suffers from the same problem. I wanted to enjoy her more as a character, but the script made that a challenge. 2. Pacing and exposition. God. The first few hours of EW were enough of a slog with its slow pacing before getting to the first dungeon, this felt like an eternity by comparison. Up to about the level 95 content, it is a long span of exposition and lore stuffing (far be it from me to complain about abundant lore!), so much of which could have been covered in less time and with less repetition. They really wanted to hammer the tribes into our heads, and it felt like too much at times. They wanted us to care about the tribes and the people therein, but few things make me care less than overdoing it. Level 95-ish is when things start becoming more interesting, in my opinion. That's a long way to climb to reach the proverbial cookie jar. 3. The music. I'll be honest, soundtrack wise, this is not my favorite. I appreciate all genres of music, but swing jazz doesn't quite fit the feel of Tulliyolal. I would have liked to hear something closer to a cultural aesthetic to match the visuals and themes presented throughout the areas and civilizations therein. We didn't get that, and it's kind of a weird choice. The main themesong, also? Ehh... I didn't care for it in the trailer. This opinion hasn't shifted since my playthrough. I didn't really start finding enjoyable area music until Shaaloani. 4. 'My people are more important than your people'. This plot point has been done. We just dealt with the Ascians and pretty much got the same shpiel from Hades. They made Sphene and her subjects a little more sympathetic, though, so... good, I guess? 5. Erenville deserved better. Fussy Bunbun got done so dirty in this expack, the very least anyone could have done was give him a hug. He didn't even get that from his mother who, frankly, was the worst character out of all of it. He was also deadnamed repeatedly, which could have been a teachable moment. 6. Wuk Lamat and/or Bakool Ja Ja still owes me tacos. ------------ As for the positives? There are some. Thanks for sticking with me so far. 1. Pretty graphics updates - better over all. 2. No weirdly split zones - thank the Twelve for this. StB, ShB, and EW all had zones that you could only cover in part, and couldn't finish until later. The zones in DT flow pretty well for the most part, and the transition between upper and lower areas of Yak'Tel are nothing short of beautiful, especially in flight. 3. More Reflections - I'm glad to see more of these and I hope this trend continues. 4. For once, I'm not luke warm on the bard AF gear. It's actually a fresh look, but haven't found a dye pairing I like yet.

[sleepinglionhearts]

Scans from one of my old Midori sketchbooks in which I thought it would be fun to do a comic about a bookstore :)

[read in columns, from left to right]

[ganondoodle]

okay, bc i have seen this argument alot now (and it also seems to be the view point of aonuma himself..) is that "zelda cant do everything link does bc whats the point then"

and i take personal offense on that bc its a stupid argument (in. my. very. personal. opinion.- not judging people for liking it. its a ME thing)

whats the point? its that its her. its still a different character, different in story, background, personality, but i WANT to play zelda and she can do everything link does, why does she have to be so restricted and be bend over backwards to find some new way to make her 'useful' when link gets to do basically everything no questions asked (the only thing thats hers is like .. sealing power and sacrificial maiden, which i find a little underwhelming to say the least), if theres no point to it why are there always modders that model swap link with someone else, and in that case it has even less impact bc its an artificial model swap with no changes to the story (which can and should still be different when its the vanilla game with a different protagonist... its still a different character), clearly theres joy in just the model being a different one- and that isnt even to mention the story possibilities, since, again, its stil a different character

if we ever (never ... i know who we are talking about here) get to play as ganondorf i want to him to be just as versatile and active as link is, if we got a point and click adventure game for him instead bc 'whats the point' id be disappointed too- you can find any sort of excuse/explanation for zelda to be singled out but the fact remains it tracks with how female characters are often treated, and that hits a very sore spot for me

i guess i am unfortunately one of those annoying people that want to see female characters be treated exactly the same as male characters, possibly bc i am myself afab but identify as agender and have a deeply personal dislike for anything 'traditional' feminine bc i cannot and never will be able to truly live as myself in real life, it influences all of my work, my work is as just as much as my opinion on this, very personal

and in line with my point about modding, i see theres joy in just beign able to play as her even if its like this, i get that, i also get it for the creative aspect (though that mechanic worries me even more for the future bc it really seems to be the path now that -freedom = good, linear anything = bad-) it is a different idea and its not like i cant see that value- im not trying be "right" either, just bc i have that opinion doesnt mean i need everyone to agree, its a very personal thing, if you like it good for you! not for me though, and i think both of that is equally valid

i just personally wish she was allowed to be just like link, fight just like him but be different bc its still her and not him in the end- to be physically/playstyle like jsut like him, but you know ... as her, i dont think shed stop being zelda if she could wield a sword just like him

i dont really know how to get my point/feelings across, i dont want to step too much into personal stuff nor spam people with something that ultimately doesnt interest me alot, im just saddened by it really

(EDIT: bc i forgot to add this on here again; this isnt as much of a problem as it might sound like here, just the main topic i wanted to talk about; why im so uninterested in it is MAINLY bc i dont trust them to write anything interesting/care about lore anymore after totk, im always on the more pessimistic side that thinks its most likely worse than id hope and i know even the past games arent perfect or super interestingly written, but now its much more just a general distrust, together with everything like the price ... im just much less hopeful and cant get excited until i see more of it, like im waiting for the game to get out and reveal that its just as much of a mess and money i regret spending- kind of fear)

[moeblob]

OC again gomen ... (her name is Yuma)

[cosmic-walkers]

okay im gonna get off of steve and tom wolf hall parallels but i can't get over the whole father parallel things.

the more i think about it, the more at least in the show the whole wolsey bastard situation probably pissed stephen off because he saw how dorthea was essentially treated the same way he was treated by his own father. wolsey probably reminded stephen of his own father, in a negative way. because he had to have known about it. he probably had such a high opinion of wolsey at first, and then saw how dorthea was hushed away like a nuisance, and again, that is what happened to stephen. it's like they were both punished for being born out of wedlock.

which is so funny because the contrast to thomas is that thomas also saw wolsey as his father, a father figure who saved him and whom he loved. one who would never hurt him, and actually gave him the chance to be well, him. they were both essentially 'sons' of wolsey, sons that he had brought up, both lowborn just like wolsey but they also had such different views. and stephen started to resent him, even if in secret. at least in the show - because historically wolsey and stephen were besties.

i know we don't really develop into stephen's mind, but we know his parental situation in the book is a sore spot for him and i *think* that context is left out of the show. but that would've been another awesome parallel between them.

now tho, if stephen and thomas were friends, and stephen saw how thomas treated his own bastard now that probably would've given thomas some points in his book--

[2hoothoots]

i was having a chuckle to myself last night about Gristol, and how his plans are basically:

Restore Ford Cruller's memory

Find Maligula

???

Profit

but then... of course they are, right? this is Gristol we're talking about. Fatherland Follies drives home again and again that he's still operating on a child's logic, a warped and reductive version of the world that he never bothered to grow out of. both of his memory vaults center on the images of his childhood, this idealized version of the past that he clings to no matter what. and that's still how he remembers Maligula, too - as this saviour figure, who rushes in to help him when he's in trouble.

[ID: Two slides from Gristol's memory vault, Glory to Grulovia! Left: Gristol clings to Maligula's back as she summons waves to sweep away his assailants. Right: Gristol and Maligula waving from a balcony as the people cheer. Gzar Theodore brandishes a dagger in the background.]

like so much else, Maligula represents a return to this idyllic childhood - to the peace and simplicity of his youth, when he was free from worries and responsibilities. in his mind, he doesn't need to make any further plans - once Maligula's back, everything will go back to normal. Maligula will make everything better.

...is what i thought, but then i remembered this line:

[Screenshot source. ID: Gristol, in Truman's body, bows on his hands and knees in front of the newly-awaked Maligula. The caption reads: "Yes, High Priestess! I am here to correct the mistakes made by my father!"]

and that's kind of interesting, right?

to be clear: this happens directly after Maligula sees Helmut-in-Gristol's-body, and recognises him. her line before this is:

"Little Gzesaravich! Have you come to pay for your father's sins?"

my first thought was that Gristol hadn't expected to still be in Truman's body by the time he managed to find Maligula, and this was him trying to placate her and buy some time until he could explain the situation. but watching the cutscene back, that's clearly not what's happening here. Gristol is answering as himself, and his response of throwing himself to his knees before her is, as far as i can tell, genuine.

so what is going on here?

in Fatherland Follies, there's this line in the ride narration that stuck out to me:

"Why didn't the Gzar help Maligula in her time of need? No one knows, but historians agree - it is Gzar Theodore's biggest failure."

other lines mention Gzar Theodore's "mistake", and it's wording Gristol himself echoes in the screencap above. evidently, he believes that his father abandoned Maligula, leaving her to her fate at the hands of the Psychonauts, and it was that mistake that lead to them being driven out of the country - that mistake which he seeks to correct. maybe he even feels like he has a debt to repay to her for his family turning their backs on her all those years ago.

the 'High Priestess' thing, though - that's kinda weird, and threw me for a loop the first time i played the game. it took me until my second playthrough to connect the dots, and remember how the room in the Lady Luctopus - Gristol's room - was full of Delugionist scribblings and symbols.

[Screenshot source. ID: left, the walls of the hidden backroom in Gristol's hotel suite, covered in scrawlings of eyeballs and Maligula's name. Right, the pinboard from the hidden backroom. On its surface are photographs and newspaper clippings connected by pieces of string.]

i mean, look at this stuff! he had a whole conspiracy board and everything!

we learn very little about the Delugionists and their beliefs as a whole during the game, but i think drawing the connection here suggests two important things. one: that Gristol was in deep with this stuff. i don't know how he linked up with them - maybe via old family connections, or just good old-fashioned digging (we know he's skilled at worming his way into peoples' good graces, after all) - but it seems likely that he's begun to internalise their ideas, maybe even warping his own memories of events. and two: the Delugionists themselves are, if you'll pardon the pun, pretty far off the deep end.

like... i understand why PN2 didn't go heavy on the "mass-murderer cult worship" aspect of things, in the end, but man this is such a tantalising glimpse into the wider mythos around Maligula. Gristol is proud and haughty and thinks himself above everyone else; the fact that his first reaction seeing Maligula is to throw himself to the ground at her feet says so much about the way he's come to see her. he's not just trying to bring back Maligula, his childhood bodyguard. he's trying to bring back Maligula, the High Priestess of the deluge, the semi-mythical figure whose supporters believe even death couldn't stop. he doesn't even flinch at the way she confronts him, and maybe it's because he's bought in so completely to this deified figurehead, this idea of Maligula; more a living force of nature than a person. and it all comes back to the same place: an abdication of responsibility, not just to the person who protected him when he was little but to this avatar of floods and destruction. Maligula will make everything better.

i'd write more about my thoughts on the Delugionists but that'd be taking a hard turn into speculation, and this is already kind of long and rambling so i'd better end it here. but what an unexpected and evocative line, right? it's some of the only stuff we have to go off of regarding the Delugionists as a whole, but i think it does such a good job of hinting at the wider story - at teasing another layer to the mythos surrounding Maligula, one whose ripples we see throughout the game but which never quite breaches the surface.

[sysig]

My fourth wall OCs! ♥ (Patreon)

I tried to put everything in the tags but ended up being too long-winded lol, so here it is instead!

For this year’s big behind-the-scenes project, I realized I haven’t given colour references to a lot of my 4th Wall characters! There are...a surprising proportion of femboys who are aware of their existence here now that I look at it lol - I mean technically only Cory and Mint count there but that's still 2/8 - a fourth is kind of a lot! Their sizing is pretty funny to me as well, Cory’s proportions make everyone else look tiny by comparison, he’s just got a very large eye! Set right next to Gijat too, Vortians are so compact - he’s fully grown he’s an adult he’s just small!

Okay, for actuals now, starting left-to-right - while they’re obviously organized by height, it's funny because Cure is also the oldest by creation date. She's front of the line on everything! How silly. She's larger than your average plush bear but only by a little - just enough to be like Mildly intimidating if she approached haha. Puntable - and yet unpuntable lol. It's not just her being the oldest of the lot that makes her more powerful (although that is a contributing factor - she’s aware of her status both in and out of character!). It's not just Kids Rules either since she was made such a long time ago - y'know like ''Oh yeah well my character is [very powerful for X reasons]'' - although yes Also That lol. She's a Fourth Wall OC down to her roots, always intended that way - not everyone here can say that!

Tala also has that edge! Though in a very different way haha - she's also the only one here with a physical counterpart, which is fun :D Means she can go on “actual” adventures and bring that knowledge back with her cartoon versions - both are as real as the other! I keep forgotting her bow, agh, I need to take some more pictures of her sometime so my mental picture of her is more up to date haha

I guess my blankslate HF expression kind of counts?? Lol, it’s mostly for funsies, they’re more like a Concept As Person so?? Sure lol, With Accessories of course lol - haven’t been fighting it much lately so that’s all for now ♪ I wonder if they’ll stay so lucky in the near future hmmm

Gijat! ♥ He ended up being an accidental fourth wall character actually haha, he wasn’t designed with that in mind! He's not meant to know such things, but he did fairly well with it while he was part of the main rotation :) He was designed to be a story character but he ended up being my favourite comfort character so he got a few glimpses out <3 He hasn't for a while though! He's been retired for a long while actually - he's the second oldest character in the lineup after Cure but she had more staying power, sorry Gi <3 I did draw his fairy version not all That long ago tho! It’s hard to let go of anyone for Too long haha

Cory ♥ My sweet special boy <3 He's also the third oldest here! He was the first one to assert himself as a fourth wall OC haha ♪ Cure didn't really congeal into an OC for a long time - she stayed a concept and Gijat was on accident - whereas Cory purposefully and clearly looked outward from the start. He Has a story but it's never been all That developed - he has some non-4th Wall character-friends but his main focus is other, unrelated characters. He's always been very interested in other OCs, a lot of which stems from Bar actually haha - he and Bar are near-contemporaries - they're both featured here for a reason haha

Mint >:| He's...fine. He was inspired from a weird source and has therefore always Been weird - and also asserted himself like Cory. Same story - he has canon story elements but for the most part he's interested in others! Usually in a Pursuit kind of way, and not just limited to my OCs >:/ He needs to behave himself is what - he also has like 1000 outfits and they rarely repeat, ugh, pick one! I wasn’t familiar with the eGirl aesthetic at the time I made him, but he 100% fits it, look at him in his elf ears and heterochromatic contacts smh. I don’t actually know his real eye colour, or hair colour! He wears contacts and dyes his hair and won’t tell me, he even started dating a non-4th wall character without asking! He’s a real wild card

Erase is probably the babiest of the list despite Tala being newer and younger - everyone else was made before Erase! They’ve had had less screen time and less development than everyone else too.They're an incredibly light and oddly harmless fourth wall presence lol for all the danger They pose in Their story :0 They're fairly polite all things considered. They actually have a degree of respect for the fourth wall - unlike Some people (Mint) - probably from acknowledging The Player/Character vs. developer. If there's a hierarchy capable of being distinguished then Erase is going to place Themself in the safest spot. Y'know - to cause problems from lol. I do need to play with Them more - They're fun! But fun isn't quite enough to be full-fledged Interesting just yet, more to do, more to do

It's almost unfair to have Erase right next to Bar lol - possibly my most Interesting OC of all time. First created in 2015 quite soon after Cory, even in the same notebook! He retired in 2017, I think? 2018 at the latest - and then was revived in 2020 and has been here again since. And that's just his timeline! Not counting everything that went into him character-wise. Obviously my sonas don't count as 4th wall OCs because y'know - they're me - but Bar falls kind of unclear of the line between OC and sona, he's always been a weird one. He was initially meant to be an RP character and then over time he developed into a 4th wall OC/sona of a Kind. Nowadays he's a fully-fledged 4th wall OC by design - his change in design from his 2020 revival was meant to represent his transformation thereof - but he's always been weird! If I had to pick a character that I’d consider “overdeveloped” or put too much of myself in - even more than some of my sonas - it'd be him. He's one of my favourites because of that but it's hard to quantify how exactly I feel about him haha. I love him! It's painful! He's great! He's awful! He's very important to me and he'll never return to being what he was first created for again. I do quite like his new design <3 Paying homage to the video that sent him crashing back into relevance for me haha

It was fun to draw everyone :D And it's nice that they all have colour references now! Mint has definitely been the longest without one, everyone else has had at least Something - even Erase! And They're way newer! I did make Mint in a couple online dollmakers but that's not quite the same thing haha, he really needs his clothes hand-drawn :P

It's good to have them all :) They're a fun bunch and I like all of them <3 I think it’s kinda funny and a little strange how few crossovers they’ve had with each other though! So far it’s really only been Tala-Bar-Cory - the rest are aware of each other but haven’t really met, how strange, considering what they are!

[valnotso3xplicit]

what kind of toh ships do you like?

Huntlow is my number one always, I actually ended up getting into toh after ASIAS bc of how cute I thought they were together.

Im down with pretty much any Willow ship, she deserves all the love>> Other than that I enjoy lots of characters together, I’m a multishipper at heart

[nexus-nebulae]

"why are you so worried abt random accidents, stuff like that rarely ever happens" well you see I'm too disabled to ever evacuate a situation on my own, so I'd rather be a safety advocate now than become a statistic later

[starscelly]

[sysig]

Challenge level: Impossible (Patreon)

[sonknuxadow]

im fully aware that i need to stop forcing myself to engage with every new sonic thing immediately and finish it as quickly as possible . im working on that. but why did my first time having to actively practice being okay with being a little late to a major new sonic thing end up being a game i was looking forward to way more than any of the other new or upcoming sonic projects from the past year or so . tragic

[slaythespire]

on relation to that last post, the longer i work retail the shorter my fuse becomes on people with 0 social skills coming up to me at work LMFAO im sorryyyyyy

[alwayshappyhoursomewhere]

Cup of China 2023 - Adam Siao Him Fa and Shoma Uno during the men’s victory ceremony

[al-mayriti]

yesterday i was thinking that if i don't get into any phd program by the end of the year and i switch to focusing on studying oposiciones to work at a museum i will try and learn some catalan to get the c1.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

When all of your pirate mutuals succumb to the Gaimen angels derangement and you can't join in the fun because you just do not give a fuck about them 😔