#I just love the zelda series a lot okay?? LOL

[vioshortforviolence]

Yes!!

This is one of my favorite things about the series as a whole: Happy graphics that mask a darker story and themes.

I've always loved that kind of contrast in games.

Even Twilight Princess - one of the most "serious" entries in the series - is still full of fun and goofy moments!

I mean, have you seen Link's face when he discovers the Fishing Hole?? lol

And don't even get me started on the Ooccoo...

(Link's face here is also great.)

The Zelda series has a case of "judging a book by its cover" - or in this case, by its graphics; it isn't really quite as "kiddie" as people outside the fandom tend to think it is.

The Shadow Temple from Ocarina of Time comes to mind, especially the original version with all the blood splatters everywhere.

"Here is gathered Hyrule's bloody history of greed and hatred..."

ALSO DEAD HAND

Just what the heck was this mini-boss, Nintendo?! LOL

Anyway.

The Wind Waker: A happy sea-faring adventure that actually takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where the entire kingdom drowned because the hero wasn't there to save them.

Majora's Mask is its own brand of deep and depressing moments - but as OP said, it's still full of themes of hope and forgiveness.

And... ah, the ending of Link's Awakening. Mhm.

It's funny - whenever I see a doubting YTber play the Zelda games for the first time, they're always pleasantly surprised to see their own assumptions about the series being super kiddie be torn to pieces, lol.

This series is happy, goofy, serious... but most importantly, it's heartfelt.

I could go on and on about this series...

Anyway.

am i the only person in this fandom that wants this series to have more hopeful stories rather than completely dystopian and depressed stores? and i genuinely feel like the series darker moments have way more impact in the more “light-hearted” entries in the series…i seriously can’t be alone in this 😩 why do people want this series to be dark and gritty so bad? these games have always been a healthy mix of hopeful and tragic and i wouldn’t want that to change at all

[genericpuff]

Genuinely I would give anything to hear your thoughts or read more critical analysis of yours on other webcomics writing (*slides you Marionetta* I like the webtoon but there are some things in the writing that I'd like to see be discussed critically more often but the fandom focuses way too much on shipping. sighs..)

Anyway, you probably have been asked this before but are there any webtoons in particular you would recommend? :D

Oh lord, you don't know how many times a week I get asks in my inbox asking for my opinions on webtoons they're reading. It's really sweet that people wanna hear me talk about other works outside of LO, but unfortunately I just don't have the time to read as much as I used to, even keeping up on LO lately is getting really difficult 😅 I'm definitely keeping a list though of works to check out!

That said, I try not to read series on the basis of criticizing them because frankly I just... don't want to spend time reading something if people are only looking for me to rag on it? 😆 Of course I know that's not the only reason, I know there's also just the element of seeing me talk extensively about other works the way that I do with LO, but it's not really something I can turn on and off like that, I have to get really into a series to want to talk about it to that extent. So it often comes down to just luck of the draw :'0

Right now the series I'm keeping up the most on (or have completed and would absolutely 100% re-read):

Alfie (18+, it's porn with plot but the plot is REALLY GOOD , I SWEAR LMAO the art is gorgeous, the characterization is IMMACULATE, and it ironically tackles the subject of purity culture way better than LO ever has lol)

Theia Mania (the creator is often in my comment section / neck of the woods, she's been working on an Abduction of Persephone retelling for a long while now and has also tackled other myth retellings in her style! I always love seeing new pages of her work in my feed :' ) <3)

Tales from Alderwood (if you like fantasy and comedy, this one's great, the plot's really starting to get interesting and it's just got this really great sense of humor about it)

The Black Parade (this one's REALLY interesting, it's a comic-stylized version of My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade, using the songs as narration and sometimes even dialogue to tell a visual story, it's really cool and the art matches beautifully with the lyrics and style of MCR!)

A Tale of Two Rulers (this is a Legend of Zelda fancomic that poses the question, "What if Zelda and Ganondorf got married to solve their political crisis?" It updates a lot slower than most of the other comics I follow but the art and writing is so worth it <3)

Dogs of Future Past (and p much all of Lynx's Undertale comics which can be found in the link, seriously, THESE are the comics you wanna read if you wanna get into Undertale fanworks, they are PEAK)

Tamberlane (this one's an anthro comic, I normally don't read anthro but this one actually gripped me by the throat, the art is gorgeous and the character arcs so far have been great!)

The Mafia Nanny (okay it's legit so funny that I'm including this one here but I've been reading it the last couple days after seeing it basically beat out LO at the top of the trending tab for a couple days, so I figured I'd give it a shot, at first I was like "great more tropey shit" but the more I read it the more it's actually started to get pretty good, I'm holding out and hoping to god it stays that way LOL it's not especially deep or anything like that, but it's really fun and cute to read and the shipping of the main character within the narrative isn't too self-absorbed which I can always appreciate, I'd honestly be 100% fine with it if it didn't turn into a romance)

City of Blank (I talk about this one a lot here, but it's one of my favorite Originals right now, the art is super polished and the writing has gotten INTENSE, go check it out if you want some fun action / sci-fi storytelling!)

Time and Time Again (a time-travelling vampire and his werewolf boyfriend get into all kinds of misadventures, what more could you ask for?)

Touch of Divinity (like the Mafia Nanny, this is one I just started reading, it's got a very interesting premise so far and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes!)

[the-alliance-maker]

More art from my younger sister, yay!

Mask (Baby Hero of Time) looks like that because he's worn the Fierce Deity Mask too many times for extremely long periods, and now it's started to stain/scar his skin.

I'm also putting her little doodle she made me bellow too.

Mask (Baby Hero of Time) has a/his shadow following him around. This is apparently my sister's view of their relationship.

(She was nervous about letting me post the gif and required that I clarified that it's a low effort, quick animation she only made to get a laugh out of me, lol. She was correct about making me laugh. I was in tears for, like, an hour.)

More explanations (And lack there of?) about it under the cut.

These pieces of art are both from an AU of mine that we roleplay a lot.

I'd explain more, but it's built off an alternate timeline/universe of @wutheringmights story "Call them brothers". And I'm not sure what her rules are about fanart or fanfics, mostly because I never asked or looked into it and I never intended to.

I make AUs for the fanfics I read, write fanfics for those fanfics with thousands upon thousands of words in them and then never post them or do anything other than hand them to my sister to read. She does the same with her art.

...Fandoms are messy enough without me accidentally stepping on someone's toes. (I think my sister doesn't post her art because she's too unconfident though.)

That aside, Call them brothers is literally my favorite fic I've ever read. I know we like to throw that phrase around in the fandom a lot, but I have every intention of getting that sucker printed and bound once it's finished. I've been reading Fanfiction for nearly a decade and this is the first one I've wanted to do that for.

If you're a person who enjoys darker stories and want a story line with some actual consequences for the characters, I'd totally recommend it. The last time I was this gut punched over characters and their development was Red Rising by Peirce Brown (My favorite published book series ever), and Wuthering's descriptions of a war ravaged country and all it's horrors is fucking immaculate.

I found Call them brothers through my desire to see a longer fic that had Spirit Tracks Link, and it did. not. disappoint.

Wuthering's takes on what Spirit's abilities, character traits, and game culture/lore are currently my favorite I've seen from anyone in the fandom, and I would doubly recommend the fic just for that.

That said, it's not a story for the faint of heart. It's Dark. With a capital 'd' for a reason. Wuthering doesn't add all those tag warnings for no reason. Also, if you can't stand to see one of the Link bois written as anything other than what the mainstream interpretation for them is, this isn't for you. War isn't out of character, but he's certainly a bold take. A fantastic one, but bold none the less.

Plus there's mild mentions of Links being interested in other character's that aren't their Zeldas or their typical love interests. There is NO shipping of the Jojo's characters amongst each other, but if you're the kind of person who can't stand alluding to characters having crushes that aren't Link x Zelda, it isn't for you.

I know there's some people in the fandom who don't like that kind of thing, so I thought I'd mention it. Also, you've been warned so no being mean to Wutheringmights about it!

If you're okay with the things I've listed, please, please, please give it a read. @wutheringmights deserves all the love for writing something so good.

(Anyway, I could ramble for hours about all the reasons Wutheringmights is my favorite Author in the LOZ fandom, but this was supposed to just be a post about my lil sis's art that got waaaaay away from me.)

[mountmortar]

as someone who only ever beat four swords adventures. can i hear the lore on why the newer games are annoying. if you dont want to get into it in public though i totally get it lol

OKAY SO LIKE. let me put this under a cut.

so me thinking the newer games are annoying is a personal thing. i'll put that out there to begin with. i completely understand why they're games that people love a lot—for people who like open-world games with lots of exploration and building shit and whatnot, and don't really care for games that have Plot and Stories and Meaning behind them, they're probably damn near perfect games.

but like. MY main problem with the games, specifically (which could be easily ignored if not for my MAIN BIG PROBLEM WITH THE FANDOM which i'll. get into after this), is that while i will concede that they may be Good Games to those who play them (i watched a playthrough of breath of the wild Once and am currently trying to get through it myself and not only am i bored to tears but i hate the art style and when i say the soundtrack fucking sucks. the soundtrack Fucking Sucks. like it is legitimately the WORST fucking game soundtrack i've ever heard in my LIFE which makes doing anything in the game absolutely unbearable to me) they are, absolutely, terrible ZELDA games.

the legend of zelda franchise for almost forty years now has built up a series dedicated not ONLY to exploration within the game, but also music and wonderful stories that each game tells. like pokémon, in its own way—but even in pokémon, when the story is bland (xy, swsh) or just plain bad (usum) you can always count on it to have a great soundtrack. breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom took both "plot" and "music" and just threw them out the window. the overworld music in breath of the wild is nothing except a few piano notes every five minutes. the battle music when you encounter an enemy is the most boring, lackluster shit i've ever heard in my life (AND THE MUSIC FOR THE BOSS BATTLES IS SOMEHOW EVEN WORSE). basically imagine pokémon legends arceus except instead of all the wonderful overworld music we got for all the different areas, you just have dead silence. that's pretty much what running around in breath of the wild is like.

and the story? get ready for the blandest characters you've ever met in your life. you will not get attached to a single one of those cardboard cutouts. anything that adds meaning to the story is locked behind paid DLC which automatically makes it not even worth my time or money. basically, breath of the wild was like "what if we took the original legend of zelda from 1986 and its sequel from 1987 and added modern mechanics to it. and throw in a new plot that isn't even worth getting attached to." i would literally prefer playing those old 2D games over that game. their plots were entirely constrained to the game manuals because they couldn't fit them into the actual games themselves because they were 80s games and they were STILL more interesting than botw/totk.

but whatever! it's not a big deal. i can ignore the games. it's not up to me to dictate what people should and should not play as part of a franchise. again, people love the games for a reason, and that reason is usually because breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom are like "what if legend of zelda but throw in some minecraft elements about it". like....okay. WHATEVER!

my problem is with the fandom. the Giant Portion Of The Fandom That Has Only Played BOTW and TOTK and NOTHING ELSE. you literally cannot escape it. you know the types of people that spam the tags of every game in their game series just to make EVERYONE look at their post about One Particular Game? yeah it's like a literal army of those people. i MAINLY stick to posting about the older games from the 80s/90s/early 2000s (i.e. four swords/four swords adventures, the original legend of zelda + its sequel, a link to the past, the minish cap, ocarina of time/majora's mask/etc etc etc you get me) and everywhere you look there's somebody doing everything in their power to bring botw/totk into it/spamming the tags with botw/totk posts/just spreading blatant misinfo regarding the older games???? because they've never played them???? and like whatever i can ignore that too but i mean!!!! at some point it just gets so ridiculously irritating!!!!!! basically it's like. do you know how the pokémon company keeps bringing kanto into literally every game somehow + will not stop with the charizard hype to the point where everyone is sick and tired of charizard. that's pretty much what's happening except it's botw/totk. and i am so tired of hearing about the metaphorical charizard HAHAHA

[dekupalace]

...Everyone has gone away, haven't they?

Will you play...with me? ➡️ Yes No

--- intro post !!

figured I needed an intro finally. I will probably edit this every now and then but this'll be here in case my other links don't work c:

who the heck are you (About)

hihihi! I’m Bee! [wearing a shirt that says “I ❤︎ being stuck in a time loop”] I also go by Sif or Ronnie! I'm 24-years-old and my pronouns are he/they/it! I also use neopronouns for fun. feel free to ask about them if you want but no pressure I'm not your dad lol

my personal posts are tagged #busy.🐝 !! this includes stuff I made, answering asks, etc!

can I chill here (Before You Follow)

just the basics apply really. don't be a dick. if you're lgbtphobic, racist, terf/transmed/truscum, “all lives matter”, etc you should probably just stay off of tumblr in general. just sayin

please be aware that Majora's Mask is my ultimate comfort game!! so if you are triggered by it, do not enjoy seeing content of it, or frequently post hate about it for whatever reason, I would suggest not interacting with me!

oh, and please tag the game Oxygen Not Included, or block me if you post a lot about it!

whatcha got here (Interests)

things I really really like!!!

The Legend of Zelda (favorite game EVER is Majora’s Mask)

MOTHER series

In Stars and Time / Start Again: a prologue

Super Mario Bros (I love the Galaxy series!)

Pokémon + Pokémon Adventures / Pokéspe

Nintendo as a whole

retro games, consoles, etc

other things I like ig!!!

art and writing

anime and cartoons

horror movies/games

rhythm games

speedrunnning

anything else?

nope! I think that's it! I love you! I'm rooting for you! my dms and ask box are always open! if anyone needs anything (that means you, mutuals!!!) please don't hesitate to reach out to me!

GO READ MY FIC IF YOU LIKE IN STARS AND TIME!!! I update it as much as I can and I'm super super proud of it!!

ALSO GO PLAY IN STARS AND TIME OKAY BYE

[chandelierslayer]

Zelda appreciation post I guess?

WEEEEELLLLLLLLL it's been a long time.

HAS it been a long time?

Been a long time, has it?

Long time, has it been?

Okay enough of that silliness, HI FELLOW ZELDA FANS! ARE Y'ALL READY FOR ECHOES OF WISDOM??? I KNOW I AM!

I....

I love The Legend of Zelda. I love this series. I've loved it since... I've existed and been able to comprehend what The Legend of Zelda IS. I was born in 1986, the year it came out in Japan (it came out in the US in 1987). My big brother states that I did play the first Zelda in the first few years of my life, though I don't remember doing so. Either way I absolutely adored the Legend of Zelda cartoon (official sources state it aired in 1989, but I thought I was younger than that when I watched it - but then again, a lot of my childhood runs together, so what ya gonna do? *shrugs*

And the first one I have very strong memories of playing is A Link to the Past. I ABSORBED everything within that game, it was very sacred to me. I still remember when we first got the news of there being a "Zelda 64" - I WAS SO READY. I read every magazine article I could, I fantasized about what a Zelda game would look like in three dimensions, I made my first piece of fanart that wasn't bad when I finally got my hands on official artwork of the new Link (I even made a logo in the corner, mistitling the game because all I knew the title by at that point was my brother, who did not know what an ocarina was and misremembered it as orquitz or something like that???? LOL Memory lane thanks for making me laugh instead of leading me headlong into a depression spiral

I don't know why I'm rambling on and on about my childhood a la Zelda. What I really wanted to get around to is, I've often (understatement) dreamed of what it would be like to play as Zelda, to have Zelda have her VERY OWN GAME. And now she's finally getting one! Granted, my favorite Zelda was the one from A Link to the Past - and then that title was given to the one from Ocarina - and I don't really think that changed for a very long time, though I do love Tetra more as a character. I don't consider Tetra a princess or a Zelda because... She ISN'T either of those things. She is Tetra, and I love her as Tetra. Case closed. When I played Minish Cap I DEFINITELY loved that Zelda with all my heart, but sadly she gets DiD'd pretty early on and we don't get as much time with her as with OoT!Zelda. So it was an... almost-tie? TMC!Zelda obviously has more personality for her very short amount of not-petrified screen time, but OoT!Zelda does a LOT more and isn't DiD'd til the very end so we get to spend a lot of time with her (granted, as a cross-dressing Sheikah impersonator, but show me a person who played through OoT and didn't become attached to Sheik and I will show you a LIAR)

It wasn't really until Skyward Sword came out that my "favorite Zelda slot" was OBLITERATED. This Zelda... Hold on, I'm gonna cry...

I love Skyloft Zelda. She is so wonderful. Yes I know I just said all that stuff about OoT!Zelda doing so much throughout the game, and we spend a lot of time in SS barely getting to see her because of her duties, BUT... I think SS!Zelda has the most personality out of any of them. And I appreciate her interactions with her Link so much. She's... so... wonderful! Most of the time if I say "her Link/his Zelda" about a particular pair in any given game I'm just saying "They're from the same game". But no. Nononono... no. Her Link IS... HER Link. And she is obviously, HIS Zelda. And their interactions make my heart explode. I... a;sdlfkjas;flksj;sl

I don't ship ZeLink most of the time

LoZ/AoL, sure, have at it, whichever Zelda Link wants to go for, or neither, whatever (in a fanfic I'm writing Link and the current Zelda REALLY like each other, while Zelda I (the one we woke up at the end of AoL) treats Zelda like a niece/granddaughter and gives her advice and is just a comfortable, loving, supporting presence. But that's just how I like to imagine it all) ALttP/LA - I 100% ship Link with Marin (I'd like to ship Marin with myself too-I MEAN WHAT? UH I SAID NOTHING) and want to believe he found her somewhere after all that and no one can take this from me. Zelda probably married one of the six maidens and I fully support her OoT/MM - I think it's obvious from the fact TP!Link lives where he does and has a horse named Epona and the boy at the local farm is named after a Kokiri... that Link married Malon. Which I 100% support. Not just because I've been in love with Malon since the turn of the century I think Malon is wonderful, buuuuut... also, Zelda and Link are most likely twin sister and brother in OoT and yeah... I don't do incest shipping. No thank you. HOWEVER... I also think Link and Ruto would be cute together. Judge me all you want, I know people hate that ship, but I can't help imagining some alternate world where they grew up together, Link taking every chance he got to dive into the shortcut in the Lost Woods to go hang out with his fish gf. ADORABLE. MaLink is still def my OTP as far as this game goes though (idk who I'd ship with Zelda but maybe she meets some cute Sheikah somewhere idk) OoS/OoA - Maple exists. I'M JUST SAYING FS - ...........I ship myself with Vaati, that is my only comment WW/PH - I uh. Actually my headcanon is that much later when they've found their new land, they sail back to tell everyone, and Aryll comes with them this time, and eventually she and Tetra fall for each other. What do I base this on? Nothing. This is a completely baseless headcanon. You can criticize it all you want. Just know that will never stop me from putting it in my fanfiction. As for Link... Honestly, if WW!Link were aromantic it would not surprise me at all. But if you NEED to ship him with someone, how about Medli or the moon guy on Windfall (I'm sure he has a name but I can't remember, sorry. I just always liked him for some reason - NOT LIKED-HIM LIKED HIM, JUST LIKED HIM AS A CHARACTER.) FSA - See my comment above about shipping myself with Vaati TMC - I JUST WANT TO KISS VAATI, STOP JUDGING ME TP - Call me simple but I really think he likes Ilia. idk. It's obvious that even though he couldn't stand Midna at first, if you watch the ending, he grew to care for her A LOT throughout their adventures together. But that caring doesn't necessarily have to be of the romantic variety. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but that's the great thing about not making unnecessary additions to good works of art: its fans can interpret things in all kinds of different ways! Wow! What a concept! Spirit Tracks - Link: I like trains (no but seriously I think ST!Link and Zelda together is SO CUUUUUTE (that's two (2) ZeLinks from me so far) Skyward Sword - Link and Zelda 100%!!! (that's 3, and the best ZeLink IMO) ALBW - I ship Link with the thief girl in Lorule (I gave her a name years ago but can't remember what it was? Somebody dive in my archive and tell me (no you really don't have to) and Zelda with Irene. Yes, I know, once again, completely baseless. Also I ship Hilda and Ravio TFH - Styla can have anyone she wants with her unmatched style. Meanwhile the three Heroes probably formed a polycule and live out the rest of their days happily with each other. Because nothing says "I love you" quite like keeping two other people on your shoulders while ravenous monsters are coming for your life so the person on the top of the totem pole can fire arrows at an annoyingly small switch a quarter mile away to make a bridge appear BotW/TotK - Who flipping cares? Wait... *checks notes* Ah.... Apparently a LOT of people care. Alright then.... *takes in a deep breath* Mipha is dead and so are my dreams, goodbye

I haven't really kept it a secret that I don't want more BotW-style Zelda (neither have I ranted on it much here, I think, but I could be wrong) but... IF you want to know...

I loved Breath of the Wild. I played it for hundreds of hours. I explored every place. I even played the main plot that I didn't really care about. I loved having a huge detailed Hyrule to run around. I didn't like the map in general, I didn't like names from the previous games just thrown onto locations with little to no thought, I didn't like certain places being where I personally felt they shouldn't be, etc. But I really, REALLY enjoyed playing it for a long time. Even though to me, it did not feel like a Zelda game at all. And that feeling just grew and grew as time went on. BUT. I was totally up for a new one, given they fix/remove/add some things. And then a new one was announced! Before it had a name, we got that trailer with the creepy music and dehydrated Ganondorf! Woo, new game! I personally couldn't wait for the next Zelda game that would be... NOT that... And wanted a return to classic Zelda MUCH more than a new BotW. But hey! New game! YAY!

But.. Eiji Aonuma kept saying things that made me more and more upset. That BotW was the new direction for the Zelda series. That TotK was the only Zelda thing they were working on (other than the Zelda Game & Watch) for the foreseeable future and had no plans to make anything else for a WHILE. That... really broke me down, I'm not gonna lie. The Legend of Zelda... broke my heart.

I didn't play any Zelda games for a long time. Probably more than a year. Until I finally randomly started playing Oracle of Seasons and replaying the first Zelda. And that led into my festival of playing all the ones I haven't finished yet, which I'm still in, though it comes and goes. I didn't become REALLY excited for Zelda again, until Echoes of Wisdom was announced. My Goddesses, that Nintendo Direct was ON FIRE! It just kept throwing so many games I want to get. But Echoes of Wisdom was definitely the highlight for me. And it's still the game I'm most excited for! I would love a Zelda game where I get to play as Zelda from the very first game. Or as the one from OoT or Minish Cap, or as Tetra! Or DEFINITELY as Skyward Sword Zelda. But that's what fanfiction is for. I for one am very, VERY excited to meet this brand-new Zelda, and get to know her, and fall in love all over again.

It's been hours since I first started typing, I don't even remember what this was supposed to be about, I just...

I love Zelda

That is all

Take care, everyone. I Heart Container all of you~

[oyasumi-ashurii]

Okay, so it might be a little hard for me to cohesively put all my thoughts and feelings into why I care so much about Final Fantasy VIII, but because of the 25th anniversary and seeing a lot of you talk about your love of the game I'll try the best I can. So here's my embarrassingly and extremely long personal history with the game and why it will always be my favorite.

Before FF8 I was mostly a Nintendo kid. Mario and Zelda were all I really knew, and as a hyperactive as I was I didn't really have the patience for anything story-heavy that took a lot of reading. Though I did I get a PlayStation later on I hardly bothered with anything other than Spyro or Crash. Anything similar in graphics to FF7 or 8 was mostly foreign to me too, with maybe the closest being my cousin having the first Resident Evil and I was far too young and too scared to bother with anything like that. So you can imagine the complete and utter shock kid me had going to my uncle's and seeing him play FF8 for the first time. I don't think it had been out too long but he was already on disc 3 in Esthar and, bless his soul, he let me play his save for a while. Being able to fly around the map on the Ragnarok?? The realistic proportions and animations in battle?? The absolute BANGER of a soundtrack?! All of it had me excitedly begging my parents to buy me the game. Nine year old me didn't know roman numerals, though, just that it was called Final Fantasy with some weird lettering. I had no idea of Final Fantasy as a series and I didn't know it was the eighth game or that there were eight of them at all. I couldn't remember what the cover looked like either and my uncle not long after that was going through his own personal troubles so I wasn't able to visit or ask him. We didn't have internet at home until the early 2000s (it was AOL dial-up too, jesus, I don't miss that) and my parents were strict about internet use, so I was stuck. My dad did eventually buy me an FF game as a surprise when I was eleven, and lmao can you believe I was genuinely upset because it was Final Fantasy VII?! That being said, I have an INSANE amount of love and respect for 7. Considering how much easier I think the materia system is to understand for newcomers, having it as my first, full FF experience was a bit of a blessing lol. FF7 hit me in a different way than 8 did, and maybe I'll make a post about it sometime.

So other than the brief times on the internet (I was only allowed on for an hour or two before I was kicked off) and reading gaming magazines I had hardly any access or knowledge about FF8 until years later. I knew the characters briefly and read some small stuff here and there about the world, but that was it. Even so, I STILL loved it. I would draw them (I've drawn most of my life, and I still do occasionally as a fun hobby), write about what I thought they were like, so, so much of me embarrassingly obsessing over it and driving my small group of friends in school bonkers (oh lordy I just remembered my preteen username I had used on an FF forum and now I'm cringing.) You get it. So why did I cling to the game so much, even though I barely played it? Why did it mean so much to me? Because around the time I was twelve I was deeply depressed, and throughout my middle school and early high school life video games and their stories were the only joy and comfort I had. I'm not going to go into much detail because it feels too personal to write on tumblr about and I'd rather not think back too much. If you want the gist it was at a moment in time I was mostly on my own. I felt isolated and alone, and due to growing up in and around strict, conservative circles I struggled with feeling far behind my peers, so my personal and school life suffered. Things got better though and I'm happy in my life now, so that's really it.

As I got a little older I had played other FF's and RPGs in between that I also fell in love with (especially Kingdom Hearts) and funnily enough horror games, but I still didn't get my hands on 8 until I got it on my fifteenth birthday and I was over the moon. That night and many nights and weekends after that I played every single bit of that game. I had printed walkthroughs and a guide of the junction system, with overly-detailed notes I had scribbled down and highlighted. I had written down all the rules of triple triad, weapon upgrades, item refinements and what you get from monsters, side-quests, all of it. I had never went all in into a game before, but I did it because I wanted to experience the game that gave preteen me comfort everything it had to offer. And I remember vividly when I finished it I cried until I was almost out of breath.

But you know, I didn't get emotional because of the nostalgic school-like feel and inspired real-world setting, or the overall main plot with magic, sci-fi and sorceresses. It wasn't even the deeply interwoven love stories, the theme of fate or the gameplay either, though I grew to love all of those things dearly with time.

It was because I was a socially-awkward and lonely fifteen year old girl that watched an equally as awkward seventeen year old boy overcome his own deeply-rooted fears and trauma and come out at the end of it all on the path to healing.

And I knew I'd be okay, and ever since then this game has and will always be that reminder and comfort for me.

Thanks for reading.

[tortilla-of-courage]

I'm curious about your first impression of eow! I'm still wondering whether I should get the game cus of the price

im having a LOT of fun with it ngl!! more than I expected

like. okay gonna try to be as spoilerless as possible here. for context im up to just after the first temple/first heart container (in hindsight this got too long so im putting it under a read more oopsie)

the story and lore we've got going on so far is REALLY interesting and im actually fascinated by all the Implications™ they've dropped on how things work in this iteration of Hyrule. im dying to go talking to every npc i can get my very itty bitty tiny zelda hands on

gameplay wise im having a lot of fun too! i was a bit worried when the game was announced that id get bored of relying mostly on echoes to attack enemies, or that things would be too easy, but the way the game limits how many echoes you can use at a time makes it so you can't spam powerful echoes, and so you need to strategize a bit before running off placing echoes across a chasm (learned this the hard way. oopsie)

zelda (series) is usually very high in puzzle-ness already, but i feel like this game truly makes it feel like everything you use becomes a puzzle. you want that chest in a cliff? there's a bunch of boxes you cant move on their own down an optional but very tantalizing path? you ran into an enemy that may be a bit too much for your current echoes but you REALLY want that thing? if you can use your echoes accordingly with the environment you can usually get it without much issue

so far i haven't ran into anything that was inaccessible to my current level/abilities. as long as you place your things accordingly.....

i think if puzzles aren't much your thing you Could get frustrated with it at points, but i find most of the main path ones arent too hard to solve but. again. im only past the first dungeon so who knows how things may change

also the characters I've met so far are very charming and have made me laugh a lot; even the NPCs have unique designs from what ive noticed. and i think getting to see the way Link interacted with the world before we got there from the other npcs is SO cool and gives him a lot of personality. also id die for this iteration of Impa. lovely woman

OH AND TRI oh god i love tri. i was sooo worried tri would come off as Just Another Fairy Thing but so far i adore tri. they (i have no clue if they've got pronouns spanish has Not been clear with it lmao) feel like a nice mix fi and navi, kind of in a middle ground. closer to Ciela from ph's personality maybe? but they have that calmness and matter-of-fact attitude like Fi sometimes. i wish they let you talk to them outside story bits to know them more

i bought it right before it was released last night for $1200 mexican pesos which was about $60 USD, which isnt too bad considering most games go for $1500 MXN/$75ish USD nowadays. but if you wanna wait til it's a bit cheaper that could be a good idea, though i do think this game is worth every penny so far.

like i saw some people say before, this feels like they're taking some of the new things they added in BOTW/TOTK (i.e. general menu formats (but nicer), open world-ish, some abilities, etc) and adapting them to Classic Zelda games, giving the good old 2D zelda style a breath (lol) of fresh air

tldr: so far im really happy with it!!! i played until 3 am last night and i just woke up and plan to play more! Very puzzle oriented but we all knew it coming into it, boss encounter i had was interesting to fight in this new style, and the map is actually very sizable for a 2d zelda from what ive noticed. 100% recommended will report more once i get further in

[kuriboo]

hey have you seen the Nintendo direct today & if so how ya feelin

I saw some tweets earlier so I knew a bit of what I was getting into but I just watched it and HOLY FUCK MAN.................

under the cut i'll scream about everything i'm excited about! but this is one of the best directs of all time! this is SUPER long sorry but please know i am SO HAPPY this is one of hte best directs of all time i think

I WAS SO WORRIED MARIO AND LUIGI AS A SERIES WAS DEAD ;; I'M SO HAPPY IT'S COMING BACK!!! IT LOOKS SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!! THE ART STYLE, THE GAMEPLAY! IT'S MARIO AND LUIGI!!!! I'm SO EXCITED!!! I'm behind on this series I still need to play dream team (I should probably start it over at this point, I have this digitally it came on my original 3ds and I've transferred it between systems twice now) and paper jam (I OWN THIS SOMEWHERE but my stuff is in disarray from room renovations...I'll find it some day) but I'M SO EXCITED! FOR BROTHERHOOD!

I'm more excited for the Dragon Quest remakes than I thought I'd be! I saw they were being remade and I was like okay yeah sure...this already was released on switch my brother already owns these...but this remake actually looks way better than the previous release on switch! I'm into this! I'm down for this!! It looks a lot better! I beat dq1 a while back, I need to restart dq2 because I haven't played it in so long... and I was just told I should've started with dq3, which I haven't played, LMAO so

Super Mario Party Jamboree...a third Mario Party on Switch! I'm excited for the return of Western Land, I'm excited for another Mario Party, I love Mario Party it's a longtime family favorite (though we barely played any between 3 and super, we have super and superstar on switch though) so anytime there's new Mario Party content I'm happy! I think I would've preferred an update/dlc of superstars, but...I can see why it's not! I'd like to play this online with family! I'm just a little scared at the possibility of not being able to play with pro controllers again...joy con exclusive gameplay is scary

ECHOES OF WISDOM! FEMINISM WINS! I saw screenshots of this on twitter but oh the trailer has me so hyped.... ZELDA SAVING LINK LETS GO........ I LOVE ZELDA'S OUTFIT AND HER FAIRY COMPANION AND MAGIC LOOK SO COOL! This is gonna be so fun to play. And I'll probably be a lot less anxious playing this than botw/totk since there shouldn't be weapon durability? so this might end up being my favorite switch zelda pretty easily lol. I'VE WANTED PLAYABLE ZELDA FOR SO LONG I LOVE THIS

Hello Kitty game I might pick up depending on the price.... it looks cute!

The Looney Tunes game looks so funny I kinda wanna play it SPACE JAM!!!!!!!!!

I'm probably not gonna get Luigi's Mansion 2 HD anytime soon but I LOVE LUIGI HE'S MY GUY HE'S THE DREAMBOAT THE GOAT THE DREAMGOAT.... I've never played any Luigi's Mansions though! I think I have 2 on 3ds but again, I'm not sure where it is.... Idr if we have 3 or not? We might? I'd like to play a Luigi's Mansion game someday but it's not my biiiiiggest priority. As much as I love Luigi, I love him so so so so much, but without ever having played it, I have this nervousness that I might not like the Mansion series...

I WISH I HAD EXPANSION PACK I WANNA PLAY FOUR SWORDS SO BAD

I have been screaming about the ace attorney investigations collection ALL DAY dude. This games have SUCH a good story (I've only watched playthroughs) so I'm excited to play them myself!!! The fantranslation has definitely impacted a bit of my excitement though. The name changes in particular... Verity Galile is honestly a good name, Eustace Winner is growing on me (I'm worried what they're changing Blaise to...), but Eddie Fender............I'm sorry but that is RAYMOND SHIELDS i DO NOT like the name eddie fender i CANNOT get behind it sorry.... BUT THE STORY OF THESE GAMES MAN I'M SO EXCITED!!! I JUST GOT THE APOLLO JUSTICE TRILOGY FOR MY BIRTHDAY (a couple of months late, but, uh, extenuating circumstances led to my dad keeping forgetting to order it, i am not mad) so i wanna play that before AAI and I STILL NEED TO PLAY THE GREAT ACE ATTORNEY COLLECTION TOO..... BUT MAN I LOVE ACE ATTORNEY I'M SO EXCITED I WANTED TO CRY

metroid prime 4! i still need to get into the metroid series (i need to give it another try, i haven't been able to get myself to really enjoy it yet) but i'm excited for metroid fans! this is such a long time coming...and now it's so close! the graphics look really good! i don't have much else to say about this one.

AND MAN

OH

MAN

THE UNEXPECTED GOAT

I DIDN'T SEE THIS GAME BEFORE WATCHING THE DIRECT BECAUSE NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT IT

BUT OH MY GOSH

PHANTOM BRAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PHANTOM BRAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NEW PHANTOM BRAVE GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i love phantom brave SO SO SO SO MUCH i wanna CRY i'm SO SO SO HAPPY!!!!! ASH AND MARONA ARE BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I NEVER EVEN THOUGHT WE MIGHT GET ANOTHER PHANTOM BRAVE! IT WASN'T EVEN A HOPE BECAUSE I JUST DIDN'T THINK IT COULD EVER HAPPEN!!!!!!!!!

PHANTOM BRAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

idk about the mech part that's gonna have to grow on me but YOU CAN FUSE CHARACTERS WITH MARONA AND GIVE HER CUTE NEW OUTFITS???????????????????????????

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

PHANTOM BRAVE PHANTOM BRAVE

when this came up in the direct i literally could not stop stimming and shaking i SCREAMED i am SO SO HAPPY

i think i'm more excited for htis game than anyone else because literally no one that i've seen is talking about it but!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PHANTOM BRAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[decembermoonskz]

for the ask game!!!

🩷🖤🔐📚☂️🍀

i love all of these questions! i actually wanted to answer the clover hehe you read my mind genie lol i hope you're doing well! i missed seeing you in my inbox <33333 this got long so i'm putting it under the cut haha

🩷 dream job i honestly haven't thought of it much. i had a lot of dreams growing up, but now i'm just... vibin lol but it'd be nice to be able to do something involving writing and art, like storytelling. <3

🖤 favorite hobbies outside of your blog since the blog used to be about writing i won't say that but it's def smth i do outside of the blog LOL instead i'll say drawing for sure. and gaming (i am currently playing zelda totk and pikmin 4 if you haven't seen genie ^^)

🔐 something no one would guess about you i really love voice acting, i do it for fun when i play games and i am no professional but i'd love to actually do it one day (this could also apply to the dream job question but i decided to put it down here)

📚 how do you come up with the fics you write they kind of just come to me. i am just hit with inspo and then i decide what ideas i want to actually develop (some ideas are best left in the brain aksfhafkh). i get a lot of inspo from the things i watch or the games i play tho

☂️ your favorite fanfic from another writer okay i have a lot but if i have to pick like my FAVORITE it's a tie between "safe haven" by rhythm (@therhythmafterthesummer) and "instinct" by fi (@fizzydrink698) some of the best stuff i've read (i read them on ao3 but they're also on here) (both are nsfw so mdni)

🍀 what is your comfort show/series and why is it your comfort show? how has it helped you? this is the one i wanted to answer for sure i love talking about my comfort shows granted i don't watch many shows anymore lol i'd have to pick full metal alchemist brotherhood, the ancient magus bride, and friends.

fmab is just one of my fave shows ever. i prefer the dub for alphonse and mustang but honestly i can play any episode and enjoy and just have it on in the bg now bc it's just one of those shows. it really relaxes me haha which is funny bc it's so dark

the ancient magus bride is one of my favorite animes of all time, the fantasy elements and the dark plot are just so magical and unique to me (i get a lot of fantasy inspo from it highkey) and the music too is just so relaxing. i often feel like despite its dark nature hahaha

i chose friends bc in spite of how i've learned many ppl hate it it's a show that i really loved and my family all watched it so we quote it so much in everyday life and laugh so much and so i think it helped me bc it's a core part of my family's dynamic HAHA

idk if these are good answers to this but yeah i love these shows a whole lot. honorable mentions to inuyasha, demon slayer, ben 10 and generator rex

[kajira-kreations]

Hiya! Thank you @freesia-writes for tagging me! Thought I join in on the fun!

What do I love about The Bad Batch? Okay, crazy story: when I first heard about it, it was a livestream from an older Star Wars Celebration event where Dave Filoni was talking about the concept (hope some of you know what I'm talking about), I actually brushed it off and was all like, "Whatever..." (Now I wanna go back in time and smack my past self for saying that). At that point, I was all caught up with TCW (the show that FINALLY got me into Star Wars and have been a fan since I was a teen). When the series finale premiered with TBB story arc, I was all like, "Okay..." and saw each group being the Leader, Nerd, Muscle, Emo Guy w/ the 20/20 Vision posse that's common in a lot of popular media, and I brushed that off. When Disney announced that there's a spin-off/TCW sequel about them, I was still like, "Whatever..." but gave the season one premiere a watch anyway...

...How could I brushed this off?

The second Omega came into the squad's life, that's when it all changed...and the rest was history! I haven't been obsessed with this fandom ever since my Voltron days! LOL As the show progressed, I just love love LOOOOVE each character and how the end of the Clone Wars affected them and such. There are no words to describe my love for the series now! If you're an artist, writer, creator, reader, etc? I'm an artist (and a reader of TBB fanfics <3). I drew a lot of Omega when the show premiered, and when season 2 came in I draw a lot of Tech and Phee of course! I draw a lot of manga-style art and drew a lot of manga/anime-styled Star Wars fanart back in my otaku days and it was rare to see SW fanart in that style. I'm currently working on a Tech x Phee fan comic adaption of my most favorite fanfiction, "The Right Partner" by Fennecsrifle (the author kindly gave me permission to do so). I wasn't able to work on it as much last year because I was working a completely original VTuber project (which is now live on YouTube). Whenever I'm not drawing fanart, I create art inspired by my Hmong-American heritage, culture, and identity. Please give my VTuber a support by subscribing to her channel!

What you love engaging with on Tumblr? I just love love LOVE fangirling about all things Bad Batch and other fandoms I enjoy like Zelda, Metroid, Ace Attorney, Transformers, and other Star Wars media! I don't live off of Star Wars alone, btw.

Any other fun facts about yourself that might create connections with others here?

I recently got into the whole VTuber scene myself since creating my original project last year. Before that, I was already familiar with them like Kizuna AI (the original VTuber), and enjoy Hololive (I love Tokino Sora, Suisei Hoshimachi, and Ceres Fauna).

Speaking of VTubing, I planned on streaming my art and even processes of the TechPhee doujinshi possibly over on Twitch (TBA). Plus other fun stuff like handcams of me sharing stuff too! In the meantime, here are my selfies that I wanna share:

I also love Transformers (especially the animated stuff). I grew up with Beast Wars and the Unicron anime trilogy, but I brushed that off...until Transformers Prime came into my life and I got into the fandom through that show. Sometimes you'll see some Transformers fanart from me. I even have a Tumblr page for a digital passion project fanzine about one of the human characters from that show, Miko, which focuses on her life in Japan before the events of the show -> @tfp-miko-zine

I also love Nintendo games since it's my childhood! I love me some Zelda, Metroid, and Ace Attorney. I would occasionally draw fanarts of those too.

I ship TechPhee <3

Oh, and sometimes I animate too! I've been teaching myself 2D animation since 2020. But the irony was that I wasn't a big fan of doing it due to it being laborious...but I told myself that it might be handy one day. Illustrations are great, but animating that piece of art is better too.

Tech is my favorite Batcher after all that character development he got in season 2! *cries*

If I have to take the title of Most Inconsistent Imagery/Crappiest Graphic Designer on Tumblr, so be it. 😂 But there are so many new peeps I'm seeing on here, and I'd love to hear from you! So if you're interested, would you be so kind as to reblog this with some fun stuff?

What you love about The Bad Batch?

If you're an artist, writer, creator, reader, etc?

What you love engaging with on Tumblr?

Any other fun facts about yourself that might create connections with others here?

💙

[ghostielj]

Nintendo Direct Thoughts! Part 4 The Best Part

Where do I even start with this? I am going to try my best to sound coherent in this post but just as a warning there may be a lot of screaming like this AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

This isn't in any particular order but it kinda is lol. Save the best for last.

Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe

Okay so I am a horrible Kirby fan, but in my defense I am more of a casual player compared to others. I love me some Kirby, mmmmm. My favorite form is I guess the Link form with his Link hat and master sword just destroying enemies. And man talk about his sucking abilities and blowing too. Can I say that on here?? Eh it is tumblr after all lol. I think I am going to pick this up for sure, maybe not right away because you know I am broke and all but eventually I will. I still need to download the demo...I'll do that right now actually. It's downloading...alright good to go! My understanding is that this is a remake of the Wii game. It's not a remaster because there are additional things added. Overall the graphics look great and Kirby is always a good time so I don't think people will be disappointed.

Metroid Prime Remastered

I really wish I was more into the Metroid series. Alien monsters and space, what more could you want. I still haven’t made my way through Metroid Dread I am ashamed to say. It has been sitting on my shelf just staring at me, judging. Maybe some day, maybe some day. But this looks amazing and it’s been long awaited so I’m happy it’s finally come out and looking forward to seeing what lies ahead for this IP.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

I mean what’s there to say? It’s fucking Zelda!!! My mouth hung open the entire time and it felt like I was in a trance and when the teaser trailer ended I just wanted more. Now Breath of the Wild was incredible. I still remember playing for the first time. I was a little late to game, I bought my first switch two years after it had already come out and the first game I purchased with it was Breath of the Wild. I was so nervous to boot up the game because I had already seen plenty of game play and saw how so many of the enemies could be a little difficult to beat along with learning a whole other control system. Loved every minute of it and I’m sure this will be no different. This game is going to be on a whole other level and I can’t wait. Only a few more months to wait. Now I’ve heard a lot about people not too happy with the price. It’s going to be a $70 game. I am a little surprised it’s that much, but also not surprised at the same time. Like I said earlier “it’s fucking Zelda,” and you and I both know people are going to pay whatever Daddy Nintendo wants. I have yet to pre order it and I know I should soon. But overall this is my most anticipated game of the year, but obviously behind Pokémon. That is if a new game comes out holiday 2023. Maybe a let’s go johto perhaps?

Fantasy Life: The Girl Who Steals Time

I own a new 3DS (Pokémon Edition) and I love that thing to death. The 3DS catalog was fantastic, so many hidden gems. FANTASY LIFE was one of them. So much so I bought that game twice. The first time I bought it was a physical copy from Gamestop. Now I can’t remember if I bought it brand new or used, nonetheless I was able to find it after failing to find it anywhere else. I stumbled upon a random YouTube review video and knew I had to get it. Now how would I describe it? It’s an rpg but so much more than that. This is why I know the gaming company Level-5. It’s this tiny open world fantasy game filled with dragons and knights and magic. You can customize your own character and you chose what life you want to live. Anything from being a chef to being a paladin. You fight monsters and dragons and it’s just fantastic! There is so much to do and the best part is that you can master all 12 of the life paths available to you. So maybe you want to take a break from being a magician well how about trying your hands at being an angler. You can be known as a legend in each path and there is a dlc where you can basically become a god. Now the second time I bought it was me being foolish. I didn’t care for it the first time I played. And I ended up selling it back to GameStop. A few months later I saw another review about it and thought “I’m stupid, I need to really give this a chance.” And from that moment I couldn’t put it down and I completed every life and every task possible. I loved this game so much and when they announced that a fantasy life 2 was coming I was ecstatic. But it was too good to be true. It was going to be a mobile game and only being released in Japan. So almost 10 years later, they’re finally releasing a new game. Now I’m still trying to come to terms with this game being it’s own thing. From the direct trailer it looks a lot different from the original and maybe not being the open world game I was hoping for. I am still going to give it a chance and hopefully it’ll live up to his predecessor. *fingers crossed*

Game Boy and Game Boy Advance NS Online

I cried, I literally cried on my way to work and screamed in the car. So much was leading up to this and I’m so happy it’s finally true. Now I won’t go into each game announced for the launch, but I do want to talk about the games I’m excited for.

So first some honorable mentions

Super Mario Land 2- 6 Golden Coins

So I love its predecessor. Played it over 100 times. This game maybe once or twice, but looking forward to really sinking my teeth into it.

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

I have played this maybe once but never got too far. I love the remake and if you haven’t already checked it out, you should.

Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare

Never heard of it, but looks interesting. Will have to check it out eventually.

Wario Land 3

This game pissed me off so much as a kid, so enough said.

Kirby’s Dream Land

We love a queen who loves food.

Tetris

The game that started it all for me. I am a Nintendo handheld fan boy through and through. I own the og Game boy, the game boy that my dad gifted me when I was like 6 or 7. And with that game boy came Tetris. I could entertain myself for hours, trying to get that top score. And the music, oh the music. Nothing like it now. I’m looking forward to wasting time away playing this like I’m 6 all over again.

Pokémon Trading Card Game

Yes! Only played it twice and failed hard so I want to give it another go. Too bad we have to wait some time.

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap

I lost my absolute shit when they announced it. This is by far my favorite Zelda game of all time. I don’t know, there’s just something about it. The art style, the vibrant colors, the story and just the overall creativity is AMAZING! I got emotional when I booted it up for the first time and I don't know I may just cry again as I go further along in my journey. I’ve never had the opportunity to own this game in physical form so this will have to do for now. The cartridge alone is going for like $100. But I will get it…grrrr.

So there we go, my thoughts on the last Nintendo Direct. Took 4 separate posts lol. Maybe next time I’ll just comment on the things I liked. Oh well. This was a nice little challenge for me because I’ve never really done anything like this. It feels good. Whether people read this or not, still enjoyable. Feel free to share your thoughts by messaging me.

[blueskittlesart]

ooo i’m here for another google doc essay thesis on all the zelda trans narratives <33 lol cited sources and everything (if you have time of course, i love reading all of your headcanons on loz)

god. okay this is every mainline game ive played (excluding sequels with the same characters) except skyward sword because i forgot about it at first and now im tired. here

oot/mm

Basically the entirety of oot is a super-intense wartime coming-of-age story, dealing specifically with the trauma of losing one’s childhood to war/being a child in wartime. Any coming-of-age can be easily analyzed through a trans lens imo, but oot lends itself particularly well to this reading.

For the first nine years of his life, link is told that he is a kokiri. He spends all of his childhood trying desperately to fit in with the kokiri, even though he and the kokiri he grows up with can tell that he is out of place somehow. When he leaves the forest and grows up, it clicks into place that he was never kokiri. And it HURTS. He was lied to. But he suddenly finds himself BELONGING for the first time, among hylians. One of the most impactful npcs in the series is, imo, malon, who link bonds with, feels connected to, and who GROWS UP just like him. She is a representation of everything link gains by leaving the forest. The chance to grow up, and the chance to be among people like himself and understand for the first time who he truly is. 

I don’t think i have to explain the subtext i'm getting at here. Replace kokiri with gender-at-birth and you have yourself a trans story. 

There are also, of course, points to be made about link’s lack of bodily autonomy throughout the story and his reclamation of it in mm. Link is, in the eyes of basically every adult in oot, a pawn to be used to win a war. He is something to be molded into the shape THEY need him to be. This is a common conflict in loz--the hero NEEDS to be the hero, and so he is given no room to define himself otherwise. 

Again. Do i have to explain the trans reading of this?? Adults who feel entitled to you for whatever reason refusing to let you define yourself in a way that doesn’t appeal to them, and viewing you as an object to be shaped into THEIR perfect image. Classic trans kid experience. 

Zelda i think is even more obvious because she literally physically transes her gender in the game. For no reason. A female ninja would have been fine. Female ninjas exist in this world. Impa is the obvious example. Zelda became a boy because he wanted to be a boy. This is factual, canonical story. I dont even NEED to go on but i WILL because i can.

The subtextual reading of trans zelda is even more fun imo. This is a kid who grew up functionally powerless. She KNEW ganon was going to destroy hyrule but she could not make adults hear her, and when things went wrong it was her fault. Sheik is, in many ways, a rejection of zelda. She does away with the ancestral name denoting wisdom because she was not wise enough to save her kingdom from ruin. he chooses sheik instead, a name derived from the historic guardians of hylia, and by extension hyrule. he reclaims the power he lost by, again, defining himself where he was never allowed to before. 

Personally i consider oot zel to be nonbinary and use she/he and the names sheik and zelda interchangeably. I really love the idea of a kid who grew up with so little control over anything in her life taking it all back and then deliberately fucking with some established rules anyway, just as a little show of power now that he has it. It’s what she deserves. 

Alttp

A LOT of my reading in this is totally rooted in subtext/analysis rather than actual canon material. If you haven’t read my analysis of alttp in my analysis doc i suggest you do bc some of that context may be needed to explain what i say here, since alttp is an older game so there’s much less actual canon characterization to go off of. 

There is a moment in this game, once you have gone through several dungeons and claimed the master sword and fought the secondary antagonist twice, where link is transported into the dark world. A mirror dimension in which his human form is distorted into a form that “reflects his inner self.” He looks into the mirror and he does not recognize the person looking back at him. 

The form he takes is a rabbit, which is, in my opinion, a reflection of his inner fear and the fact that he doesn’t want to be a hero. This link is a young boy who basically loses the only family he has and is then instantly thrown into the midst of a conflict he doesn’t fully understand. 

There are two points to be drawn from this. The first is the distorted self-image revealed in the dark world, which. The connection to transgenderism should probably be obvious from here. I’d say looking in the mirror and not quite recognizing yourself is a near-universal trans experience. 

The second is that, although this game is much less obvious about it, this link is in a very similar situation to oot link, in that he has been thrown into a conflict he doesn't understand and doesn’t really have any stake in, in order to be used as a pawn to win a war. (worth noting that if we follow the timeline, oot link has to DIE for this game to happen. They never fucking learn ig) so we have a repeat of the same situation in which link’s autonomy is taken from him by adults who want him to be a hero. Ive already explained the trans reading of this. You get the idea

Im skipping zelda in this one because it came out in 1991 so zelda is barely a character. Shes trans because i say so. Next 

Tp

Twilight princess did not do very well on a multitude of things. We all know how i feel. HOWEVER. There is something to be said for the fact that when link approaches people in wolf form they recoil in fear and disgust. And he canonically doesn’t expect this. It disturbs him. He KNOWS these people. He’s still the same person inside. Nothing has changed for him except the way he looks. But now no one will so much as look at him. 

To be quite honest. The wolf form was a bit of a thematic L in my opinion. I don’t think it had much narrative purpose and my best guess is that it was there to give tp a “brand-new fun gameplay” draw. But the fact that everyone is TERRIFIED of you was a good choice imo. I wish it had been followed through on thematically but I digress. There is transgenderism here. When you go back to your hometown and nothing has changed, as far as you’re concerned, but people avoid your eyes now. You haven’t changed, not really. You just look a little different. But the people either hate you or don’t recognize you now, and in some ways you’re glad, but in other ways you feel… alien.  

Zelda also isn’t a real character in this game but it doesn’t get an excuse because it came out in fucking 2006. We knew women were people by then guys come on. Anyways shes also trans because i say so. I dont feel like thinking about twilight princess any longer lol sorry

Ww

Im going to start with zelda/tetra here because i have a lot more to say about her lmao

Tetra is a wild, loud, stubborn, angry pirate. She is the exact opposite of what your average hylian might imagine a goddess-blood princess to be. She’s rude, she’s volatile, she looks out for herself and no one else. This is an image she has curated. But she is also kind. She lets link on her ship when he begs her to help him save his sister. she slips him a good-luck charm before he storms the fortress. She takes aryll home and never asks for payment. She is a pirate, but she does these things that seem so strangely… at odds with herself. I think a lot of her tough exterior is a curated image, for the benefit of her crew, yes, but also herself. If she is stubborn and loud and angry and unlikable then she is less likely to get hurt.  

Tetra learns who she is, and she is suddenly a new person, a different person. She’s zelda. And she’s so CONFUSED. She tries her hand at being a princess. She sits and waits patiently for her hero to come back to her. But in the end, she can’t even do THAT right. Things go wrong again, all because of her.

During the final battle of this game, zelda fights alongside you with the bow of light. I believe this was one of the first games in which she does this. 

This is a nonbinary narrative. Tetra tries so hard to fit into one box or the other, princess or pirate, but can never quite master either. During the final confrontation, though, she finds a happy medium. She is kind, wise zelda, in her regalia with her hair untied, but she is also stubborn, angry tetra drawing her bow to fight alongside link. She will not be defined. 

she/they tetra ftw lol. anyways

Wind waker link honestly has much less textual evidence for me than like. Any other link because imo wind waker is almost completely a clear-cut coming-of-age. It’s very easy to read (almost) any coming-of-age as a trans narrative but much less easy to actually explain that read. 

My stance kind of boils down to this: link has a clear-cut arc of growth in this story from a weak, inexperienced kid into a soldier who is capable of taking on ganon. This arc is kickstarted by him leaving home and no longer being confined by the limited perspectives of the people he grew up around. Unlike other links, this one doesn’t have too much pressure on him to be a hero. In fact, I would consider his growth into a hero to be framed very positively in this game as it gives him the agency he lacked at the beginning. This is an interesting departure from most other games in which link lacks a lot of agency. 

Basically, i think that while most other games can be read as kind of… tragic trans stories, about the struggles of not being allowed to define yourself, etc, wind waker link is the story of a kid who is finally GETTING to define himself. It’s more similar to Majora's mask in that way, in that this kid has already HAD the chapter where he’s confined to other people’s expectations and is now beginning to break out of it and reclaim his own identity. 

Botw

Jesus. God almighty. Okay

Like. not to keep beating a dead horse but this link is the most obviously negatively affected by the expectations and perceptions of those around him. He explicitly goes mute BECAUSE he knows people expect him to be a hero above all else, and it will be easier to conform to that expectation if he keeps quiet. This poor boy is so terrified to be imperfect, to be something that hyrule might not like, that he SHUTS DOWN. he is essentially nothing BUT what hyrule wanted him to be, because he never allowed himself to be anything else. 

I have already explained the trans read of this. Reread ocarina of time’s segment. Holy SHIT. he is so transgender. Also he’s 5’2 and has shoulder-length hair come on

Side note but i think botw is cool because it explores BOTH facets of the usual loz narrative (lack of agency/reclamation of agency) within the same game, while most other games go for one or the other. When link loses his memories he is FORCED to define himself, as he has nothing to go on anymore, which is a reclamation of the agency he had lost pre-calamity. Essentially pre-calamity is the oot segment and post-calamity is the mm segment of the narrative. It’s cool. Anyways

Zelda. GOD.

She is not the daughter her father wanted. She knows this. She tries SO HARD for SO LONG to be the daughter her father wanted. But she can’t. She will never be good enough in his eyes. Eventually she gives up on doing exactly what he wants. She hopes she can win his approval in other ways, with things she is good at. Things she CAN do right. But it’s never enough for him because all he sees is the daughter he wanted. The daughter she should have been. He doesn’t care that she can’t. He only cares that she Is Not. she knows she will never win his approval but she keeps trying anyway. 

Do i really need to explain this. Babygirl you are so trans gender

[bluesclves]

I'm working my way through all the Legend of Zelda games I can get my hands on. Oddly enough, it's Skyward Sword that got me invested in the rest of the series, haha. I played BotW and loved it, tried to play Link's Awakening and got frustrated so I quit, then I played Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity and had fun just demolishing the enemies that used to kick my ass in botw, but still I wasn't like, invested in the series. Pretty much I just liked the botw stuff.

Then Skyward Sword HD came out and I went "sure why not?" Because I remember the game grumps hating it but I liked Sonic and the Black Knight for wii, and the switch has way better motion controls, so I figured I'd give it a go. (Plus I really wanted the themed joy-cons bc they're so pretty and it felt silly to get the joy-cons without having the actual game they're attached to.)

Anyways, I loved it. I don't see why people complain so much about the motion controls even on switch? I thought they were fine and I actually loved how engaging it made the combat, plus there's just an indescribable sort of joy involved in using the motion controls to draw the master sword and hold it over your head, okay? It's just fun.

Anyways, that's the first I guess 'standard' LoZ game I've played to completion. I got frustrated a few times with the puzzles, but I was invested enough to keep going until I figured it out. The final fight against Demise-Ganon had me cursing at my screen but when I finally beat him it was so satisfying, totally worth it imo.

And now that I have the story of the last Link (so far) and the first Link in the timeline, I'm curious enough about the space in between to take another shot at the other LoZ games I've given up on before. I just finished Ocarina of Time 3D, which was a lot easier than I remember now that I'm actually familiar with how a Zelda game is structured (basically find temple, solve puzzles, get new item, boss fight featuring new item, find the next temple-- ad nauseum).

I'm going into Hyrule Warriors: Definitive edition now (Warriors Link is so pretty haha, I see why people call him 'pretty boy' in LU fics/fanart lol). This is another game I tried before but I just wasn't invested enough in the characters to get into it? It also seemed too easy at the time, so I'm playing it on the higher difficulty, but I also know that if it's anything like Age of Calamity, it gives us a lot more story and interesting missions.

I have A Link Between Worlds to play next, assuming I can't get ahold of Majora's Mask for 3DS. Then I'll take another shot at Link's Awakening, I guess.

Any other suggestions for what I can play? I have a Switch and a 3DS, and my brother has a Wii but we don't have a Wii U.

Also, what I'm realizing about Legend of Zelda games, is that most of them are kinda like Fanfiction. They don't really do a good job of introducing their central Characters because they expect us to already recognize them. That's what's different about BotW and Skyward Sword; they do a really good job of setup, because for both of them, the hero is just as knowledgeless as the player. SS!Link knows nothing about great evil demons or the triforce, he's just a sleepyhead skyboy. They don't even have a kingdom yet, they just have a floating island with a school and some big-ass birds.

BotW does a GREAT job of introducing the world of Hyrule and everything in it because Link literally has no memories at the start of it. We learn everything that's going on as he does. And if you're interested in learning more, you can seek out his forgotten memories as an optional side quest. You don't have to, but you can if you're curious.

Comparatively, Age of Calamity relies heavily on you having played BotW, and the dramatic irony they can create from the player knowing one future as they help divert it from that path.

And Ocarina of Time doesn't really explain much about their characters. The Great Deku Tree's death is heartbreaking to me now, knowing that SS!Link planted him, and knowing the tree from BotW. But in OoT, it just kinda... happens? And didn't mean much of anything to me the first time I played the game. You know the Deku tree is supposed to be important, but not why. You see Zelda a grand total of one time before she runs away from the castle with Impa, and it's clearly supposed to be a dramatic scene, but we don't know her at all. Then Sheik shows up when you're an adult, shows up to teach you songs and then just leaves, and it's kinda clunky and doesn't really help us form an attachment to the character at all. Really, the only character besides link that is recurring enough and actually has speaking lines with personality is like... Navi, and maybe Malon, if you seek her out for Epona. Everyone else shows up like two or three times at most, and either has an instant crush on Link, or is just grateful for his help.

I enjoyed the game, playing it now, but I definitely had to care about the characters first-- I wouldn't have been able to get into this game if I wasn't already invested in Link's journey and kicking Ganon's ass.

So like, it suffers from fanfiction-syndrome, I think.

Anyways, this post is all over the place. Hope that made sense?

[insecateur]

Okay, I didn't want this to be in the main body of the art LOL but I wrote a whole lot of words about Pokémon X&Y's 10th anniversary. If you'd like to read them I'll put them under a read more. Whatever you decide to do, thank you for your support always 💗

Wow, can you believe it? It's been ten years.

I see people say these kinds of things a lot when it comes to milestones like this. It's been ten years… I feel so old… I can't believe it's been that long. It feels fake, it feels wrong. All of that.

I've felt like this with a few things, of course. Even a few games I liked in my teens or in my childhood. But I've always kept track of Pokémon X&Y's anniversary, so it's never felt like something that took me by surprise. Year after year, I knew Pokémon X&Y was getting older, just like me. The 3DS was slowly falling behind, then the e-shop closed, and now it's been announced that the online features will be deprecated, too. It's been ten years…

A lot can happen in ten years, you know?

Starting my transition journey has taught me to be kinder to my past self, I think. I'm more at peace with myself. I look at my face in the mirror and it's no longer a stranger staring back. I've found people who love and care for me for who I really am and want to be and not who I was trying to be for the sake of appearances. If I went back to ten years ago, do you think the twenty-year old kid I'd find there would believe that? I'm not sure he would.

In 2013, I was in a rough shape. I think I was in denial about it. I was still carrying wounds I didn't want to look at. I'd put bandages over them and tell myself I'd be okay. It worked, mostly. I was making new friends. I was rebuilding something that was closer to who I wanted to be. My life had been torn apart; it had only been two years. I thought I was stronger than that, that it didn't matter to me anymore, that I'd moved past it. I was wrong, obviously, but it would take way too many years for me to realize it.

Telling it like this now, I feel a bit embarrassed, like I'm making myself out to be worse than I was… I don't want you to picture some tragic mystical figure or anything… I was a kid who'd gotten out of a very bad situation and couldn't entangle everything that had come out of it as a result. I sought out support that I didn't get. I had reached a realization about who I was and nobody in my real life was ready to hear it, as far as I could tell. The world was a very scary place. Twenty-year olds feel so young to me now, but at the time I felt like such a loser for not having my life together. How silly…

I'd been a Pokémon fan since I was seven, back in 1999. I wrote a whole post about it for the 20th anniversary of Pokémon as a whole, but some of it kind of stings now, so I'll give a quick rundown. I got into the series first through the TCG, then the anime, then one of my childhood friends' copy of Pokémon Gold. For reasons I still ignore to this day, my parents wouldn't let me get a GameBoy and only relented when the GBA came out.

Pokémon became one of those things that were in and out of my life, always in the background. I was a fan, but most of my love for it came from how good it was as a sandbox for creative endeavors. I'd make OCs, roleplay with friends, invent stories that featured my own ideas and creations and rarely left any room for existing characters to be involved. I had other series where I cared about the characters a whole lot, like Final Fantasy or The Legend of Zelda or Ace Attorney or even TV shows like House MD or Prison Break, but Pokémon was all about the setting and the creatures, and not much else.

I had a short-lived passion for Eusine in HGSS, and then I had a very bad time playing BW that put me off the games for a little bit. I told myself I'd outgrown it, after all, these things happened, and tried to move on. When the XY games were announced, I was wary, unwilling to pour emotional investment into something that could very well further stain my good memories of a childhood favorite. (I'm being a bit dramatic here, but I was 100% in that mindset back then, unfortunately.) That the games turned out to take place in Pokémon France only made it seem even more as if they were mocking me. I was so needlessly sarcastic and negative about it. (I was twenty, so I'm practicing self-forgiveness, but damn, boy, chill out!!!)

What was it that ended up grabbing me, in the end? I think it was a combination of things. Something about Pokémon X&Y, its characters, its story, its setting, reached me deeper than I expected. I think some of it was timing, some of it was themes, and some of it was the overall vibe at the time. Everyone was playing and discovering the games together; it was the first time main series games were coming out worldwide at the same time. To this day, this is one of the most important aspects of Pokémon X&Y, to me. That feeling of playing it with others even through kilometers and kilometers. Those early fandom memories, especially those spent alongside Japanese fans, are some I still cherish to this day.

I still think the catalyst was beating Team Flare though. Something went on that day. I wouldn't even be able to tell you what. I still remember where I was; I almost remember exactly where I was standing. I beat Team Flare and stopped playing for a week and just marinated in that feeling. For a week.

That's how they get you!! That's how the brainrot set in!!

Anyway… I'm not going to go over everything that happened after that year by year; this isn't an autobiography. It's just a silly post about a game that changed my life. The fact that I got my name change confirmation today of all days feels so pointed, though. Perhaps it's even making me a little emotional.

All throughout this year, I agonized about how I could make something that would perfectly encapsulate all that Pokémon X&Y has given me. It's the ten years anniversary! It's a big milestone! Wouldn't I be betraying my love for the game if I couldn't pull off something incredible? I had many ideas, that all fell to the wayside when I realized how exhausted I was. Which was the answer to my problem all along, I think.

Because the reason I'm exhausted is that I'm making a lot of big changes in my life.

I've met people I love and want to be a better person with. And I've met them through Pokémon X&Y, too! Isn't that a celebration in itself? Building a better future together… That's what Pokémon X&Y was all about, wasn't it? I don't need to prove anything to anyone. I'm making my own beautiful world, right now.

…AND ALSO MY NAME IS LEGALLY SAMUEL LYSANDRE NOW SO THERE'S THAT.

If you read all of this, I hope you have a good day. I'm having a good day right now. That's already a lot! That's already something to be thankful for! Let's keep at it! One day at a time!

🔥🧡 joyeux anniversaire pokémon x&y!!! 🧡🔥

[corpsentry]

january: an art retrospective

i did some stuff last month (but it’s a lot of stuff and there’s a photodump + some Serious Fucking Reflection, so it’s all below the cut)

so ok, let’s start with this. here are some heads. each head has a red arrow. that red arrow is what i call the red line of the devil. it’s the slope of the face from the side of the eye to the cheekbone and then down towards the chin. up until like 2 weeks ago, i couldn’t draw it. i couldn’t fucking draw it. i would edit over that part of the face over and over again until i was frustrated and tired and i had a raging homosexual headache and it still never looked right. notice that each head is different. notice that each head looks wrong.

at the start of 2021 i finally admitted to myself, as per the image above, that i was deeply, deeply unhappy with my art. what was the problem? i dunno. but i decided i was going to fix it and i was going to do so via another one scribble a day event wherein for every day of january i would find a photo of a human head, and i would draw it.

january 1st, 2021. i was embarrassed to tweet this even on my private account where like 5 friends and a rock would see it. in retrospect, you can also see all of my bad habits emerging like dicks from a hole in the ground. it’s disproportionate. the brows look flat. the eyes are slanting upwards. the entire drawing looks flat, like this isn’t a 3d person but a caricature of one.

january 2nd, 3rd, 4th:

on the 2nd i decided to start a separate thread for doodles and applied learning. here’s the first set of tests

the rest of the week is kind of uneventful so we’re going to skip those. fast forward to january 11th

this one is especially bad. i am acutely aware, suddenly, that i am not changing anything at all. i’m stressed and miserable about it because i’m still trying to see people as people and trying to draw people that look attractive and proportionate and hot. my friend, leny, reminds me that i need to think about faces in terms of planes. i have a moment. my other friend masha sends me some links to anatomy tutorials. i have another moment.

january 11th. applied sketch

january 13th is when i start the troubleshooting process. the link above drives me mad because i’m pretty happy with the face but then i realize that there’s something very fucking wrong with the shape of the head LOL and then i realize that i’ve never had any idea what the proportion of the face to the rest of the skull is so i grit my teeth and i open a new canvas and i

bald studies. it seemed like the right thing to do. can’t draw heads? ok draw some heads. look at some photographs. i traced each photo but tried to stick to straight lines so that i could replicate the shapes more easily. i broke each face down into shapes. i thought about airplanes

i got really excited. i started doing studies, then applied studies, then stylized studies.

sketches. i’m not sure what’s going on (as always) and it’s very rough, but they look different from the sketches i did on january 2nd. that’s a start

january 16th’s daily study. looks more like a person now. juuuuuust a bit

more applied studies

on the 18th i take a break and go stare at some lips because i don’t understand how the fuck they work. again, i focus on shapes, on volume, on the fact that these things exist in 3d. holy fuck lips exist in 3d. holy fuck we are real

january 19th. i’m working on it.

january 22nd. some sketches + a daily study. it has finally occurred to me that heads can tilt up and down and that things look different accordingly. yes i was not aware of this before. yes i have been drawing for over a decade.

january 23rd. by this point after doing my daily sketch i almost always go back and do an applied study which is basically to say i drew a lot of fucking links. this one looks kind of okay. i’m kind of proud

january 25th. links. trying to make sense of everything i’ve learned

26th, 27th, 28th. daily studies

january 1st. january 31st

The End Of The Photo Dump (dab)

ok NOW i get to talk about what i discovered while studying the shit out of human beings

FIRST OF ALL, there is something precious and magical about drawing shit without the explicit knowledge that you’re going to tweet that shit out to 45 people later. it takes the burden of perception off your shoulders and that does something to you, or at least that’s my theory. i told myself i wouldn’t post any of this stuff until the end of the month (if i wanted to post it at all) and kept everything off my public social media accounts and that meant i could draw ugly as hell without worrying about who would point and laugh, which i absolutely fucking did. a lot of these are fucking trainwrecks. most of these are fucking trainwrecks. why do they look like that?? why??? this doesn’t look like the work of someone who’s allegedly been drawing since they were in kindergarten, does it?????

here’s why: because that person took a huge motherfucking swing at everything they’d ever known about art and spent a month building something new in its place. the abstract explanation is that i grew up on shoujo and weird old anime and my understanding of anatomy was unironically kamichama karin and while i love kamichama karin, when kamichama karin is your rule even if you try to break it, you’re going to end up going nowhere. “you have to know the rules to break them”, yeah? well i didn’t know shit. the abstract explanation is i’ve been miserable about my art for a few years now because i saw other people doing things effortlessly which i couldn’t and instead of going back to the basics, i tried to do what they did (not plagiarism, mind you, i mean i literally tried to copy the red line of the devil i mentioned above because i couldn’t even make that happen) and then i fucking failed.

the simple explanation is this. i had to unlearn everything, and relearn it again (like some kind of new renaissance clown, what the fuck is this?)

take this for example. all my life i’ve drawn faces in the order: eyes, nose, mouth, face shape, head. this works for some people, im aware, but it was something central to how i had always drawn, so i decentralized it. i said fuck you to the old me and changed the order up. now i start with the nose, then the eyes, mouth, the chin line, and the sides of the face. now i force myself to think about the human head as a series of parts interacting with each other instead of a bunch of disparate features which i want to look pretty.

or let’s use this zelda from last year. something about this looked wrong last october, the way something about all of my drawings looked wrong, but i couldn’t pinpoint it for hell the way i couldn’t articulate Any of my feelings about the visual arts. now, looking back, here’s what i see. that nose is sticking out far too much given how she’s not really facing very far away from the camera. that ear at the back shouldn’t be there. her forehead is too big. she doesn’t have a forehead. what the fuck is up with the shape of her head?

so apparently reject modernity embrace tradition has its roots in alt-right terminology and i’m not very horny for the alt-right (you understand), but the spirit survives here. you know sometimes you have to admit that you have no idea what the fuck you’re doing and draw people for 31 days. i’ve spent my whole life drawing stylized people and while again there are artists who have no issue with this, i veered off the track of the Good and the Holy and couldn’t get back on. i had no point of reference because i’d never thought about what an actual human being looks like, so i had no way to fix what i knew in my gut looked wrong but wouldn’t come out better.

this was hard. this was like oikawa tooru swallowing his worthless pride and admitting that ushijima wakatoshi had gotten the best of him for the last time in his high school career, but in haikyuu!! by furudate haruichi oikawa tooru fucks off to argentina and then joins the argentinean national team, and you know what, i think i’ve made it to argentina (not the team just the country). as per the golden rule of dont fucking move until you’re at least two thirds of the way through the month, i only started trying to draw Shit shit on like the 22nd or something, but i was happy with that i created. i am happy with what i’ve done. i’ve posted like 2 things this month that involve people with what i now call ~applied Knowledge~~ and they’re, like, not perfect obviously (perfection is an unattainable ideal), but i’m fucking proud of them. i didn’t spend 5 hours hunched over my laptop adjusting the red line of the devil because it’s not a devil’s line anymore. because i finally sorta get how people work. because i sat down and i said ‘we are not going to fuck with this misery shit anymore’ and then i did that. it’s just a line now.

here are 2 collages tracking my painstakingly carved out progress from january 2nd to february 2nd because i’m a slut for collages

and here’s what i’ve done to my art! the same person drew these but also Not Really! you know! for the first time in a year i don’t immediately hate what i’ve drawn. you know what guys? art is fucking fun. zelda’s forehead doesn’t scare me anymore because i know how foreheads fucking work now, and i don’t know everything, and i’m going to keep troubleshooting stuff as i go (i want to draw a skeleton. like a. i want to draw a goddamn skeleton guys) but i’m honestly and genuinely proud of what i’ve done in the span of a month, and i’m also in disbelief. i started this month-long challenge out as a last ditch effort to make peace with my art because i’ve been tired for a long time and i was ready to kick the bucket on drawing people altogether. i didn’t think anything would happen. nothing’s happened for years. i’ve been miserable for years.

this was the caption for january 1st, 2021. i was super, super fucking embarrassed and it looks like super fucking shit, but you know what, i think i did in fact triumph over the bullshit. surprisingly enough, when you put in consistent effort into something, You Will See Results. didn’t see that coming, did you? i know i didn’t.

this isn’t a success story. it’s a happiness story. i never gave a shit damn about the institute of art or whatever, i was just mad at myself because what i saw in my head didn’t match up with what was on the canvas. and now it’s getting better. now i’m calibrating the compass. now drawing not just backgrounds but also people is exciting to me, and i can stick my links in your face and tell you ‘they hot’. i’m going to keep doing that. i’m going to keep going until i drop off the side of the earth and then spiral towards mars like some kind of fairy, and then i’m going to create something beautiful.

thanks for reading. here’s a pr department link for sticking around until the end