#I've only watched/played Hollow Knight

[otiksimr]

There's a lot left for interpretation, but I dare ask for the Shade Lord from Hollow Knight? If not that, then the titular character itself?

We still waiting on Silksong right?

[castiej]

Baby girl I'm bad at video games in ways you can't even comprehend

[dedicatedfollower467]

i love watching hollow knight lets plays because literally EVERY single one i've watched has discovered a secret i've never found before.

i've put over three hundred hours into this game.

[autumnoakes]

i'm beginning to think that video game lore is just Like That honestly

[marshvlovestv]

In honor of me having so much video game music downloaded on my phone that I ran out of storage and had to buy a new phone. My favorite track from each video game OST I have!

Bastion: Brusher Patrol (Such a bizarre clash of styles, I can't help but love this one. Shout-out to the part that sounds like Darren quietly scatting in the background.) (Also special shout-out to Build That Wall, probably my favorite vocal track in any Supergiant game)

Celeste: Scattered and Lost (I am such a normie for this choice but face it this track absolutely slaps.)

Chicory: A Colorful Tale: Song of the Wielders (I love how this song has actual lyrics but I still prefer to sing along with the Simlish version that Pizza and Chicory sing.)

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood: Illusion (First of all I love how every character in this game has their own theme I go feral for that kind of thing. Kurielle is probably one of the characters who stood out to me the least but by god is her theme gorgeous. I love the vocals and how a later track includes a sneaky reprise.)

Cuphead: Dramatic Fanatic (Tap dancing :D)

There are literally thirty of these so I'm doing a read more

Death's Door: The Grey Crow (A heartbreaking boss fight scored with the appropriate amount of anguish)

Deltarune: Cyber Battle (This melody is so underrated and ya know what, so are the characters associated with it. Sweet Cap'n Cakes forever.)

Elsinore: Donne, The Boat Boy (I love this song because it's associated with Lady Guildenstern, aka the best character in gaming full stop, but it's also just a fun little sea shanty that I think they made up for this game so I love that. Also has a lyrical version.)

Evergate: Police (Okay so the level with the police drones is one of the more frustrating ones in the game but the music is hauntingly beautiful so I give it a pass)

Going Under: trust fall (Marv is easily one of the most hateable video game antagonists of all time but damn if his boss theme doesn't slap)

Hades: Last Words (The rolling and the tolling of the bells bells bells bells bells)

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie: Reverie Ascendant (Lena Raine does these medley tracks so good man)

Hollow Knight: Dung Defender (By far the catchiest song about poop on my entire phone)

Ikenfell: Rose Thorns (So the insanely long final boss fight against Oxley overshadowed Aeldra's boss fight in my memory for a long time, but when I watched another playthrough and bought the OST I realized "Oh her theme bops SO much harder than his ever could")

Inscryption: A Final Duel (A hardcore remix of The Scrybe of Magicks, aka one of the only melodic tracks on the album and therefore the one every YouTube video about Inscryption uses in the background. I prefer the epic version just a bit more because honestly that Magnificus setpiece is the best moment in the game)

Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass: Fun, Sunny Day (A fun and silly track as the title suggests, elevated even more by the context in which it plays in the game. The area music alternates between this and the more somber Rainy Sunday to illustrate that Jimmy mother is bipolar [very cute and silly game])

Omori: Bready Steady Go (Like the absolute dipshit I am I actually completely missed the optional Orange Oasis when I played this game myself. Every Let's Player finds it somehow, though, and when they fight the Unbread Twins I invariably stand up and dance along to the boss music.)

One Step from Eden: Perpetual Motion (It's just a good-ass track y'all)

Ori and the Blind Forest: Conundrum (In a soundtrack of sweeping orchestral pieces, this more subdued version of theme that only plays during one small puzzle section might seem a weird choice. But I've always really liked it)

Ori and the Will of the Wisps: Kwolok's Malaise (Kwolok's leitmotif is perfect for a giant frog and the boss remix takes it to it's logical conclusion)

Paradise Killer: Go! Go! Style (This track makes me feel like I'm having a sugar rush. The whole OST does actually but this one especially)

Pyre: Path to Glory (It's just got a really unique vibe to it. I like it)

Scarlet Hollow: Avery (Chill and really beautiful. Avery themself is kind of a sleeper character at this point but I can't wait for Brandon to remix their theme when they get assimilated into a giant plant monster)

Slay the Princess: The Princess (Okay full disclosure I've only played this game once so I don't have the full context for a lot of the tracks on this OST. Maybe hearing them alongside their respective princesses will make me like them more, but for now the title theme is too iconic to beat.)

Sounds of Sympathy (the OST for the game anthology Essays on Empathy): Zen and the Art of Transhumanism (In the Essays on Empathy documentary, fingerspit talked about how she prefers writing obscenely long tracks so the loop doesn't get annoying. Unfortunately for her my favorite track on this album is only three minutes long. It's a lovely little bop.)

Spiritfarer: Mind Palace (I played Spiritfarer before any of the character updates were released, so I didn't get Daria's mind palace sequences in my game. And I mean, they look very platforming-heavy so I'm okay with that, but god this is a gorgeous piece.)

Transistor: Impossible (I think this is Royce Bracket's boss theme? I don't know when any of the tracks on this OST specifically play in game. Regardless of all that this one gets me pumped.)

Unavowed: One Man's Power (I couldn't find a video of this one, but it's gentle saxophone solo that plays when Logan Brown is introduced. I think it fits is character really well and just sounds really nice)

Undertale: Death by Glamour (Best song for best character, enough said)

Wandersong: Moonscape (God knows this game gave me a lot of great options to pick from, but I settled on this one because it's so uplifting.)

[stealingpotatoes]

Have you ever played hollow knight and if so do you think that if the Knight somehow got transported into the Star Wars galaxy they would just constantly reck people left and right who attempt to attack them and ends up absolutely destroying palpatine despite being the size of a standard eraser (maybe smaller)? Also have you watched Interstellar? And if so do you like TARS? Also I REALLY REALLY like your art it is so humorous and inspired me to make a piece of fan art of a 501st prank war (it's canon and nothing can convince me otherwise that the 501st had prank wars with the 212th). Sorry this is so long these questions have been on the brain for a while now and I only got an account recently 😅. I end this with only one thing left. Loaf cat

yeets a potato into the pile of potatoes like one throws a coin in a wishing well and runs away

omg a lot!! ok 1. i have not played hollow knight! 2. yes i watched it when i was young but don't remember it! 3. probably 4. awww omg thank you so much!!! always rlly cool to hear i've inspired people!

thank you for throwing the wishing well potato i will send you art motivation using my wishing well powers <3

[ailithnight]

My computer started doing this thing in the last 24 hours where it just randomly restarts every 10-20 minutes (IDK, I haven't timed it, but it's frustratingly frequent)

EXCEPT

Except not when I'm playing Hollow Knight (the only game I've been playing this weekend so IDK if it would be fine with other games). I can have Hollow Knight running for several hours and it's all chill. But as soon as I shut it down to watch something or dick around on Tumblr? Random restart.

The only thing I can think might be causing it is something to do with a random BIOS update my computer forced (didn't even give me a message, just restarted and forced the update all of a sudden at 4am) 2 days ago.

I don't know what's happening. I don't know how to fix it. All I do know is that it's giving me an increasing urge to punch my screen. Which I obviously won't actually do to my $3000 gaming computer I got in July. But by god do I want to.

[weaverhawk]

Get to know you better game!

Tagged by @bobafvcks (whom I love and cherish <3)

Last song: Advice by Taemin. Other things I've been listening to a lot lately include: Black Cat Nero by Ateez (appropriate for this time of year), Deep Cleaning by Parn Thanaporn from the 4 Minutes OST (I fell in love with this song even before watching the series) and Держи by Мельница (my favorite group)

Favourite colour(s): ..still green

Watching: 4 Minutes (Thai BL, mystery thriller drama, basically made for me, but being spoiled for it killed my motivation to watch), The Loyal Pin (Thai GL, historical drama, reminds me a lot of old school shoujo manga), Mitsuya Sensei's Planned Feeding (Japanese BL, age-gap romance with the most adorable old man as the romantic interest and it's also an adaptation of my one of my favorite mangas about food and love and food as love - I have one episode left, but I don't wanna watch it because I don't want it to end), A Killer Paradox (Kdrama, just started so no opinion). And a bunch of stuff on Youtube, including Taskmaster Australia (series 2)

Last movie: How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (2024), which was very beautiful and touching. But by the time this gets posted, my last movie might actually be A Tale of Two Sisters (2003), because it's getting a theatrical release where I live and I want to go see it today

Sweet/savoury/spicy: I like all of them? My spice tolerance probably has gone up since I last did one of these tag games too

Relationship status: let's be real here

Last thing I googled: It was probably the romanization of Parn Thanaporn's name for this post

Last video game: Adding this because I think these tag games should have this question and also to whine. I'm playing Hollow Knight. People who follow me on Twitter know that I've been playing Hollow Knight for months now (close to year). And I still have one achievement to get. I'm in Hollow Knight purgatory. But I love it SO MUCH. My perfect little game <3

No-pressure-only-if-you-wanna-do-this tagging:

@heathyr, @fuhosh-i, @impending-doom-lol, @returning-spring, @vegaseatsass

@useryennefer, @melodydrifts, @heterodropit, @kat8porgs and @oforthetaintedsorrow

(Please pay no attention to those paragraphs, that's me trying to make the tags work)

[dean23456]

6 11 characters that I like

The 6 boxes seperated plus an all black eye version, the background and the one without Rubilax sword form and the Peppermint Patty and Marcie voice boxes. This took me over 8 hours to make.

My favorites range from 8 yr Olds to fucking demons 😭

Honorable mentions: Monster (fnf) Cynthia and Green (girl option) (Pokemon) Beheaded (Dead cells)

short descriptions on each box.

Sue and Mary (Papa Louie): I talk about these 2 the most. I love their relationship even though they don't have a lot of lore compared to others. Sue i like more than Mary.

Jun (DDR, wii series): She has even less lore compared to the last one. She has a pretty cute design. I especially love her DDR 2010 design compared to the rest. Too bad that she's very obscure.

Peppermint Patty and Marcie (Peanuts): OK I can actually get merch from them without spending $10000000 and my soul for. I recently finished the og run of strips and Im watching the specials (also if you have a link to all of them plz send) I like Peppermint Patty more than Marcie I think. Also is Marcie white or asian I genuinely don't know. (I can't draw noses well, I wanted Peppermint Patty's nose to be bigger since she says and is shown to have it but i fucked up. Ah well least it looks ok)

Alakazam, Aegislash and Giritina (Pokemon): I haven't seen or played every pokemon game but I really like these 3. Idk if they're my all time favorites but I needed to fit at least 1 to 3 characters. Kadabra was amazing in my fire red run (played on an emulator website)

Rubilax (Wakfu): When I first saw him I thought he looked really cool and it kinda sucks that he doesn't have a ton of screen time compared to the rest of the main cast. Also he actually saw 2 of the main characters fucking. Not joking. (Not saying who because some people who see this post haven't seen it) Also also he partially inspired one of my ocs (Cythral) and it kinda changed like a part of the story of it. (Also x3 I've only seen the first 3 season on Netflix so idk about season 4)

Ghost and Hornet (Hollow Knight): I kinda just like these characters a lot. They're pretty cool. I think I might like Hornet more once Silksong releases whenever. I need to get merch for this game. I just don't have much to say on one of my favorite games of all time sorry.

[blysse-and-blunder]

in lieu of a commonplace book

saturday, jan 27, 2024

*brennan lee mulligan voice* heeeeeeeelllllllllllllloooooooOOOOOOOOO one and all and welcome back for another thrilling episode of...whatever this is. thank you for being here.

It's 2024! Say hi, intrepid heroes!

reading recently finished:

-orwell's roses by rebecca solnit (audio) - glad I listened, ultimately very gratifying - history, criticism, extremely lush garden-filled prose and love for growing things - nona the ninth by tamsyn muir - felt so much about [redacted] it made me cry. i can unblock ALL THE TAGS NOW - the blue sword by robin mckinley (audio) - catching up on old school fantasy continues -when the angels left the old country by sacha lamb (audio) - beautiful. not not in conversation with good omens but doing something different.

recently begun: -the ministry of the future by kim stanley robinson - can't decide if it's a scifi novel or a policy brief about ways to combat climate change- reading on my mom's recommendation -babel: an arcane history by r.f.kuang - withholding judgment, but i know you probably want me to hate it and so far i don't, really! to my own surprise -the shadow of the wind by carlos ruiz zafrón (audio) - spooky, post-modern but incredibly good at sounding like it is of the time it depicts. many thoughts on the audio book narrator's accent work, most favorable -one corpse too many by ellis peters. wild that i have only just begun reading the cadfael mysteries

listening last week was about discovering and putting on continuous loop the group trousdale on the recommendation of @m2pixie (!) and other trusted friends; the energy, the harmonies! they fill a girl group void i didn't realize i had, it feels like the best kind of throwback, like old chicks or something, some desperately needed bops. exhibit a: bad blood.

today my daylist introduced me to joy oladokun and i'm so glad it did. love her vibe, love this cover art. had to take a picture of my desk, the visuals were so satisfying.

watching the newest series of netflix's lupin!! so far i'm really, really enjoying where this season has been spending most of its time-- the new characters, the new heists, the new stakes. especially fun to watch with friends where we can all shout about the mrs doubtfire of it all, the betrayals, the misdirection, the 'he can't keep getting away with this!.' the original lupin series will always bring back memories of watching it in early lockdown; i'm glad that there's this now to think about and remember instead.

playing hollow knight hollow knight hollow kniiiiiiight. bought it a few months ago when it was on sale, after hanging out and watching @dimir-charmer stream for us a bit, but playing it yourself is a different game. i'm having a blast. it's becoming a problem. i'm having to be so so good and mature in how much i let myself just get suckered in to a full day spent in my little buggy maze adventures. the temptation to keep going until i've made a meaningful advancement of some kind (today: got the longer nail! last time: beat hornet! saved zote the mighty, got the baldur shell charm, and beat the gruz mother!) is very, very real. have also gotten around this by listening to lots of lo-fi hollow knight beats to relax and study to while being 'productive.'

(found this screenshot online, and holy extra health batman)

making pancakes. lots and lots of weekend pancakes. sent a bunch of mail since new year's, and have some new arts and crafts (charcoal pencils!! those little paper cone blender guys! better paper) to fuck around with next time i want to get ~artistic. watch this space.

working on teaching is so all-consuming. it's great, i love it. the course (maps class! if you see that tag, this is that) is going well, i think! first three lectures down. the students i've gotten to know i really like, the material has yet to get old (see one - do one - teach one is so real. i understand this class now, finally, in a way i don't think i did just being the TA, even after three times). it takes so much longer to just copy-paste-change color and font on slides than it should! i've regularly been getting four-five hours of sleep on monday nights before teaching on tuesdays, but it has meant that i don't have the brain space to be self-conscious while i'm 'on', i just. go. having fun selecting teaching 'fits, having (less) fun handling all the students who joined in the second or third week and need help with catching up, but it's not their fault there was a waiting list and lots of turnover.

(petrus roselli - portolan chart of the mediterranean, 1466)

non-teaching: - student letter of recommendation for dental school (DONE) - conference panel proposal (due 1/31) -submit revised conference paper for that prize (due 1/30) -send draft of grant application to A for her to be able to write a letter of recommendation (due IMMEDIATELY WHY ARE YOU ON TUMBLR) (you have until 2/15 to fix it but she needs the draft!) -chapter 3 edits (lmao) -read for that other course you're meant to be the TA for (oops) - give i. feedback on her thing (tonight) -RAship hours (c'mon these are actually paid work, please do them)

[beanyboi173thegoober]

Having assigned myself to a life of memorizing game soundtracks, it is ASTONISHING how many times I've recognised Hollow Knight pieces in completely unrelated works.

Watching Slimecicle's 100 days in the apocalypse video, and at a random point, I just say to myself 'wait a fucking minute-' because WHOOPDEEDOO in the background he's playing Decicive Battle by mothafuckin Cristopher Larkin.

Ooo watching random tiktoks? The type that get dueted by content farmers posting satisfying clips? 'WAIT WTF WAS THAT???' AND I FROZE. Because this guy had not only played an undertale song, but MOTHERFUCKING MANTIS LORDS BY GODDAMNED CRISTOPHER LARKIN.

Now this is not a hate post whatsoever. I adore the hollow knight soundtrack. It is just absolutely baffling how many times I've heard the soundtrack in random ass places. It makes me laugh every time I hear a hint of a note and immediately know the song name and origin, g-note speed for those who get the joke.

However, I've only really seen popular games get that type of soundtrack usage. Popular games earned that, that's the whole reason why they're popular, but I do have some suggestions for really good game soundtracks in the less popular area.

I also suggest that more people play these games. I have either played or seen played all of these, and they're absolutely gorgeous.

My favourite pieces from each soundtrack:

Journey - I Was Born for This

What Remains of Edith Finch - Milton's Tower

Unravel - The Red Thread

Abzu - The Waters Were Mingled Together

I heavily implore people to play these games and listen to their amazing music. And if you already know about these, you have some random internet stranger's approval.

[help-me-this-sucks]

INTRO THING ‼️‼️

Haii Hello :3

(As stated in bio) My name is Amias or you can call me Alex too and my pronouns r he/him/it/its/tech/techs and I'm mostly attracted to masculine people :> (I'm new to using xenopronouns so I'm keeping it to tech/techs)

I strongly suspect I have autism and ADHD, but my health insurance sucks and I don't have time to get assessed :(( (Should hopefully change in ~6 months !!)

emoticon user

victim of hyperfixations

idk how 2 edit n I have writers block so don't expect any edits/fanfics out of me

Multifandom !!!!

some include:

☆ Gravity Falls, duh.

✰ Electric Dreams

✰ The Stanley Parable

✰ I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream

✰ Portal

✰ Brokeback Mountain

✰ Hollow Knight

Some things I'm interested in that don't have fandoms or I choose not to be in them, so these are some of those:

✰ Subnautica

✰ Studio Ghibli films (Specifically Ponyo :DD)

✰ Another Crab's Treasure

✰ Jaws

✰ Can you tell I like the ocean ?

✰ Contemporary art

✰ Vintage stuff (Ex: Glass blocks, old video games/software, old computers, etc...)

✰ Firewatch

✰ Resident Evil (I've only played a few)

✰ Call of Duty (Specifically the new Modern Warfare trilogy campaigns) (I don't like the fandom)

✰ Others I can't think of rn but those r the big ones

I also listen to music !!!

Some of the stuff I listen to is:

✰ Car Seat Headrest (Favorite song is Can't Cool Me Down)

✰ Mitski (Favorite song is A Loving Feeling)

✰ TV Girl (Favorite song is It Almost Worked)

✰ TWRP (Favorite song is HTMLOVE)

✰ Some other stuff (Not enough of any other artist/band to rlly count)

I plan to watch/play/listen to some things in the future :D

Those are:

✰ Donnie Darko

✰ Silksong (if it even releases in my lifetime /j)

✰ More Car Seat Headrest

✰ More Mitski

✰ More TWRP

DNI LIST:

✰ Basic stuff like transphobes, homophobes, racists, sexists, y'know, bigots, fascists, whatever you wanna call them. (they probably don't want to interact with me anyway)

✰ Darkshippers specifically. If you're a comshipper who doesn't ship anything weird or problematic idc

✰ People who make homophobic/transphobic/racist/sexist/r*pe "Jokes". You're not funny and I don't wanna hear it

✰ Anti-objectums

✰ Other than that I don't rlly care unless you're an icky weirdo ^_^

Baiii goodbye >w<

[ursaspecter]

>be me

>watch northernlion play hollow knight when it first comes out

>fall in love with the art style

>get the game for christmas 2017

>laptop can't run it because it's a terrible dell laptop

>dad gets gaming pc for his own purposes but also so i can have something more powerful to play hollow knight on

>sets it up in the living room where he also works out of and the monitor for the gaming pc is the tv. too big for me to focus on the game.

>2019 we move house, 2020 i graduate and get a new laptop as a graduation gift because my dell laptop was seriously terrible

>never even check if i can run hollow knight on it until literally yesterday

>it runs fine

i've had this game for SEVEN YEARS and only just now touching it.

[thelanor-s-astame]

Hollow Knight Resurrected really helped me get out of a massive writing slump when it started releasing, and has since been a huge boost of inspiration for the past couple of years. This series has been nothing but a lot of fun to watch, and I've enjoyed it alongside your analyses as well (especially the Ori ones, those are a riot).

That being said, which episode would you say you're the most proud of script-wise? And how long did you initially plan HKR to be early on? Did anything deviate from your initial ideas?

Absolutely love hearing this! I'm real glad I could make something that could inspire someone else's writing! Like, it's shocking to me! And I'm sorry for the lack of updates. My entire life kinda imploded last year and I've been trying to put it back together. But I do intend to finish this thing (I've also been learning how to animate in blender which is a huuuuuge door opener that kind of allows me to do literally anything, including a few scenes that I just had no idea how I was gonna do.) So as far as script-wise, Absolutely gotta be the Grimm special. A lot of the episodes have Charlie just walking around and most of those bits are just jokes that came to my brain while either playing to get the footage, or while I'm looking at it on a timeline. Whereas most of the dialogue bits are the ones I write. The Grimm Special, is mostly dialogue. So that *entire thing* was script, which I hadn't done before, and on top of that it was enough script to fill almost 90 minutes! There's also just a lot going on, particularly w/regaurd to generational differences and how each of the Troupe deals with Grimms Plan and how it absolutely isn't going to pan out. And it changed pretty quickly from early on just because I didn't have a hellova lot of initial ideas. Like the first time charlie mentions getting to "The Bottom" is in like the 3rd episode. I didn't think to give the boy a goal until halfway through editing that one lmao. Most everything else has gone according to plan. Biggest surprise was actually the Grimm episode because until a month before I made it I had no fuckin' clue what to do with Grimm and His Boys until I remembered a throwaway line I gave to cloth about the "Iridescent Neo-streetfighting movement" (A play on the Italian Neo-realist movement. Because all of the fighting history is just simplified film history I put new words on top of And was like "You know, I could just take that and make that Grimms Circus act... But if that's the case... well so after that the big thing the Italian Film Industry got into was Spagetti Westerns, and then a little later Giallo so... Oh fuck Rodeos and Giallo is just The Weird Bloody Fighting Grimm Does for An Audience" And went from there. But aside from that there hasn't honestly been a tone of deviation from the original ideas I'd set in place since episode 3. Mostly I've just added bits and pieces here and there. Exept for maybe a lot of Hornet's stuff. This was meant to be a quick, few episode series as a prelude to the Silksong Videos i was Bound to have been finished with by now lmaaaaaaao Some stuff in particular was this idea that Hornets deal is that she can essentially See the internal song of someone, and that was going to be, like, a huge combat thing. Similar to how Charlie keeps changing his name, Hornet would keep trying to find a different song. Bringing back the My Body Is A Cage meme, and eventually having it switch to Swimmers by Zero 7 as she realizes she found her home and is ready to move on from Hallownest. I was going to make the Silksong videos the First Series Like This I did. But it's taking it's time and so am I so I s'pose I can't complain. Swear I'm the only human being on the planet who wipes a little sweat off my brow every time we *don't* get a release date. It's like "OH THERE'S STILL TIME FOR ME TO FINISH MY THING!"

[nerdflowo]

This has probably been asked before but- How did you discover hollow knight anyway? I get the hk to rain world pipeline but warrior cats to hollow knight? howd that happen -someone who also likes warrior cats hk and rain world and discovered them in that order. I found out about hk from my sister just buying the game one day and i just played it and got obsessed, I think rain world I just saw a trailer for it on switch and just decided to get it since it looked neat. warrior cats was just me at the library going "mm yes book about cats i like cats"

Ok uhhmm it gets a bit long!

- I've been a gamer longer than I've been an artist. But my access to video games was always a bit bad, basically relied on parental permission and we only had the wii (parents afraid of computer purchases). I was really into flash platformers back in the day

- I got a gaming laptop in 2020 because I wanted to play re8 for gay reasons

- Now I had the means to buy and play video games. But I still only bought maybe two games a year because I'm very busy most of the time

- I had seen a bunch of people mention Hollow Knight and thought it sounded cool (also heard it was hard, but people said the same about celeste and I was ok at that game. Again, i grew up playing flash rage platformers)

- ....but also, I had been watching those minecraft speedrunner vs. something something videos, and I saw one for Hollow Knight that i wanted to watch but didn't want to be spoiled for the game before playing it

- so i got the game and just like that, it was over for me.

[pastelslugcat]

I started playing Laika: Aged Through Blood a few days ago and I've been loving it. I'm the kind of person who needs to mentally prepare for a sad ending so I look at spoilers in advance. Of course, there will be spoilers for the ending of the game.

Oh no it's Artificer's story all over again. I only watched the final boss and end animation, but I'm literally crying. Since at this point I hadn't gone back and watched the part before and I had no idea what was going on and that two headed bird thing seemed almost silly. Then I saw that there was an explosive and I realized what was going to happen. The conversation she has with Puppy made me cry and the music that played while Laika was falling down after the explosive was super emotional. The ending where you see her destroy it and get caught in the giant explosion is already so sad but it had to show a close up of Laika's face as she closes her eyes and sheds a tear. Of course, it also has to show the village watching the explosion and then Puppy sitting by her mother's grave just to make sure you know she is dead.

Of course, my mind immediately went to creating an AU where everything is okay for everyone (except the birds). It would be much easier if the game didn't literally show her grave, but that's what AUs are for. I guess the first thing I have to do is just overcome the mental block that is cannon. Even if I've been making AUs and headcannons in Rain World and Hollow Knight for more than half a year now and it isn't difficult for me now, I struggled at first because it somehow felt wrong to just ignore cannon. So, the first step is to get to know the lore better. Since I've played the first few hours and seen the ending, I'm gonna need to play through the rest of the game before I can really say anything much about this AU other than that Laika somehow survives the explosion. Who knows, that might even be the only difference.

Maybe I'm crazy or delusional for not being able to accept the cannon ending, but when I see a character I find relatable and almost develop a bond with, it's just my first instinct to want to give them a happy life. It might be weird but it's how I cope and it makes me happy. Another thing about Laika is that she reminds me a lot of my version of Artificer. They both have kids who they are afraid will grow up too fast, both live in a tight community in a pretty bad area and both go out to fight to protect those they care about. Those are just the things I've noticed within a few hours of playing. Plus, the birds remind me of scavengers. It just feels wrong to let a character that so closely relates to another character which is basically my blorbo go in such an awful way. I see e lot of myself reflected in both of them.

Anyways, thank you for listening to this vent of sorts.