#and honestly I kinda think that that is also a lie

[archie-the-menace]

Replaying Portal 1 and honestly the whole “the cube cannot speak” thing almost sounds like maybe GLaDOS has seen how Rattmann acts around the cube and well, that’s not typical human behavior. It would be pretty concerning if Chell started acting similarly. I mean the examples of things the cube will not do seem pretty specific sometimes; and there’s a Rat Den in that level. Unless Doug somehow has a talking cube we can only assume its voice is an auditory hallucination, and GLaDOS had to of seen him talking to the cube/treating it like it’s alive. Preying on delusional attachment is a VERY GLaDOS thing to do as well (she messes with Doug’s fragile mental state in Lab Rat as well). So I agree with your take on Portal 1’s cubes.

As far as 2 goes though? Everything in Aperture sings/makes music though for whatever reason (turrets, GLaDOS, the funnel things, possibly even the panels). This is just a fact about the environment I accepted in Portal 2. I think the Cube just- also makes some kinds of sounds (not necessarily sentience?) Who knows. GLaDOS would definitely lie about them being sentient to mess with Chell. The mystery around it is kinda interesting though.

Honestly, I don’t think they’re sentient. Or feel pain. But definitely not ruling out that they just have the ability to produce sound. Making sounds isn’t exclusive to sentient things. I guess hallucinations could be possible? Humans act weird without other humans around. It’s one of those things I don’t think we’ll ever get an answer for, unfortunately.

You know, I find it funny how we all just forget that, in the first Portal game, the whole “the companion cube can’t speak, and if it does please ignore it” schtick was preceded by a warning that prolonged exposure to the tests often led to test subjects experiencing hallucinations and superstition, leading them to “perceive inanimate objects as alive.”

Like. That wasn’t the facility trying to reverse-psych us. That was supposed to be legit reassurance that the companion cube is not alive, and that if it seems to be alive that’s just us hallucinating. Because we’ve been testing for a prolonged time.

(Which makes GLaDOS bringing it up during the boss fight all the more twisted; because she’d be preying on a completely delusional attachment.)

Chell doesn’t hallucinate, so the companion cube, indeed, does not speak or make any sort of noise. It’s, legit, just a cube. It’s legit not alive.

But a lot of people, post-GLaDOS reveal, take this whole sequence to mean that the cube is alive and that GLaDOS is trying to gaslight us into thinking it’s not. This is by far the most popular interpretation of that test chamber and of those dialogue lines. But considering the first game in isolation, I’m not sure if it’s right.

While it would be insidious to be forced to incinerate a living being only to later have our murderous deed rubbed in our faces, I personally see a completely different level of insidiousness in having a harmful delusion of ours be fed and encouraged to further another being’s manipulation.

…

And then the second game comes along, and suddenly the companion cubes can be heard singing when Chell stands near them.

Okay, well, she has been asleep for 9999, maybe it’s finally enough test exposure for her to start hallucinating. Nobody and nothing in the facility shows any awareness that the cubes are making noise now.

…and then GLaDOS tells you that they’re sentient.

So…taken all together, what’s this supposed to mean? Is it a retcon? Is she lying about them being sentient? Or maybe they’re sentient now, when they weren’t in the first game? Are they actually singing, or is Chell hallucinating after all? Maybe they have been sentient all along but they truly can’t make noise and the song is a hallucination??

[weaponizedhorse]

This post is really long but God I'm pissed

I am now positive this one pharmacy lady is trying to fuck me over whenever possible. I called the pharmacy like over a week ago to see what day I could pick the other part of my pain med prescription and I was told it was the 5th which is today. So I call today today and the lady said "okay yes I see a note here to fill it I will get that started" then she calls me back and says "oh it can't be filled til tomorrow" and "you should have enough til Monday" okay first of all my prescription is not broken up into two parts out of some reason to stop me getting all my medication at once because I am druggie or some shit. And my Dr specifically does not post date the two prescriptions so she wants me to pick them up as soon as I can. I specifically ask to get it in two parts cause your stupid pharmacy never has enough to fill the the entire 140 and now I get 168 so they DEFINITELY do not have enough.

But it's odd to say that I shouldn't be able to get it til tomorrow because when they actually try to fill it and it's too soon I get a text message. Every time without fail. But I didn't get one. This is the second time I have not gotten that text with the same pharmacist. It has never failed otherwise. I was suspicious last time now I am certain she is lying. So I tell her that I didn't get a text message and she says "well I don't know why it didn't send, but you know I'd love to give you your medication" like yeah sure you would.

So I ask if this is an insurance thing or an FDA thing (cause if it's an insurance I will just pay out of pocket I have an FSA I'd really rather not go downtown tomorrow cause we have shit to do this weekend) and she give me some kind of half answer "oh well I don't know blah blah" yes you do know you have that information right Infront of you. Whatever. I hang up and go look at my CVS account and it says my medication has been "placed on hold due to insurance as a courtesy" so I call back and I relay what CVS account says and she says "oh well I don't know the reason it gives blah blah" (yes you very much do cause every other pharmacist can tell me exactly if it's cause of the FDA or if it's insurance) and so I told her I said "I have stuff to do this weekend and the next time my mom would able to pick my medication is on Monday but she works til 7 so and I would have less than half a days medication so I won't make it to that time so if it's an insurance thing I will just pay out of pocket" and

So she says "fine. I can do the 30* for cash." In this extremely curt and shrill voice like she was very upset she was having to do this. Like stop acting like the fucking pain killer police that is not your job. Wanna know whose job it is? My fucking doctor. And this lady is definitely not a doctor.

tbh I don't even think that my insurance won't pay for it. I think that is just the reason she input into the system as an excuse to put my medication on hold and is now running it without insurance to spite me. Because if insurance didn't cover it I still would have gotten a text message.

[kacievvbbbb]

You ever think about how Mihawk definitely does not hear his name alot?

Like there are probably only 2 people in the entire world that consistently refer to him by name. To the rest of the world he’s just an epithet. He might as well have no real name for as little as he hears it.

He’ll hear it at introductions always preface by his epithet, he’ll see it in the bounty posters and notice it in the history books. But barely anyone will ever calm him that. Just a pink headed ghost girl and the red headed half of the most complicated situationship panning 20 years.

You ever think about how Shanks probably has a thousand and one nicknames for Mihawk he cycles through at a whim but maybe Mihawk’s favorite will always be the soft way in which Shanks calls out his given name like that’s all there is too it like there’s a Mihawk that exists all on its own. No matter the situation Shanks calls him Mihawk and he has his full attention

[moeblob]

Sorry I forgot Hanneman suggested Byleth undress after they show up with a different hair color. And I miss Hanneman. And also while swapping between Houses and Hopes and seeing Hanneman pop up to help in a Hopes paralogue is just devastating since he doesn't ever actually join you at all and I am denied my old man rights.

So I had to draw this. Thank you for understanding.

[blue-thief]

reblogs are strongly encouraged!

*division rap battle

answer added in the reblogs

[valzhangism]

i know i said i was happy about how mel's story went, but the more i think about it the less i'm sure about that. this is very much connected to how the themes of classism and wealth disappeared in s2, but mel in the beginning was the epitome of piltover. she wanted to advance piltover to prove herself to her mother. to "put piltover—" and by extension herself, "—on the map."

she wanted wealth just to have it. and i'm not blaming her for anything that happened, especially with hextech! she, just like jayce and viktor, could not have known what it would lead to. i mean yeah heimerdinger said so but who the hell listens to heimerdinger? but anyway i think mel changed throughout s1, much in thanks to jayce. by the end she's become more cognisant of the mistreatment of zaunites. she's the first to vote for their peace. she was a good person all along but now she knows how to act on it. it's also seen more in s2 act 1. when she covers her painting with gold, it's symbolic—she won't act according to what her mother might think. she won't let her desire for approval dictate her anymore.

so somehow i wish those themes were. continued, somehow? like again they were dropped not just with mel but the whole show and it makes her story a off to me. there's no meaningful commentary on war or classism or how her ideology stands opposite to her mother's. like some people have said, it feels like she doesn't have much agency, even if she is really cool. and that to me is a shame because agency felt like her thing. "to shape your own destiny" as she says to jayce in s1. i know her collaborating with the black rose (but not fully joining them) and learning magic is supposed to represent becoming independent from her mother, taking her own path, but some other aspects of her character were thrown away... the more i think about it the more i'm thinking they kind of #girlboss-ed her a little bit. maybe to sell another champion. i can't help but feel like even though i enjoyed seeing her on screen, the payoff didn't feel proportionally satisfying compared to her setup in s1.

[liquidstar]

another request from cohost! my friend asked for traditional inuk hairstyle like qilliqti, which is what i ended up going with! looking up the hairstyles sent me on a sidequest of looking at a bunch of fashion designers with modern takes on traditional clothes, so i also used some of those! so credits for that under the cut vv

jacket- https://www.instagram.com/p/C3QiKIdO0Jp/?img_index=5 jacket 2 (full fashion show with more angles, and a lot of super cool designs, also really cool music)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp_eAzDu8xU patch- https://www.bradorfabrics.com/products/inukchic-iron-on-patches-celestial-narwhal hair originally from the film atanarjuat the fast runner, but the specific screenshot is here https://www.pinterest.com/pin/53480314313400875/

[jackass-jones]

What if I was your servant and you promised me a better life and I believed you and then you used me and resented me I saw you at your worst and I held the attention of someone you loved despite the fact you treat them like shit and so you took out your anger on me all the cruelty in the world and as I suffered you sat back with a cup of tea and smiled and you killed your beloved in front of me just to prove a point that they belonged to you and all I can do is watch and then when you just can’t stand the sight of me anymore you cry loud enough for the world to hear you that I’m the dangerous one, a wicked seductress, a witch, and I burn and burn and burn and you go home and laugh, relieved of this burden, the world sings your praises yet you are nothing but alone and miserable and I crawl my way in i appear in your mirror I breathe down your neck you bleed all my blood and you drown in it and it’s funny really how for someone who’s supposedly so evil all I have to do to provoke you is stare with honest eyes and that sight just pushes you over the edge and you have the fucking audacity to scream, plead for help, to actually sob about it like you’re the victim like you’ve always been the poor little victim and you tighten your rope and breathe your last breath and I embrace you from behind and drag my teeth across your neck and dig my nails into your chest and you wait for it to fade to black but your eyes refuse to close and I squeeze over your heart and feel it beat faster and faster and we laugh together and we both know I can see how pathetic you really are and I just keep holding you tighter because I don’t want to know what’d happen if I let you go I don’t think I could ever take my eyes off you again and you could’ve apologized to me even once but you never fucking did and you never will and the world will always see you as the beautiful tragic victim, the hero this town needed, and when they think of evil my face will always be the one they see every fucking time and so I refuse to let go and let you go on believing you’re a saint, committing every atrocity imaginable and using my name to do so, you’re going to hell with me and we will burn and burn and burn and we’re literally both girls 😳🙊🙀

[indolentsecurityguard]

✨💎CONCEPT ART: Early sketch good random skin🩵✨

After I made Mini Legacy, I sketched him out again only to get curious about him having a good random skin and ended up making another skin for him. (Literally right after mini even though I don't think I'm finished with him yet lol.)

(Bonus: Alt design + messy sketch + sunglasses inspiration)

[quasi-normalcy]

.

[waywardsalt]

small little thing abt botw/totk and the future of zelda games considering it seems likely that future zelda games might be in the same style as those two and how i feel like botw/totk don't actually feel like zelda games (kind of messy i just typed this out in a kind of informal or whatever way) (this post is long af btw so uhhhh yeah)

im part of the group that claims that botw/totk aren't 'real' zelda games but... i guess they are technically 'real' zelda games, but... they sure as fuck don't feel like it, and because of that, i'm not at all excited with the idea of future loz games being in the same style, especially with the pitfalls these last two games have fallen into having been things that past zelda games did especially well, it feels like things have been sort of flipped on their heads in terms of what's being valued or whatever

like... the best parts of older zelda games were things like the story and the characters and the puzzles and the dungeons and stuff like that... the best parts of botw/totk right now are just the gameplay. people enjoy these new characters, but they dont have the narrative backing that older games do, they don't have the same impactful arcs or roles allowed by a more linear story

the point i want to get at though is how botw/totk honestly don't feel like direct evolutions or steps up from past zelda games but rather just... entirely different game styles (open world games) with the zelda flavoring and worldbuilding and story styling slapped on top.

i mean... i feel like a half-decent example of some other well-known franchises that have jumped on this (honestly kind of thoughtless) open-world bandwagon are mario (mario odyssey) pokemon (sword/shield and scarlet/violet) fire emblem (kind of. with some free-walking segments in 3 houses and engage) and the soulsborne type games (elden ring), these are all other well known and storied game series' that have somewhat made the move to open world, and i think that switch was a bit smoother, kept the core and integrity of the games that came before much better than botw/totk did

elden ring is the easiest to explain- the gameplay loop and core mechanics are the same and build upon past games' you just have more room to run around and get killed in with some little open-world flourishes like material gathering.

fire emblem is... a bit less flexible in terms of changing up the core gameplay, and the addition of open-world segments are added to add bonuses to the strategy gameplay and allow for more support-building oppourtunities and little minigames, and its more or less evolution from echoes' dungeon-crawling bits and the customizable castle in fates. the core gameplay still effectively works the exact same, just with some little class or mechanic tweaks and additions.

mario odyssey, though each world was pretty massive, still had your typical 3d mario platforming, and the new hat stuff fit in pretty well with olderpowerups and gimmicks, and the boss battles feel and work pretty similarly to the way they used it- odyssey does feel like an evolution from past mario games (ps. playing two-player with one person as cappy snaps the game in half. its the secret easy mode lol)

the new pokemon games are pretty much just the same as past pokemon games, theyre just open world and buggy as fuck rip have extra little open-world flourishes that build on what past games set up. the battling works the same as ever and the progression is the same with a number of powerful trainers you have to battle to continue forward.

with botw/totk... the progression is dramatically different in terms of power-scaling, world presentation, item-gathering, puzzle-solving... pretty much everything in the established zelda format. i get that it was pretty much the aim with botw to have a fresh start and throw out a lot of the old standards but it just makes them feel so dramatically alien to past zelda games; theyre completely different experiences in pretty much every single way, and as such they dont feel like what we've (well, people who have started with and spent a lot of time with other loz games) learned to associate with the zelda titles.

with open world games in general it's a bit harder to have a truly impactful narrative akin to those in past zelda games, anyways. i will admit that botw was a good execution of trying out something entirely new, and the narrative and gameplay and world actually complement each other very well, so despite what i've said in the past I can't really fault it's narrative too much since it's a less traditional sort of narrative and effectively does what it aims to do very well.

totk, on the other hand, proves that this style of game does not mesh with the old style of storytelling at ALL. linear games can have proper narratives with coherent stakes, developing characters, twists and reveals and building emotion and mood- and all of that is thrown out the window with totk when they decided to try and have both a more linear story with actual reveals and development and emotion, while also letting you literally spoil it for yourself out the gate.

you can't really have a well-executed story when players are capable of doing things drastically out of order and of jumping into story beats without the prior buildup and straight-up ruining what could be otherwise emotional reveals, and players being capable of doing this is hard-baked in how the game fundamentally works. I honestly feel bad for people who found the fifth sage by accident before anything else.

you can't effectively have a linear story with character growth and plot developments and impactful moments while also allowing it to be experienced out of order and with massive time gaps in between; with this kind of stuff, you can't really have your cake and eat it too. say what you will about the linearity of past zelda games, but i bet you that midna wouldn't be as beloved as a character as she is if it weren't for the linear order of the story and its events. certain parts of storytelling may demand for a linear manner of telling that story.

botw's story works because none of the memories reveal anything groundbreaking taht you don't already know; they are optional and merely give you more information about these characters from link's past and simply inform you about the girl keeping ganon at bay. if you find a late memory first, that's fine- it technically doesnt reveal anything too important to you, it just fills in some gaps for you and your player character. it makes sense within the story itself for the world to be so open and for you to be able to do what you can; the story is not the focus, nor is it even needed to beat the game. the story was made with the gameplay and what you are allowed to do in mind, and as such doesn't include things such as in-depth character development or important plot-twists.

on the other hand, you can easily spoil totk's biggest plot twist in a handful of different ways completely by accident, just by getting curious about the world around you. this can shatter a lot of the mystery or tension in the plot and this can happen completely by accident to someone playing the game organically and blindly. the story itself doesn't take this into account, it reads more like a linear story that would be more suited to a linear style of play, coming across things in order to ramp up the stakes and let things be revealed at the best possible time. (tbh totk's story doesnt seem to take the player into account in general, if the game forcing you to watch basically the same long cutscene four fucking times says anything, jesus christ)

narrative pitfalls aside, botw/totk put heavy emphasis on gameplay, but not in the same way older zelda games did, and as such trade away the unique items and gimmick-y game-specific mechanics for a small toolset handed to you out the gate. what botw/totk do- giving you everything you need from the start and having very little true varation in the gameplay from then on out- make sense and works just fine for an open world game. there is, however, a lack of actual depth to that gameplay that other open world games do have (off the top of my head, the ability to unlock and upgrade abilities and have general character upgrades in fenyx rising as well as the impressive depths of elden ring's combat and character customization system). the most depth botw/totk has to the actual gameplay is just the fourish different weapon types and the ways you use your fourish abilities (saying fourish bc for real ultrahand and fuse are fundamentally the exact same thing). there is also just raising the little defense numbers on your armor and getting more stamina and health, but that does absolutely nothing to the actual gameplay but make link more durable.

i mean, sure, health in past loz games just makes link more durable, too, but thats how health upgrades in any other game work.

the gameplay switch makes sense, considering the switch from a linear puzzle-adventure concentric game to a more sandbox-esque open-world game, but it does not mesh with the former loz formula at all, so while the shift in style makes sense, it makes me think that you can't have a previous-style loz experience in an open-world sandboxish sort of game. especially with how in totk you can very easily bypass most of the fire temple just using the mechanics handed to you at the start. you can't have the same type of zelda dungeons in a game where you are allowed to do it 'wrong' and the game itself does not allow for the same kinds of puzzles.

i am of the opinion that so long as future zelda games work the same way botw/totk did, we will not get old-school zelda-style dungeons again.

the loss of a variety of items used for specific puzzles and environment switches is the loss of a varied dungeon experience and the loss of the same kind of world and character progression as past zelda games.

you are handed everything you'll ever need at the start of botw/totk. the only thing that will meaningfully change is how much damage you do. there are no alternate strategies opened up by new items that can double as weapons, no new traversal options or routes opened up by things such as grappling hooks or clawshots or whips or specific wands. even the battle system is drastically different, instead of being enemies that take specific amounts of hits to die while you can obtain progressively stronger swords, enemies are just damage sponges and you can get all kind of weapons that just do different numerical amounts of damage.

the bosses themselves- big staples and draws of zelda games- also work extremely differently. instead of having to leverage specific items to expose weak spots or having to fight in a specific manner to do damage, you are just asked to... do damage. even in totk's bosses, where sage abilities are most certainly helpful, the only boss i found to truly require a sage ability was the lighting temple's boss; the others i either hardly used the sage at all (i didn't use yunobo at all in the second phase of the fire temple boss and hardly had a need for tulin with the wind temple boss [esp considering i was using a 3-shot lynel bow to make the poor fucker a cakewalk]) or found that alternative solutions felt better, like resorting to splash fruit on repeat water temple fights instead of wrestling with having to activate and use sidon's ability. the sages are honestly fairly poor replacements for dungeon specific items.

this kind of causes botw/totk to play more like a poor man's dark souls or just like any other open world rpgish game. i don't play botw/totk for the experience of a zelda game, i play it because it's an open world game that i can walk around in for five minute before switching to something else because i liked something in that other game better.

the combat in botw/totk isnt designed in such a way that makes it feel good. mineru's mech is fucking dismal, but since it's just either shooting with a bow or attacking with one of three types of melee weapon with some timing for a dodge, it can get stale fast. it doesn't necessarily even feel good, since there's not enough variety for it to get really engaging. (this is def an uneven comparison, but elden ring's combat feels considerable better with the different dodges you can do and the amount of attack options you have with just one weapon, not to mention the amount of control you have over your general fighting style.) combat in botw/totk at hour 1 is the exact same as combat in botw/totk at hour 100, the only different being the amount of damage you do or how much of a beating you can take.

it just... the styles of botw/totk can't allow them to feel the same as older zelda games. the shift in style was clearly a good move to draw in series newbies and shake things up, but it comes at the caveat of making them feel distant from their predecessors and uncomfortably similar to other games like them. it's hard to avoid comparisons with elden ring when on the surface they are very similar games, one just feels more true to its core identity

this all is said without mentioning the way in which botw/totk lore feels almost dismissive of past series staples and seems intent on not looking back while also taking every fucking attempt to nudge you and say 'hey, remember that zelda game' and honestly all that shit does is make me want to play a different zelda game.

botw/totk seem altogether very desperate to distance themselves from past zelda games while also being unable to really tear itself from what came before and it just culminates in me spotting linebeck island on the map and going 'damn i miss linebeck' and turning the fucking game off to play phantom hourglass instead. say what you will about phantom hourglass, but it certainly handles its story progression and character development infinitely better than the game that lets you accidentally shatter the impact of the story by deciding to check out that cool temple in the distance of the depths

[the-kipsabian]

im gonna complain sorry i need to get this out of my brain since ive been thinking about it recently. leaving it in the tags so you can ignore it or whatever

[izzymalec]

biggest mystery about hannibal is how i understood anything when watching it 10 years ago

[dan-crimes]

Mfs can't understand a blunt mf they always gotta try and read between the lines or straight up deny the words you're saying and deny how you feel

[nuclearnyx]

people who don't use the tags to be sad and vent are so powerful lmao couldn't be me

[thisisadecisionimayregret]

word to the wise. if you're gonna put a cloth mask in the microwave after washing it to make it dry faster: don't!! or at least don't put any ceramics you wanna keep in there with it