#in every essence he is me

[hualianisms]

the way HC grew up thinking he was weak, monstrous, repulsive, was told that he was cursed, and believed that he had to spend 800 years becoming better, stronger, more powerful, for XL, bc he wanted to protect XL -

but then he meets XL again, and shortly after becoming friends, XL tells HC that he doesn't care if HC is hideous, doesn't care if HC is a beggar or royalty, a ghost or human. later on, XL even tells HC that he doesn't care if HC is strong or weak, at his lowest or highest point, in worst or best moments - XL loves HC no matter what state HC may be in, he loves him simply bc he is HC.

and this unconditional love from XL is so important to HC, so healing for HC, and is exactly why it shaped HC so inexorably, both 800 years ago and 800 years later. bc XL truly is the kind of person who loves someone for who they are, not how they appear on the outside.

and HC fully reciprocates this unconditional love by loving XL no matter if XL is the god-pleasing crown prince or the broken husk of a man wearing bwx's mask trying to take revenge. HC returns this unconditional love by repeating XL's words back to him, what matters is you, not the state of you.

[pinacoladamatata]

Man like. I really hope the theories about 'redeeming Solas' ending being to die/mirror his friend wisdom where he dies but will eventually get respawned as a 'new' him, aren't true. Because ngl that's. A very unappealing ending imo. Like that isn't worth the 10 year wait at all.

[t8oo]

there is some symbolism iv never considered in that one episod of pt5 where zenigata rescues fujiko before she kills lupin

[paulic]

Sometimes when I listen to the Beatles I feel like I felt at thirteen again and it feels like the sky widens and there’s endless possibilities and they’re saying what I’m feeling but can’t articulate and I’m lying on my bed and tomorrow I have school and I’ll have school for five more years and I dream of going to Liverpool and I want the magical mystery tour to take me away and I’m learning English with their help and I don’t know the chronological order of the albums yet but it’s fine because they all make me feel so much and I’m slowly learning to distinguish their voices and life is wide and it’s okay and nothing bad has happened yet

[daddy-ul]

I had asked James to write a bit about what 72 Seasons meant to him. But even before we received that, Lars shared that James did say one thing he thought was particularly interesting, which was “prisoner of childhood.” So Lars was the guy who distilled a lot of what James had to say into a phrase that became extremely powerful for us creatively. It was a brilliant synthesis of all the ideas behind 72 Seasons in three words.

-David Turner about the concept art and design of 72 Seasons

[bumblingbabooshka]

Odd and Recent Planets

[todayisafridaynight]

weird detail #98 masato's necklace is lower than everyone else's. for whatever reason.

[waywardsalt]

im actually going to tear into totk’s dragon’s tears/ memories rn bc i remember feeling distinctly unsatisfied with them when i got all of them so im just going to write some general bullet points about them, about what i dislike or maybe what i do actually like about them, leaving out both master sword scenes and the mummydorf one because i’m here to talk about the stuff in the past not that

- off the bat (i play this game in english btw so all of this is based on the english text and translation i am aware some stuff is slightly different in other languages) im not really a fan of how the descriptions of all of the tears is just a literal description of what happens?? i think my issue with it is that some of the text is a little bit too in depth, as in it just tells you literally everything about the scene. this might be nitpick-y but i personally dont like it

- what’s up with zelda saying ‘but that must mean...!’ at the end of the scene. is it suggesting that she’s made the realization that rauru and sonia are the first king and queen of hyrule? because they literally tell her that like ten seconds before. i guess it’s suggesting she’s realizing she’s in the past but... idk the texts says ‘she’s left startled by a suspicion that she’s heard those names before’ yeah theyre the first king and queen of hyrule?? they tell her that. they tell her their names and that they are the first leaders of hyrule is she just now connecting the dots that she’s in the past? that’s what the next cutscene implies. but all of the surrounding dialogue and the description don’t suggest that that’s what she’s realizing i feel like this was kind of muddled in the translation

- why did sonia elbow rauru he was just standing weird he didnt say anything this isnt a nitpick im just confused. is it because he’s not being very empathetic towards what zelda’s going through? she elbows him and then she goes and talks to zelda why even elbow rauru. ordinarily you elbow someone like that if you mean for them to go do something why elbow someone if you’re going to do the thing you want anyways

- why doesnt zelda offer to help with the purah pad or anything like that. what happened to her sheikah tech fascination from botw. not even as someone actually familiar with the technology who could give mineru some points as to how it works

- what are sonia and zelda doing behind rauru when he shoots that insane fucking beam at the mulduga swarm they’re clearly doing something with their stones but like... are they amplifying rauru’s power somehow?? what do time powers have to do with the beam of light i dont- what were they doing please the text description only mentions him using his powers so are sonia and zelda just... supporting his powers? idk man

- dragon tear #5 is a whole can of worms with its worse-than-oot reenactment of that one scene from oot. why the focus on sonia and her tear btw. i mean yeah she dies to motivate rauru and zelda but like. why not aim for the new girl who probably doesn’t know how to use it as much and is probably more likely to be separate from the king who can shot insane lasers. im really not a fan of this scene for how strongly the game sides with rauru and zelda being passive and judgemental but ganondorf is literally the best part of it there’s a lot of character in just how he picks up his sword and stands up to leave

- putting memories 6 and 7 together just because of how there was just. no fucking care put into the idea of zelda learning to use her time powers. memory 6 zelda talks about wanting to use her time powers and sonia gives her tips on how she could use it and visualize the use of it and then in memory 7 she can just use it perfectly with great control and timing. why even bother talking about her nothing yet understanding how to use it when the very next scene she just uses it like it’s nothing. how much time has passed we get nothing to show us zelda trying to practice this power just. nope. she’s good she can use it perfectly. also more awkward dialogue sonia saying ‘what a picture zelda paints of him’ as she is. looking directly at zelda. change the line to like, ‘what a picture you paint of him’ she is literally looking right at zelda so why would she say it like that

- generally i feel like memory six should have been before 4 and 5 (4 being where she uses some power to... support??? rauru and it being before memory 5 so that there isnt this weird break in between the memories concerning ganondorf.) memory 6 does not have anything to do with memory 4 or 5 so just put it earlier so there isnt a weird shift in focus between the two big ganondorf scenes

- good god they introduce the idea of sonia and zelda being aware of ganondorf using a fake zelda but theres literally nothing about it having been a problem or them having experience or like. anything. they just TELL you that they know and suggest that it’s been like. a thing for a bit??? also obligatory ganondorf’s face model rigging is fucked comment he’s still the best part

- the pacing of these memories is just weird in general, memories 7 and 8 being separate but the same scene is strange when other memories are long as fuck but cover one event each, plus theres clearly barely any passage of time between memories 7 and 8 it almost feels like they were split up to fill space or just because otherwise it’d be... too long? man idk

- ‘queen sonia needs you!’ girl she is DEAD good fucking luck doing anything to help her

- ganondorf’s horse and its armor both look sick as fuck i really wish you got to see more of it outside the memory it appears in

- everything about the original sages honestly sucks. they aren’t characters they’re just walking macguffins. they have no names and are not relevant or mentioned or make any appearance until they are needed by the story. why does the zora sage talk about getting word about the attacked gerudo village in this scene when like. they’ve all met up and have clearly. been together for a bit. when she gives them the news it’s clearly the first they’ve heard of it... but... why would she wait until this moments to give this info unless for the benefit of the player watching the scene. why does the ZORA sage have this news and not... the gerudo sage?? what’s with the masks. they’re all made of zonaite or whatever sure theyre gifts from rauru but like. i hate that it kind of denotes them being subservient and lower than him and the zonai. honestly i really hate this scene in general mostly because of the uncomfortable showing of how rauru absolutely holds power over them and despite them being leaders as well they are expected to be wholly blindly loyal to him. rauru only gives them these stones when he needs their aid and they swear loyalty too him soon after but you also see that sonia and mineru have stones, too, so they’re clearly withholding these things despite it being kind of reasonable for him to give each race their own secret stone as further proof of their pact? there is so much shit to be said about the imperialistic themes or whatever in this fucking story and i really hate it

- i do kinda like how the next scene shows you that the one rock in the corner of that first hidden room in the forgotten temple is sonia’s grave

- zelda’s phrasing and description of how she and link found ganondorf is weird to me ‘he’s still alive’ ‘he lives on’ girl that was a mummy. he was not moving until you got there. he’s undead at best as far as you know. this is def a nitpick but eh. also the reliance on link is a... bit odd when zelda does not actually know that link is safe until she gets the master sword. its fine but still. also her shell-shocked expression after rauru talks about her being in the past for a reason is a bit... it doesn’t fit her emotion it’s kind of similar to the expression she had when sonia was killed

- the memory about the imprisoning war starts with practically the whole story up until now being repeated back to you by mineru with a decent amount of bias on mineru’s part and while it’s fine because of some of the extra stuff you learn but it does a lot more telling rather than showing when it comes to the actual imprisoning war and... idk the whole thing about their ‘fight’ kind of falls flat when you don’t actually see any fighting you just see that the sages have gotten their asses beat. i think it would have been a little interesting if in the god-awful repetitive sage-awakening scenes they had actually showed you the og sages fighting ganondorf instead of just. slow-mo freeze-frames for whatever. once again ganondorf if the best part of the scene

- the rest of the memories are fine idc

i get the feeling that the japanese-to-english translation was either all-around rough or somehow rushed, because some of the phrases in the game as well as some of the dialogue is really awkward and... could have been better. i don’t know how it works but it feels like a lot of it was very literal, direct translation and no one at noa thought that it ought to be tweaked just a little bit

these memories also do a fuck-ton of telling rather than showing and it really is like they don’t really trust you to connect the dots, and some of it does come off like they either didn’t want to make more memories or ran out of time or something. i felt like the memory of ganondorf just summoning his monsters and riding on his cool horse could have been a bit longer to actually show us the forces of hyrule fighting him and having a hard time with it

a lot of the character animations doesn’t have a whole lot of personality to them, ganondorf is the character who had the most distinct and interesting movements. rauru and sonia had their... singular movement (rauru putting a hand to his chin and sonia taking zelda’s hands) and zelda was kind of just... standing around and reacting to stuff, and neither mineru nor any of the other sages had any really interesting animations asides from mineru’s coughing fit in memory 16 (plus her reclining chair that was a nice touch). very few of their movements really express anything about the characters besides some really baseline values or traits.

the ordering of some memories is kind of odd, the excessive flashbacks in memory 17 are a bit much, the telling rather than showing, the sometimes awkward dialogue, a lot of the scenes are characters just... talking at each other, you don’t actually see very much of hyrule in the past or any characters beyond the main four, and it really did nothing to actually get me to care about these characters at all.

tldr i dont like totk’s dragon tears

[thecranekick]

rewatching cobra kai for the 100th time - have we ever talked about the iron eagle scene? yeah it's funny when the larusso auto ad cuts in and everything, but have we talked about the specific scene that's playing? after a horrible last 24 hours?

“a bunch of things must have gone wrong if you’re listening to this. whatever happened, i know you must be real scared.”  johnny - drunk - sits up, focuses a little harder. “right now, you’re probably filled with all the doubts in the world. but i’m gonna tell you something: God doesn’t give people things he doesn’t want ‘em to use.”  johnny flashes back to leading his cobras in warmups.  “...and he gave you…the touch.”  he flashes back to hitting daniel’s bad leg in the tournament. “it’s a power you have inside of you-”  he starts borderline crying.  flashes back to the incident at the mini mart. “down there where you keep your guts, boy.” to miguel’s face as johnny’s defending him. “it’s all you need to blast your way in and get back what they took from you.”

you can see the hurt and the exhaustion in his whole face. idk that whole moment is just so special to me. he's playing his favorite movie that he's probably seen 1,000,000 times, and it's like he's hearing those words in a new way (before daniel cuts in). a bunch of things have gone wrong. he probably is scared, underneath it all. is this all his life will ever be? God doesn't give people things he doesn't want them to use. he's good at karate, it's all he's ever really known. he should use it. he's also got heart - he should use it. he knows it's somewhere inside him, buried so far down it's unrecognizable now. down where he keeps his guts. guys i-

[theshadowrealmitself]

Haven’t had pineapple anything in forever and I’m drinking a pineapple shake rn and I don’t know how Shawn does this

[papercutsmp3]

bro is inquisitive

[debtsunpaid]

@asteritm / continued from here

party pooper. oh hey clarice, it's nice to hear from you! how are you? how's life? i'm doing really well, thanks for asking! crunch anything tasty lately? party pooper. drop the first t in texting, throw in an s actually. and he's still getting the hang of it but he can't get better without practice you know. what better time to do it when he's supposed to be paying attention? party pooper. — on a scale of one to five, how bad is it? one being distracted but functioning and five being cannot carry a conversation to save his life? i have to know, for record keeping purposes, and then yes — i might give him some breathing room. do you know how fun it is to drive a man a little insane with a picture or two? i bet you do, one way or the other. party pooper. whatcha talking about? anything fun?

[sms] handle with caution. gods, you even text the same. no wonder you two fuck like rabbits, it must be like screwing a mirror for him. not to impugn your good looks by comparison, darling — and of course, i'm delighted that you're well. how goes your training in ... whatever it is he claims to be teaching you? CS.

[sms] handle with caution. yes, yes, i'm well aware of the context. and the contents. and his password, much to his dismay. artfully posed, by the way; what i wouldn't give to have your body. CS.

[sms] handle with caution. oh please, child. it's the easiest game in the world. with men, you'll reach the madhouse long before you could ever hope to reach the truth, every time. and no, i cannot think of anything i would rather do less than rate the depths of john constantine's lust, thank you ever so much for asking. CS.

[sms] handle with caution. business of course, what else? although that particular discussion seems to have effectively stalled, at present, thank you again. as much delightful nostalgia and secondhand embarrassment as i'm finding in the ... sordid details of your extracurricular activities, need i point out, to you of all people, that it would be far more professional to get it on on your own time? rather than, for example, mine? CS.

[sms] handle with caution. [IMG ATTACHMENT] besides, your man here is already averaging a 3.5 over little more than a tasteful glimpse of cleavage and a quarter-body shot — i'm sure you can do better than that. than him, for that matter. CS.

[sms] handle with caution. i know, i know, dreadful of me. and i did say i wouldn't pry. the heart wants what it wants, i suppose, regardless of such ... trivial hurdles as simple rational thought. i can relate to that, at least, but i do wish you'd let me set you up with at least one of the more ... lucrative matches on hand. after all, even if it didn't pan out, it couldn't hurt to keep up at least an appearance of availability, in your position, hm? CS.

[gamebunny-advance]

*Exhale*

Alright, I've been teasing it long enough. Anyone that's been paying attention has probably figured out what my oh-so secret project has been (not that it's going to stop me from vague-posting about it), and he really is close to being finished.

Face-up. Done. (Though I would like to touch-up where the paint has chipped)

Clothes. Painted.

Wig. Styled.

I literally just need to put the fringe on his scarf, but for whatever reason, I've just been hit with this wave of fatigue since about the time I wrote the last confessions post (frankly, if you ever see me writing/posting long-ass posts, it's because I've lost the energy to use my hands to make things).

I guess I just burned myself out from making both him and Kun3h0 at the same time, that when Kun3h0 got finished, my whole body shut down having felt relief from "completing" the project. To be fair, this has been going on since at least mid-Janurary, so I am more than ready to close the book on this one.

I'll try to finish him within the month, but there are also a lot of other things going on with me ATM, so I wouldn't hold me to it.

[cherrymoonvol6]

caleb,,,.. andjfhjdnd evely..n.........

[godidontevenknowwhat]

I love everything that Billy fans create, it's so beautiful that we all saw his tragedy and tried our best in whatever little way we could to save him from it. Antis can argue all they want that 'Billy bad and you bad for liking him' but when you think about how pure and kind our intentions are when liking Billy there's no way we're really the bad people here.

[regicidal-defenestration]

Do you ever read a book and realise how it's going to make you exponentially worse