#it's literally 4:30 am

[thetreestumptherapist]

Halo 2's 20th Anniversary

I know I am a couple days late, but I've been really busy and should actually be in bed rn, but I am going to tell some Halo stories before I forget or don't have time again. I am also going to try to summarize because I want this to be fairly quick.

I used to watch my grandfather play Halo CE on his computer when I would go visit my grandparents. Then later, my aunt got an xbox 360 and brought it to our house when she would visit for the holidays and my parents let me play Halo Reach with her. And then she and I would play when we would go visit her. We slowly made our way through the entirety of halo Reach, 1, 3, and 4 this way, playing during holidays and vacation visits. I think we did some of it online, but I don't remember very much. I do remember freaking out about needing Halo 5 after finishing Halo 4 online with her, so I know we did that one online at least a little bit.

You may have noticed, but Halo 2 wasn't listed with the others. That's because neither me nor my aunt had a copy of H2 for a while. We skipped H2 and went straight from CEA to H3. Thinking back on it, it kind of was extra immersive that way, because I was just as confused as Chief was, as to why the heck the sangheili were on our side. And I also didn't know where Cortana was, like Johnson and Thel didn't.

At some point my aunt got us both H2 but they were for the original xbox (I am genuinely wondering if H2 for the 360 exists) so we couldn't play online together.

Now it's been a couple of years since I've played Halo with my aunt. I need to ask her to play Halo this Christmas. I've been missing that connection for awhile now. Unfortunately, the vibes from those first playthroughs can never be recreated, but I can enjoy the nostalgia I guess. I play with my sibling now, and we just completed an H2 playthrough a couple of months ago. Maybe we should do another one for H2's anniversary instead of moving on to H3.

Now that we have the story of how I got H2, let's talk about the game itself.

Anemoia. I literally found that word because of games like Halo (and destiny 2. Forsaken specifically) and how I never got to experience their golden days. But, when I tell you, the first time I saw it, I felt the nostalgia of that original xbox H2 screen even though I had never seen it before. I envy all of you who grew up playing in those online lobbies. I get they probably had their downsides, and yeah I have special memories of playing halo with family, but would have loved to have friends to play halo with.

The music is immaculate. I love how throughout the halo games the music matches the vibe of the game. CEA has a futuristic, yet ancient feel. Like the forerunner buildings and ring itself. H2 uses electric guitar and feels very fast paced and epic at the height of the war. H3 has a really bitter-sweet feel to it. Sacrifices are being made left and right, every decision has consequences, and we need every inch of progress we can get. It very much is "One Final Effort".

The terrible lighting in H2 adds so much horror to the flood. The flood is scary in CEA, but the clean and crisp lighting takes away from the horror of it being an ancient and forgotten terror. Original graphics H2 does not. It has all the horror of not being able to see clearly in the darkness, seeing something move out of the corner of your eye and having things on your motion sensor that you can't see in front of you. Seeing things shoot at you, but not seeing well enough to shoot back. It's a struggle and it's terrifying.

Where's my assault rifle?

I like the Gondola level, where we're chasing down Regret. That was fun. Except for the flying enemies. That was annoying.

Frick it, I liked the whole game. I can't pick a favorite level.

The dialogue is supreme. I don't know who wrote the script for this game, but they did not miss with this one. From "If they came to hear me beg..." to "Sir, finishing this fight" every line was nothing but sheer bad*ssery. I feel it is worth mentioning that, as far as I am aware, this is the only game Chief swears in and the word he said was "piss" and it's such a mild swear word there is confusion as to whether it's actually considered a swear. And it was when facing the gravemind, the flood. When he was dealing with the only thing that that ever truly struck fear in his heart. The man just doesn't swear and I love him for that. Even when halo was rated mature, he didn't swear. And that's another thing that annoys me about the tv show. It's like they thought "what if this Master Chief ditched his entire personality?" But, that's a discussion for a different time.

I would also like to say, I have seen the cutscenes in the anniversary graphics and I like Rtas' "Hmm" after Thel's "That makes two of us" in the old graphics better. I am pretty sure they knew each other before Thel's disgracing, and Rtas claims to not care about Thel in that moment, but then proceeded to care about him throughout the whole game. Like, all that helping him, wasn't just out of interest for the prophet's will. Rtas cared for Thel, you can tell by the way he speaks to and about him. My headcanon is he has to pretend to not care about Thel, but really he does care about him. In the anniversary graphics he's very standoffish and and kind of aggressive, in the older graphics he's acts more like he still has some respect for Thel, even if only because of how graciously Thel accepted his fate. I feel like that little bit of respect is more accurate to their species' morals etc. Yes, honor is very important to them and if someone disgraces them that is the highest offense, but Thel was a strong warrior who took responsibility for his mistakes, (even though the situation was out of his control), and accepted his punishment with grace and no complaints. Only the brutes would not find this respectable. So, yeah, I like the older graphics for that scene on the ship.

I haven't explored a lot of the multiplayer maps yet. I was working on that with my sibling, but we found blood gulch (Coagulation or whatever it was called for H2, I don't remember rn) and freaked out and forgot about all the other maps for a bit, so I will have to go look at those later.

I am sure I could think of more to say, but, it's late (technically early from a certain pov...) and I need to get to bed. If I think of anything else to say, I'll edit this post to include it all, rather than reblogging.

[worthlessandembarrasing]

Quotes from The Picture of Dorian Gray

[mushyfart]

I didn't notice this in bride of reanimator before but he's legit so cute I hate him

[s0up1ta]

she rolan on my deep till i clickclickclickclickcli

[laurrelise]

peacefully scrolling through ao3 for a five + sibling bonding fluff fic because i was bummed about season 4 again and i suddenly come across…

………. mpreg five

[sigmashuffle]

THIS JUST IN... Chuuya's total dialogue/screetime ended up being roughly 40 whole seconds

[johnny-chaos]

i really really like how benrey has the most awareness/control but he's also just. spacey and incoherent as fuck. I forgot the second half of this post sorry guys

[butchnavi]

forced myself to wake up and leave my warm cozy blanky at 3:30 am in the winter to speedrun my syllabus because they gave us 12 hours to prep for our endsem are yall proud of me

[neembu]

i am so incredibly terrified of missing out

[iwanttobepersephone]

I can't remember who, but I think the funniest interaction I've ever had on Tumblr is someone being genuinely shocked to their core that I live in a very country, very rural small conservative town. I guess I give city vibes to most people? Anyways I'm curious now and want to see, of the few people who will see this, what vibes do I give off most

[rraakkee]

EVERYONE SAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TALON RIGHT NOW

[thedreadvampy]

think I figured out why I've been in a full trauma trigger state for the last week+ and iiiiiiit is embarrassing

it's because I went on a nice date that I enjoyed

and in the background without even TALKING TO ME ABOUT IT my brain decided to start freaking the fuck out about the inevitability of abuse and the essential harm I do by existing in the world. but like. in the background. to the degree that I have at most been vaguely aware that that's even a thought process I was having let alone that it was what was distressing me.

but I have laid out some timelines of when I entered 24/7-panic-attack mode and it lines up precisely to going home after a nice date. for fuck's sake.

trauma is stupid and emotions are dumb. and if trauma shit is going to fuck up my whole week my brain could at least have the good grace to tell me what I'm upset about.

[orcelito]

Holy SHIT?????????????

They had Kakashi face reveal in a random filler episode right near the end?!?!?!? Ep 469. Which, nice lol. But also. They made it seem like just another dumb filler 😭😭😭😭 I watched it anyways bc I've been watching the filler but MAN

The "photographer" immediately pinged my radar bc his face looked like what I'd seen of Kakashi from around the fandom. So I suspected that was Kakashi after all. Doubted it a lil when he was interacting with Kakashi, but also this is Kakashi. He has clones. And sure enough, that was a clone. Kakashi just decided to pose as a photographer to "help" his students try to catch a peek of his face (while of course also hindering it). BARE FACED THE WHOLE TIME, and the kids don't even know 😭😭😭😭😭

And then there's This

The ONE PERSON Kakashi's closer to than anyone else. Who is also dumb as bricks 😂 so when Kakashi says he doesn't, he just accepts it and goes on his way. But also, Guy, personal space??? Lmfao. No homo, of course.

AND THEN KAKASHI TAKES THE DISGUISE OFF...

HELP?????? The mole is killing me BTW. I can't believe this is canon.

He's so fucking pretty. I can't believe they did a canon face reveal in episode 469. I was kind of expecting his face reveal to have been in extra artwork or smth, since it's the running Thing that *no one* can see his face. And they still don't (at least, not that they knew was him). But we, the viewers, get to see One Little Peek behind the mask...

Shot me thru the heart too. Oh my godddddddd he's so beautiful. The little mole. It doesn't feel real. It is so worth the suspense.

[kissingarthurclaus]

Ugh what a fucking day....and it's only 12:40

[viahiptop]

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[jackredfieldwasmyjacob]

i spent all morning looking for the cheapest ways to get to venice next monday and i feel like i've cracked the code or something i think i got it