#this was the singular goddamn thing i wanted to do in this game. and i have it. i dont care about anything else i have majora i win

[vvelegrin]

i'm allowed a little black friday treat and it will be one of the following:

camera so i can finally take some real pictures of bugs or perhaps plants

climbing gym subscription renewal

clozemaster upgrade (year or lifetime, still deciding)

a couple of games i've had my eye on from steam sale (victoria 3 dni)

GRE voucher and/or GRE study materials

some decent-ish binoculars and decent-ish compass

[pinkshieklink]

ok im gonna use this blog to talk abt my totk experience bc i HAVE to say SOMETHING about the fact that i played the game until purah got the paraglider and then INSTANTLY. IMMEDIATELY AFTER I GOT IT. ran past her and went on a 5 hour journey through the depths and fought the five lynels guarding Majora's Mask. i didnt even finish whatever quest purah had for me like i know theres stuff with the towers and impa or whatever but i went and just used whatever weapons i had at my fucking disposal with all 3 of my hearts (i lost one of them to the nasty grime and just went with it bc the lynels could all one shot me anyways so it didnt matter how much health i had) and i spent HOURS in that coleseum with my friend phoenix and i thought there were only Four Lynels but there was a SECRET FIFTH ONE and i was like in such tragedy bc he had armor and i was like surely this one is going to be the hardest. and id shattered all my other weapons on the others and killed the fourth one with just one of the bows theyd dropped. and then the fifth one ended up being the easiest motherfucker ive ever seen and i got him second try in a voice call with two other people while we were doing something else. like anticlimatic and also i cannot tell anyone about this for probably a month or more so i just have to type it out. i got majoras mask before i finished the tutorial quests and with only 3 hearts. damageless even on technicality. my friend majora

[ohnoitstbskyen]

I know you made shorts for Sora, Riku, and Kairi, but do you have any other thoughts about Kingdom Hearts?

Ik this is kinda vauge and you get these kind of asks all the goddamn time, but I hyperfixated on those games for most of elementary and middle school and its always cool to see your favorite Youtuber talk about stuff you really like. Not to guilt trip you into answering this one or anything, just. . . I'm very tired and it would be very cool lol.

Again, saving my character design thoughts for some more shorts, but I adore Kingdom Hearts. Like, the first game really ISN'T much more than a cross-promotional branding exercise for Disney and Square, same as any of a dozen other similar crossover centric franchises; it's a Saturday morning cartoon show that wants to get you invested (or keep you invested) in a bunch of fancy IPs to buy toys of, but it's a really good one of those.

And it's a game that understands that the central thing that's going to hook people IN to that kind of thing is characters that are willing to believe in what they've got going on with one thousand percent sincerity. Which I think is the thing they nailed more than anything. Sora cares SO MUCH, and he wants to find his friend and his love interest (Kairi and Riku, respectively) SO BADLY, you can't help but root for the poor kid and want to believe in it.

Then, with the first game successfully managing to hook a solid fanbase, the creative team went "hey what if we had even MORE extremely earnest cool anime people getting deep in their feelings?" and now we're off to the races with Organizations and Oblivion Castles and fractions of 358 days.

And the thing that makes all the hyper-convoluted wheels-within-wheels plot machination nonsense WORK is that down, deep down, right at the core of what the franchise is always trying to say, is that love will save us. Yeah yeah hearts and darkness and unversed and nobodies and keyblades and blah blah blah (to be clear: I adore all that nonsense), but all of it is top-to-bottom in service of that singular central thematic clarion call.

Love will save us.

What holds Ventus together after Xehanort tears his heart apart? The love of Sora. What keeps Roxas the nobody from fading into Sora? The love of Xion and Axel, and Hayner, Pence and Olette. What brings Xion back? The love of Axel and Roxas. Hearts ring together and resonate and bind themselves to each other and there is no darkness so deep, no tragedy so absolute, no villain so foul that the cry of a loving heart cannot defeat it.

Roxas is a nobody doomed to darkness? Fuck you, Kingdom Hearts is love, no he isn't. Xion is a mere replica puppet, a failed experiment that nobody will remember? >>EXTREMELY LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER<< get seasalt icecream'd on top of a clock tower at sunset, IDIOT.

Over and over again characters sink into despair and loneliness, they fear that their connections are fake or fading, they fear being forgotten or left behind (Riku in the first game, the breaking of Ventus, Aqua and Terra, Roxas thinking nobody would miss him, Aqua in the Realm of Darkness), and over and over again they are proven beautifully wrong. There is always a hand reaching out, there is always someone who will miss you. Love will save us.

And this absolutely gets hokey, of course it does, it's a saturday morning children's cartoon. It's a bit simplistic, maybe a bit naïve, but honestly in a world where you can't walk two steps without bleak-minded doomer cynicism forcing the assumption that nothing truly good is possible and that the worst will always happen, Kingdom Hearts is a story so absolutely drenched in hope, sincerely held, that it feels like a fucking balm.

Also, LITERALLY where the fuck else are you going to get Woody from Toy Story reading an edgy anime villain for absolute filth? Nowhere, that's where. ONLY Kingdom Hearts.

None of this is to suggest I don't have criticisms of the franchise or that it's faultless. I could talk for several hours unbroken about all my gripes and problems, chief among which is LET KAIRI DO THINGS OH MY FUCKING GOD the franchise is low key misogynistic towards its female characters sometimes but I am talking about the things I love here let me just be happy for a second.

[phantom-of-the-501st]

Always: Discussing Arthur and Charles

Alternative title: Steph waffles about the dynamic between Arthur and Charles for way too long because it’s all she can think about rn

Tagging @the-bi-space-ace in case you were interested in my ramblings about these two 🤠

I recently fell back down the Red Dead 2 rabbit hole and once again have had many thoughts about the characters, particularly Arthur and Charles (nothing new there lol) and their relationship (however you interpret that). I don’t know if I have a singular favourite quote from Arthur in this game, as there are a few contenders - “we’re more ghosts than people’, “we’re thieves in a world that don’t want us no more’, “I’ll turn you into a goddamn cauliflower” - but with Charles I definitely do. “Always.”

It’s so simple, so succinct, and so perfectly Charles. A line that holds so much weight and meaning, in such few words. And what I love about it is that it represents what makes Arthur and Charles’ dynamic so special, and encapsulates how meaningful that relationship was for the two of them in those months.

When we first see these two characters at the beginning of the game, it’s mentioned that in the 6 months that Charles has been with the gang, the two haven’t spoken all that much, and yet something that becomes immediately clear is the fact that there is a very obvious level of respect that they hold for each other. We can determine that within just a few months, they have already built up a recognition of the work and care that the other puts into the gang, and the importance that they have within the group. Even if they aren’t necessarily close at this point, there is undoubtedly a mutual respect there, very early on in the game. But what is even more interesting to watch during the hunting mission up in Colter, is the way that they fall quite easily into a comfortable conversation. We have Arthur, who tends to make it fairly obvious when he doesn’t like someone, and Charles, who never says more than he deems necessary and who avoids any possible conversation with people he doesn’t have the time for, having a relatively open conversation for the entire mission. Even if they haven’t interacted much over the time since Charles has joined, they already have a bond that is slightly surprising for these two characters. And over the course of the game that bond just grows into something so special.

I’m gonna side track slightly to talk about the background of these two because I think it is integral when talking about the dynamic that these two have. Arthur has been with the gang for a long time (20 years or so) and as a result, has become very close with a lot of the people in it. Even if he doesn’t agree with some of them a lot of the time, they are still his family, and he will always do what he can to protect them. Arthur didn’t have the greatest start to life, with his mother dying and his (likely abusive) father being executed in front of him, so this gang is the closest thing to a family that he has had for the majority of his life. Similarly, Charles did not have the best beginnings either: losing his mother, losing his tribe, losing his father to drink, and then running away, subsequently spending half of his life alone. Not to mention the fact that as someone of African American and Native American heritage, Charles will have experienced hardship and adversity on a level that many of the other gang members (including Arthur) will never have experienced. So for Charles, joining the gang meant the chance of something new, the chance to find a place where he can actually belong.

It's these backgrounds that build these characters and that set the foundations for what we see in the game: why they act in a certain way around others, why they make certain choices, why they agree or disagree with the choices made by the people around them. And it’s their past which, in a way, explains not just why Arthur and Charles came together, but why they were so necessary in each other’s lives. I’m not going to say that it’s all down to fate necessarily, but I do believe that these two met each other at the point when they needed the other person most. The trajectory that we see these characters go on wouldn’t have been possible without the other by their side and I’m gonna discuss why.

One of the things I love most about their dynamic is that despite there being a mutual respect between the two, Charles isn’t afraid to call Arthur out on some of his behaviour. The best example of this is when he tells Arthur “you ain’t as tough and dense as all that” in response to Arthur saying that they shouldn’t help the German family, especially since he doesn’t even speak their language. Arthur is a character who is very much aware of the way people view him, and is very conscious of the fact that he is labelled by many to be a bad person (as to be expected from an outlaw). As a result, he tends to go about things with an attitude of “well, if people already have this opinion about me, why should I try to be anything else?” and tends to act harsher than he typically would because he’s just living to the standard that everyone expects from him. But Charles can see through Arthur’s act, and knows that he’s acting this way to try and fit this tough outlaw image that everyone expects him to show. He’s also aware that this isn’t really who Arthur is and doesn’t hold back at taking him down a peg or two when he is acting like a bit of a prat.

And as much as we talk about how much of a good influence Charles is, one of the things I don’t see talked about as much is how much of a part he played in Arthur’s redemption in the story. The game doesn’t hide the fact that Arthur will never truly make up for all the hurt and destruction he has caused, but he can at least try and do some good, to try and make the lives of some people in the world just a little bit less tough, in response to everything he has done up until this point. And one of the people who helps most with that is Charles. He’s always pushing Arthur to do the right thing, to make the best choice, and to help people who need it. Charles was a guiding hand that helped Arthur in following his redemption and was never afraid to tell him that even if he had done wrong in the past, that didn’t mean he couldn’t make better choices towards the end of his life.

Not only that, but Charles was a pillar for Arthur when the man was facing the hardest circumstances he’d ever experienced. As I said earlier, the gang is Arthur’s family, they have been a part of his life for most of his life, but as the game progresses, he watches that family fall apart. He loses people who he views as siblings, he loses a man he viewed as a father, and the other father figure in his life is turning against him, accusing him of betrayal, and had left him to die with someone holding a knife to his throat. Not to mention that Arthur is facing all of this alongside the knowledge that he doesn’t have long left. Now more than ever, Arthur needs a support system, people who have his back and will stand by him when everything else is slipping away. And he has that. He has Sadie (who could be discussed in an entire post of her own) and he has Charles. Charles stood by Arthur when he needed him most, reassuring him that he still had people fighting in his corner, still had people on his side, as well as helping him to stay on the right track and make better choices, even in the face of hardship and a growing sense of hopelessness. Because Charles understands what it’s like. This man has been through so much, has lost everything, and despite that has remained true to what is right and has never given up striving for good. As Arthur himself says in his journal, Charles is truly a good man at heart, despite the life he has led, and he uses that to help Arthur hold on.

But the thing is, it isn’t just Charles who helps Arthur. Arthur helps him in return. Charles is used to living a life of solitude and when the world takes everything away, and treats you like you don’t belong, you begin to believe that there is no place for you, that you will never find your space anywhere. And we know that this is something that he struggles with. He struggles to know where he fits in, or what the point of anything is, because everything he has been through just seems to drill home this idea that he doesn’t deserve to be here, that there is no place for someone like him in this world. And this is even more prevalent as the gang falls apart because for Charles, he’d finally found that place where he felt like he could belong and be a part of something, only for it to all be taken away. The one place he could even consider a home is in shatters and his friends are dying. For Charles that feels like it would be more than a sure sign from the universe that he doesn’t deserve to belong anywhere.

However, through all of that, he has Arthur, who has always stood up for him and told him how much he matters. Even the minor camp interactions feed into that, with Arthur telling Charles how much he likes having him around, and how he hopes for Charles to stick with them because they need him. Arthur agrees to help Charles with the Wapiti Tribe, he goes to Charles when he needs someone he trusts, and he makes sure that Charles knows just how important and appreciated he is. For a man like Charles that is a huge deal and means far more to him than I think any of us ever really appreciate. Arthur made sure to incorporate him into his family and make it known that he belonged. When we see Charles go off at the end of the epilogue to find a place to settle down, we see a man who has come to appreciate himself and his worthiness more, with the help of the people who supported him throughout those years, including Arthur.

These two characters helped each other in ways that I can’t even begin to summarise in this post. The bond that grew between them was so special and I cannot argue that Charles and Arthur were so integral in sculpting the lives that each other led. “Always” is my favourite Charles line because it encapsulates everything about that bond: the trust, the respect, the love, the appreciation, the drive to help in any way they can. It breaks my heart to know that they never had the opportunity to know each other for longer, but I will always appreciate, no matter how brief, just how beautiful that relationship was.

Always

[darkfictionjude]

can we expect another episode before the year ends or am i being too greedy?

do feel pressured btw i don't mind suffering the brainrot until then

Nonnie I’m greedy with myself I literally want to release episode 6 and 7 before news years

Like I would release both at the same time when they’re finished but I like to see singular episode reactions

After episode 7 which if things go right it could release sometime in December I’m going to focus on the other wips so you could have enough content for brain rot (it would be like 700k words for brain rot 😭 goddamn I made this game so big)

Then hopefully I could get working on episode 8 sometime in may I think it’s a good hiatus for WWC since it’s the end of part 1 although you’ll hate me if I leave y’all on a cliff hanger for five months 💀

[arainydancer]

i know this sounds quite harsh, but sometimes you really do just put dogshit on the internet. and if you put something like that to be seen publicly on the internet, you will get critique out of it too.

being insistent on some aspects that were outright wrong, like assuming a character is suicidal even though a note literally says that she doesn't want to die, just so that you could fit the narrative to your perspective, you are not even engaging with it. but we engaged with your review. how could you ever accuse that i did not engage with the argument while you yourself never tried to?

i know it's a huge shocker. the response i received from the author was a bewildered reaction that someone of "my high profile status" was trying to dogpile on them and incite harassment, even though i responded to the one thing about the article that i found an issue with. i actually do not give a shit if the author thinks that the two pair in a video game is akin to a master and slave or if they think a game is better than that. whatever.

i don't care if they think it's not as good as a game they liked. i don't! i'm a game developer, and i know that these things aren't for everyone. i only took issue about how the outlook towards the portrayed culture in the game is systemically racist. do i think the author is racist? no. it's possible to say offensive things without intent, and intent has absolutely jackshit to do with any of it. and so i wanted to correct them on that, and potentially everyone else who might think the same way.

back on the "dogpile" argument:

i apologize for being rude but you really can make something awful, and poorly thought, and poorly written. it's really possible, and i know it's insane. even me- if i wrote something like that, do you not think the thousands of people who know me won't also criticize me for it? do you think i am not afraid of making something terrible? not only that but i actually wouldn't even hear about the post if i hadn't heard of others who talked about it. it was already being negatively received. i didn't suddenly conjure people out of fucking thin air to hate on the post. it was ALREADY bad. is it my fault that i spoke up against it publicly? why am i suddenly not allowed to? i am one person, not an organization, and i do not present myself professionally. my presence is a hobby. just like yours. and never have i said "please demolish this person."

i have had my fair share of being doxxed and being called out as "cheap outsource" due to my nationality. i've read hundreds of negative steam reviews about my game. i've watched dozens of youtubers with an even bigger audience interact with my game, and me as a developer, in bad faith. i am not invincible to this sort of treatment. and me criticizing a singular aspect of a critic is so goddamn tame. i don't understand why you have to run away. i have seen nobody genuinely harass you as an individual after i posted my reaction- only criticize the work you posted.

you posted in under the tag where everyone could see it. so you have to be able to handle the heat if it's not going the way you want.

this is my final word, but as the responsibility was assigned to me by the author's friends, i want to clarify.

[mechanical-aristocrat]

[OOC:]

Okay I think I'm ready to talk about that leaked light cone now:

I can criticize the potential continuity error it creates all I want, but god fucking damn it this image is too compelling for me to be even a little bit angry.

THIS is how you do a fucking light cone, THIS is how you take advantage of the inherently interesting concept behind them to deliver a deeper level of characterization. Very few other light cones in the game do that anywhere near as well as this one does, and I'm going to try my best to explain why. (although forgive me if I'm still a bit scatterbrained, this image makes me so goddamn emotional that it's genuinely difficult to think clearly)

It seems very safe to assume this is depicting Screwllum soon after he became sentient, experiencing the beauty of life and existence for the first time. The thing is, it isn't an entirely positive experience; he's noticeably damaged with moss, plants, and fungi growing all over him, which can't be comfortable (just imagining what that must feel like makes my skin crawl). He was probably left in this forest by some one (or some thing) that didn't give a singular fuck about him, that wanted him to deteriorate and be forgotten about.

And yet, his body language and the overall tone of the piece suggests that he doesn't mind. He's incredibly calm (the butterflies wouldn't be there if he wasn't, he's made himself a safe place for them to rest), looking at the viewer as if the "camera" has placed us in the POV of a small woodland creature, the way his head is tilted to the side implying a sense of curiosity and/or fascination.

The tone of this image and of the character as a whole is one of awe and wonder that doesn't shy away from the negatives. It's what makes Screwllum the perfect foil to Emperor Rupert I, because while they both began their sentience in a similar manner, abandoned by a cold and uncaring universe and left to rot, Rupert was consumed by its hatred and motivated by revenge, whereas Screwllum was able to see life for what it was, imperfect but worth cherishing.

The most impressive part about it, however, is that all of this can be inferred without even having access to the light cone's name or lore description (at least as far as I'm aware). The light cones I would have considered my favorites previously, "Something Irreplaceable" and "Shared Feeling", partially rely on the descriptions to be compelling, especially with the former example because the description is honestly my favorite part. The visual storytelling in this leak is on fucking point, and I can't wait to read the description because it'll probably make me love it even more than I already do.

Screwllum nation is winning with this.

[danielforshort]

Genshin Impact Cosplay Xiao's hanfu (2023)

For my hanfu for Xiao I made three pieces: the double tassel (faux) pearl necklace, the changshan (长衫), and the beizi (褙子, bèi zǐ). Here are all the nitty gritty details on how I went about this design, things I loved, and things I'd change up. You can find more photos and a story highlight of my process on my Instagram mushkin_changeling.

(Photo credit: Donald aka hustographyphoto on Instagram from Momocon 2023)

Reference Photos and Notes

Fashion and history and culture are all of great interest to me, and I knew that I wanted to start moving my cosplays towards hanfu designs and elements. You can read more about my internalized sinophobia and how that affected my cosplays in this Instagram post.

I spent so much time staring at Xiao's in game outfit trying to figure out what elements I was could translate into hanfu. Before this cosplay I had never worn hanfu. I was born in China but raised by white parents who did not dedicate much time or energy in ensuring I had access to knowledge about my culture.

The elements I picked at first for Xiao's hanfu were

His weird shoulder armor -> black yunjian (云肩) with gold enbroidery

Purple neck scarf (back) -> Yunjian ribbons

His necklace -> Chinese tassel necklace

Asymmetrical sleeve -> long flowing outer blue coat with gold embroidery

Pink tabbard/waist cloth -> a blue mamian with an embroidered pink design for the front

Looking at all of these elements I knew what I was going for was a hanfu ensemble from the Ming dynasty. I spent a lot of time looking at photos, reading pages, and educating myself on hanfu. I was even able to give a very introductory presentation about hanfu at Momocon 2023! You can read my slides at this link: Hanfu History 101 slides

I made a really ambitious plan for his hanfu that I had to cut back on due to energy and time constraints (did I mention that during the construction time I was moving, defending my thesis, and transitioning to my PhD program?!?)

Due to these constraints I ended up purchasing a mamian. I bought my mamian from Etsy (the store is OrientalBigbang and the link is here). I love my mamian. In fact I love it so much I wore it to my master's graduation ceremony!

It doesn't have the pink embroidery on it that i wanted but I knew going in that the level of customization I wanted would only be possibly from a commissioned mamian or if I made it myself. I was still very happy with how the mamian looked and felt.

Changshan (inner top)

Xiao's in game outfit is a weird tanktop with embroidery on it and a single detached sleeve. I decided to emulate this with a changshan. Most of the reference photos I found on DuckDuckGo showed asymmetrical changshan but a few were symmetrical, which I wanted. This is the photo I referenced most often.

(Photo credit: Newhanfu.com)

I ended up picking this kind of cream off white fabric (all of my fabrics were thrifted bedsheets). I bought these closures off of Amazon and really loved their color. (link here)

(Photo credit: Amazon)

Lots of the sides of a changshan are tied together rather than sewn which was fun and interesting. I ended up sewing a lot of small rectangular tubes for ties. I also didn't measure the armpit area quite right before cutting (measure twice, cut once, fuck up and make do) so that area is tied together rather than sewn.

Overall I really like the look and feel of the changshan. I didn't end of doing any embroidery. The collar didn't come out quite symmetrical which irritates me but I was pleased with the overall look and feel of it. I would go back and alter some of it to make it more polished or upgraded, but I don't hate it. I even felt confident enough in it to spend a lot of my con day wandering around in the changshan and mamian because Atlanta is hot goddamn.

Beizi (outer coat)

I actually made Xiao's game outfit in 2022, from scratch. My favourite bit was his singular sleeve which has a kind of swirling design on it. I hoped to capture that element with an embroidered beizi. I picked a light sort of cornflower blue for my beizi and a lilac for the collar (to emulate the purple neck scarf his in game outfit has).

(Photo credit: Donald aka hustographyphoto on Instagram from Momocon 2022)

I had big aspirations for the beizi's embroidery. I really wanted to design and embroider Peng (Chinese mythological fish bird). There are a few reference images from DuckDuckGo (very popular one is below) and I sketched a few ideas. The idea was to embroider the Peng on the left sleeve for Xiao's tattoo. This was another detail that I was excited about that I unfortunately had to ditch.

I was able to embroider some things though! I picked osmanthus flowers ("Osmanthus wine tastes the same as I remember, but where are those who share the memory?") and peonies, because they're symbolic in Chinese culture and also my favourite.

I loved the embroidery part of this cosplay the most. It was such a wonderful tactile craft that combined my love of sketching and sewing.

I also lined the beizi with a plain cotton sheet. I thought this was a good idea (I love how a lined costume looks and feels) but it actually made the beizi a little heavy. That was not fun in the Atlanta summer heat.

Twin Tassel Necklace

I found a strand of cream colored faux pearls at my local queer clothing swap and thought they were perfect for my twin tassel necklace. I mostly based it off of the below reference photo (photo credit: Nuwa Hanfu) and the general look of Xiao's in game necklace.

This is what I ended up with. I don't hate it but I also don't love it. This was the last thing I made in the cosplay so my energy and time were running short and I think that's apparent in the overall look of this piece.

(Photo credit: Donald aka hustographyphoto on Instagram from Momocon 2023)

Things I'd Change Up

I would change the beizi's colors to be pure white with decoration, instead of the sky blue I chose. I shied away from crisp whites for two reasons: they're hard to keep clean and I didn't want it to be a funeral outfit. After Momocon 2023 I realised that Xiao is literally Edge Boy Supreme and his story and character are steeped in mourning, death, and grief, so white would have been a perfect color.

I would have thrifted less bedsheets. The hanfu overall had very little texture because the fabrics I chose were plain cotton. In the future I'll aim for more texture (more common in curtain fabric) or I'll buy at a fabric store.

I would make a yunjian (云肩) like I had originally planned. I had wanted to hand embroider a cloud collar (black with gold thread) but ran out of energy and time before I got around to it. I would add that element to my next iteration of this costume because it reflects Xiao's in game outfit really well (he has this weird black shoulder/neck armor).

I would reconstruct the necklace entirely. Because I was working with one long strand that i looped to make two layers around my neck it never lay flat and looked a bit less put together. I would cut the strand and remake the necklace entirely next time. The necklace might even be unnecesarry with the yunjian, so I would probably more likely incorporate the beads into the yunjian.

I would dedicate more time to actually fulfill all of my embroidery dreams! I would embroider the Peng, add designs to the collar of the beizi, etc.

Ending Notes

I hope this doesn't sound dreary or like I'm disappointed in my cosplay. I am so incredibly proud of myself and this creation. I have been slowly finding my way back into my love of costumes and sewing and this is the project that helped. It is incredible to blend my love of history and research with my culture and cosplay.

I hope to return to this cosplay and make improvements! I hope to continue to branch out with my love of hanfu and apply it to some cosplays (I'm looking at you Baizhu). Thank you to everyone who told me they loved my cosplay, who attended my panel, and made my con and cosplay a wonderful experience.

[variablejabberwocky]

started watching delicious in dungeon/dungeon meishi (sp?). or as i like to call it

~*AUTISM COOKING DUNGEON*~

dear god y'all have undersold this to me. and like i get it. spoilers and all that. but holy shit

our boy isn't like... "tee-hee little-bit of autistic, just a smidge" like you were all making me think. no no. no, this guy is DEEPLY autistic. we're talking "normally we only give THIS much autism to aliens and robots" kind of autism. the "i need an allistic translator for my social fubars" autism (rip your sister dude). the "i learned a thing! so now im not gonna shut up about it for at least an hour" autism.

and they gave this to THE ONE SINGULAR HUMAN IN THE PARTY. this guy is a HUMAN FIGHTER/KNIGHT-type that is like the MOST BORING/NORMIE shit in a d&d style setting. that is "why are you even playing a fantasy game?" level of normie shit.

and THAT is who gets to be The Party Freak(tm)

i love it. completely unironically/unsarcasticly i love it. they took the "that much autism isn't human anymore" bullshit thats so prolific its basically a trope and went NOPE FUCK THAT NOISE

what i find unforgivable though is that none of you mentioned he's a Kronk too.

boy sounds SO SO STUPID but is so so smart when you actually listen to what the fuck he's on about now (and think on why he's on about it right then). he's a big tank (literally in the fantasy class sense) that just wants to help everyone and do his little special interest shit on the side. and it is on the side because the other two seem like they had no idea it was more than trivia until he didn't have to help micromanage a massive party. like this shit has clearly been on repeat in his brain in the background for A WHILE but he was so busy helping/keeping everyone alive it got shoved aside of his outward behavior unless it was useful. he is a lovable dorky himbo and NONE of you mentioned this.

anyway, i'm also loving the way this whole show is basically only like this because him and senshi are vibing on the same wavelength and the other two are basically just along for the ride to save their friend/part member

the whole thing has a Green Eggs and Ham kind of thing going on with it too. but like...environmentalist about it? like it was more subtle about the whole "hey maybe work WITH your current environment rather than against it" bit and then we found out what senshi normally does and subtlety just went right out the fucking window on that front.

i'm also liking the way it both explores the horrors of dying in a world where being brought back to life is common, while also kind of...poking fun at it? like its reminding me of a thing i heard something like "the difference between comedy and tragedy is how far from it you are" kind of concept.

like they are so fucking ... how the fuck do you spell it blase? with the little "/" over the e. that. the story is so bland in how it handles how people came back from horrific deaths and yet when the characters have to face things that remind them of their own it gets heartbreaking very quickly. but like...chillchuck. goddamn. we get just enough from his perspective that its harrowing but the way its shown to us the reader/viewer is like a comedy skit

cause like...its both.

these guys keep dying/nearly dying to THE. SAME. FUCKING. SHIT.

mage elf is slimebait, chillchuck is basically Dungeon Canary with an emphasis on mimics, and himbro over here is gonna get himself killed trying to pet/eat a new monster no one else knows about at some point. probably why his sister seems to have specialized in healing magic.

i know the fandom is thinking once they get his sister back that she's gonna be Just Like Him but i think it would be much funnier AND more 'realistic' if they were classic autism-adhd alliance but siblings about it. like him being better at staying on a task and her being better at navigating social cues and shit. and both of them with their own little special interest energy. i'm betting her's is magic. and thats why even magic elf is like "omg shes so good at magic i'm no where near that level" about it. i mean its also the lesbianism but there IS more to that than thirst from what i've seen.

anyway i'm 6 episodes into what seems to be 12 available on netflix and i'm already hooked. might have to see if i can get my hands on the manga or something too

[rt-lots]

i want a baby update in stardew valley NOWWWWWW

i was just talking to my dad about how i want to do more stuff with the babies in stardew valley so i decided id make a post detailing all my wishes. if you know me personally you know that my biggest dream is a sdv-esque game where relationships r the focus and the farms the second thing, so these ideas probably would fit better in a game like that. but I DONT CARE and i LOVE THE LITTLE BABIES and i WANT TO PLAY WITH THEM

i want to take my baby everywhere if its a newborn i understand keeping it in the crib all day, but i wanna carry the baby!!! even if i just hold it over my head like an item. i want to carry my baby and interact with villagers and have them go "aww cute baby!" or if my characters a boy i want clint to go "aw haha babysitting today are you?" and i want to go "NO!!!!!!!!! IM RAISING MY CHILD!!!!!!!!!!!!!"'" and then put down my child and beat them up. when the baby is a toddler i want them to be able to follow me anywhere and ride on my horse with me (or, alternatively, have to run really fast behind me to catch up with my horse) and i wanna be able to take my child to the mines, and if i get knocked out in the mines, i want my spouse to fucking berate me and drop me down to 4 hearts and im NOT JOKING!!!!!!! THERE'D BE A WHOLE SPEEDRUN CATEGORY FOR IT AND EVERYTHING DONT YOU SEE THE VISION?

i want to play with my baby it can just be an animation of the farmer sitting on the floor with blocks or something, and it can serve no purpose other than to pass the time IDC!!! we could play hide n seek on the farm or tag with my spouse and other kids or there could be a little minigame like journey of the prairie king or something. but with babies. i want it to be EXACTLY journey of the prairie king actually, i think you should be able to teach your toddler how to play like in abigails 2 heart cutscene and its ai is like so fucking bad at the game cuz therye 4 years old and you have to carry it thru all the levels. i wanna go to the beach with my baby and have them have a cute little animation of them splashing in the shallow water or watch them chase around my dog. i want goddamn COCOMELON ON THE TV!!! ANYTHANG!!!

i want to make npcs babysit my baby i want it to be a requirement that your kid has to have someone looking after them. by default penny is like the only npc who will always say yes so its not Fucking impossible, but if i have like 8 hearts w someone i should be able to go to their house, baby in tow, and ask "hey can you look after my baby?" and theyll say yes but like it or dislike it depending on who they are. i want funny dialogue about what my kid said or if they missed me if we have low hearts. i want to force my farmhands to babysit my baby too. again i want my spouse to drop hearts with me if i go leave the baby unattended

i want to teach my baby things ive never really cared for the babies growing up past toddler age, but i want to teach them how to do things. i want them to get up at like 12pm, waddle outside, stare at a singular tile of plant for 40 in game minutes before holding the watering can above their little head and spilling it everywhere on the dirt. i want to buy my baby a teeny tiny fishing rod and teach it to fish, and i want my baby to fish exclusively trash until its level 9. i want my baby to plant wild seeds in random spots on the farm and get sad if they dont bloom. i want to take my baby to the goddamn mines !!!!! i want my baby to give me random things it picked up. and if i let slimes in the house i want that baby to FUCKING KILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this has been a list of things i want in the stardew valley baby update. everyone hates the kids but i LOVE having little babies running around and i want them to do more. and i think i want to do more things with my spouse too while im at it, and i also want to hug my friends. but one thing at a time. one baby at a time

[hypnofantasma]

"Where's the Ulterior Spectacle remake?"

I know i've gotten this a ton of times, and seeing how it's been a couple years since i said it'd exist, i decided i'd give all of my reasons why it's taking So Damn Long. hopefully, this'll reduce the amount of... hate? judgement?? i keep getting regarding this song.

1) The only reason I SHOULD be giving: the simple fact that I am working on an immense universe

I'm not working on JUST Stars Below, and even THEN, a remake has the lowest priority of all when it comes to new Stars Below songs, character development, design solidification, etc. I'd rather solidify the world and story FIRST before making a remake that might swiftly become outdated once again if I rush it. This is also why songs IN GENERAL have been slow; I'm refining the story. It's a HUGE WIP.

I'm not a company, I'm One Single Person with OCs on the internet. If I don't work on one singular aspect, I'm sorry? I guess? That leads into...

2) I'm so immensely stressed at the moment that I'm having physical health issues and can't reliably/consistently work on things

Like I still CAN draw, but completed PVs are so high-effort (and risk), low-reward for me right now that I have to make smaller things. That's why I'm focusing on Artfight for now. On top of that, I'm gonna try to get another term of college this year so I can accomplish something tangible in my life and get a degree. (College is ALSO why stuff's been slow)

If you want to know WHAT my health issues are, all you need to know is that I've got visible ribs yet my weight is constantly depleting.

3) People keep reuploading my stuff

People keep taking things from my Discord server and reuploading them on sites like Youtube. If I don't upload something, I do not want it uploaded, plain and simple. No, I am not free game just because I'm on the internet. I'm just an independent artist and not a company, and this is breaking several boundaries of mine.

If you claim it's "out of fan love" or "giving me free promotion", it doesn't change the fact it makes me (and even my community) exceedingly uncomfortable. The big one being reuploaded was Tundra Lens, and while I did make it public again, it was solely to appease the reuploaders. Please don't reupload my stuff.

It's killing my motivation and drive for the Ulterior Spectacle remake.

4) Multiple abusers in my life

I won't dive into this one but just know that, behind the scenes, I have been treated like a goddamn ragdoll. I have been treated like an object by both strangers and people extremely close to me, and I'm drained, man.

These events have been adding to my current status of being physically ill and chronically fatigued.

5) I am currently being stalked by a group who hates me and intentionally mocks me

A certain group of individuals (who will remain unnamed) are currently stalking me, gathering my creations, and making a complete mockery of a project that intends to break all of the universal rules I have crafted. I don't mind if you don't know everything about my universe; it's a lot, after all, and I'm more than happy to educate.

However, this group intends on making a complete mockery of not only my universe but also my art. It is out of malice and not parody. Due to this, I'm almost too scared to post anything, really. I don't want this to stop me, but damn it does it sting. I'll ride this out with god-rivaling perseverance if I have to.

Now....

While all of this is there, I'll also say the remake IS NOT cancelled. I'll be dead before it's cancelled. But I just wanted to give some perspective a little bit, and maybe- if you're someone mad about the lack of the remake so far- you'll understand why a little more.

Just please respect my boundaries for things, don't drum up drama with me, and leave me in peace. That's all I ask. One day this song'll be completed, and it'll be a day where I'm no longer treated as some soulless machine.

Thank you.

[sammyluvr]

HEY BABY IM SENDING IN MULTIPLE FOR THE CHARACTER ASK GAME :D

2, 8, 15, 21, and 24 for sammy

4, 12, 18, and 25 for spencer reid! or if not emily prentiss :))

(also fun fact ive never finished criminal minds LOL i got to the point where derek left and i stopped watching it, i should probably finish it though)

ughh i love you so much and i hope you have a good day!!

YAHOOO HEHEHEHE sorry this post is so very long LOL

character ask game !

SAMMY ! 2. favorite canon thing about this character? .... everything maybe ???? omg how do i choose i love everything about him uhhhhh . he's awkward and so so sweet <3 he learned sign language for eileen, he has beautiful hair, he's sassy, he's a gentle giant, he wants so badly to be good but doesn't think he is T_T and on and on and on and on because everything about him is my favorite

8. what's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise? oh my fucking god do NOT get me started LMAO . blaming him for things he didn't do/couldn't control (usually because dean blames him for it). ignoring how queer coded he is / calling him the straightest character (often in a destiel context). just consistently and aggravatingly misinterpreting / misunderstanding his character and hating on him for their bad and unintelligent takes on him! i could go into lots of detail about that but i won't because then this will be a rant post that will make me so angry :D el oh el

15. what's your favorite ship for this character? (doesn't matter if it's canon or not.) i think samjess heh i'm basic but i'm a huge sucker for them. and definitely definitely saileen!

21. if you're a fic writer and have written for this character, what's your favorite thing to do when you're writing for this character? what's something you don't like? hehehe hmmm i don't have a singular favorite thing, but i love making him call reader "honey." i adore giving him softness and care and so much love and a goddamn break! in general i love writing hurt/comfort with him as well <3 and i love describing his emotions and exploring how i interpret his character through that. as for dislikes i'm not too sure hmm

24. What other character from another fandom of yours that reminds you of them? i haven't really watched much since i started spn so i haven't really been watching anything and been like omg! that person reminds me of sam! but i totally see the sam and spence parallels (super smart, autistic coded, younger brother vibes, tall, sweet and awkward etc)!

...

SPENCER & EMILY ! (doing both because i adore em too much not to lol) 4. if you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in? spence : huh i've never thought of this before uhhh i'd put him in a studio ghibli film! so he can be the sweet main character but end up with a lovely, poetic, simple life instead of being constantly traumatized by one thing or another LOL i just think he'd make the cutest studio ghibli love interest?? emily : anything with lesbians so she can kiss girls :D HAHAHA or i'd put them all in supernatural for a spn x cm crossover !!! i think that would be way too fun ugh. wanna see her as a vampire also.

12. what's a headcanon you have for this character? spence : he dislikes overhead lighting! it's the autism :] emily : she's lesbian but that's canon to me RAHHH um. that she prefers to listen to music in different languages and really likes finding obscure artists! (but still has her favorite emo grunge stuff that she listened to in middle/high school heh)

18. how about a relationship they have in canon with another character that you admire? spence : him and garcia!! i really really really adore their friendship so so very much <3 and him in luke in later seasons! emily : heh. jemily ??? lesbians ??? okay but i really love her and garcia as well i just love penny so so much

25. what was your first impression of this character? how about now?spence : thought he was very very cute and endearing! i still think that way, but i also love having a more informed and nuance view of him after so many seasons and developments to his character. emily : i thought she was really interesting! i was intrigued by her character and the way she was very forward and didn't back down when there was a misunderstanding about her transfer to the unit. love that she stood up for herself! and wow she's so pretty (didn't know i was gay yet) now it's just RAHHH LESBIANISMMM (i adore everything about her character and again, i just love knowing her better and seeing all sides of her)

[waywardsalt]

thoughts on totk now that i’ve beaten it

under the cut bc of length and bc there is honestly a fair bit of negative stuff

i don’t really think i can say that i liked totk.

it’s fine, it’s genuinely fucking incredible from a technical standpoint with ultrahand, recall, the three map layers and with how smoothly it ran for me. as a game it’s fine.

i’ll start with the things i dislike and end with what i actually liked

i honestly didn’t really like ultrahand? i disliked how much the game leaned on it, since so many puzzles and whatever just boiled down to ‘make something that’ll work’ and it just... it was far too clunky for me to really enjoy using it, outside of using some of the same few designs for traversal. there were a few times when i could see what the game wanted me to do with ultrahand and the given zonai parts and sometimes it just... didn’t work at all. more often than not ultrahand was frustrating for me to use so the game’s reliance on it just made it into a chore sometimes.

in a similar vein the dungeons were serious letdowns. i mean, don’t get me wrong, they’re fine, they had good themes and (mostly) had good aesthetics and general looks and identities to them, but the fact that they were just... basically twenty-ish minute little things was kind of disappointing. i hate that they all had the exact same ‘go hit x number of switches’ gimmick. it really limited what you could do and fucked with the dungeon design, too. the only one where that really worked for me was the fire temple, which was my favorite overall. the water temple was especially dismal, with the least inspired look and just being an astoundingly easy experience. the puzzles in those dungeons were so awfully easy, too, especially since half of the time they just hand you what you need so you barely need to really assess the situation and put a plan together

i hated the water dungeon’s little mini-areas where you do a single piss-easy puzzle to automatically get your prize, i hated the wind temple’s god damn ‘pull a lever and get your prize’ kind of puzzles, i hated how soul-crushingly disappointed i felt when i took a look at the lightning temple’s map and realized that every fucking floor had a singular room just for the switch puzzle. god forbid it’s as fun as the lowest level of that temple. i really miss stuff like mini-bosses or rooms where you have to do a puzzle in order to just... progress, i miss dungeons that i could get lost in or spend a while in or just had... something more interesting or some more substance so that i can’t just breeze through like it’s a glorified shrine. most of the puzzles in those dungeons were simpler than some shrines i did.

i didn’t care to do much exploration since there honestly isn’t much motivation to explore the surface map if you’ve already played botw, and the scarcity of materials this time really got to me, it took me a while to have a half-decent stock of materials, and i still had trouble not running out of stuff even though i was using amiibos to stock up on some things. the money situation was rough, too... a lot of things are cheaper to sell, but some armor is still really expensive plus you have to pay the great fairies to upgrade your equipment in addition to having the correct materials. that especially felt odd- having to grab a handful of (goddamn hard to get) lynel guts is hard enough to upgrade the soldier’s armor, but you want me to cough up 500 rupees, too??

(the scarcity of monster guts also got on my nerves, but i’ll just chalk that up to just some kind of really weird difficulty thing. it was annoying until i tracked down the stronger monsters.)

the story is probably the weakest part of the game to me. it’s really hard to have a baseline investment when you don’t care about these characters, anyway, and what i saw in this game’s story still failed to endear me to hardly any of them. link’s role frustrated me; he just comes off like a tool rather than a character this time through, he barely has any actual relevancy to the story segments beyond being the guy who can use the master sword and being the player’s vehicle to get from point a to b in the story. the blank stare and limited emoting worked in botw because... there’s a given reason for his lack of outward emotion in the past, plus he has no memory in the present. it makes sense. but this time around, he’s gotten memories in the years between this and the last game, but he just feels like a background character in most of the story beats. 

he has no role in the memories and in the present just exists to gather some stuff for other people, he gets the master sword from zelda and then helps the other sages get their secret stones, but he’s barely addressed as his own character in the grand scheme of things unless he’s being directly spoken to. he’s just the swordsman capable of wielding the master sword and zelda’s chosen protector as far as the story is concerned. he has no opinions outside of doing what he’s told and looking for zelda. at least not as far as i could really tell. at least in botw, the story directly concerns him, and it’s his story we’re following. this time around zelda and the sages seem like the most important characters, link’s just... there, doing what he’s been told to.

the new sages are fine, none of them really endeared themselves to me, and i will say that making the player watch essentially the exact same cutscene each time you finish a dungeon was BAFFLING. they were long and you learned almost nothing new after the first one, and there was nothing done to make them very distinct to each individual pair of sages or their respective regions; at the very least, it could have been interesting to meet the ancient sages not in the exact same stone garden, but perhaps at the top of a snowy mountain for the rito, near a volcano or something for the goron, maybe in a shallow pool of water for the zora, and in the desert for the gerudo- but no, they’re all effectively the same thing just with the speaking character swapped out with some minor changes.

(the sages themselves are a pain in the ass to use, having to chase them down to activate their power or accidentally activating a power when you don’t want it; yunobo was honestly my favorite, but because i generally defaulted to having them all activated at all times, i had a lot of trouble with tulin blowing shit away from me when i was trying to grab it while midair. they’re half-decent for combat)

i didn’t really care for rauru or sonia, either. rauru in the present as a ghost was fine, he was kind of interesting and seemed to have changed from his time in the past, but he never managed to be a character i particularly liked. i wasn’t really a fan of his... arrogance? or something in the past scenes, and he never really came off as very interesting. sonia was nearly completely uninteresting which is a shame since she has an interesting design, she just felt delegated to the role of supporting rauru and zelda and then dying to motivate them.

ganondorf is a character i was really looking forward to seeing, and it really fucking sucks that he’s so god damn one-dimensional this time! the story can’t be fucked to delve into him beyond just giving us scenes that just tell us that he’s evil and wants to rule hyrule and get the secret stones and nothing else because fuck having complex villains, i guess. especially frustrating because within the game itself you can draw more interesting motivations up for him, but the game really just doubles-down on him being evil for the fuck of it and wanting to end the world because uhhhh... he’s evil don’t fucking worry about it

the ignoring of the triforce in this game sucks in that way, too, because the way the triforce works and how it can grant wishes made it a much more interesting goal for ganondorf to attain, rather than some poorly-named ‘secret stones’ that do nothing more than just amplify power or something. it sucks how black-and-white this damn story is and how it seems like it just wants to do away with any possible nuance or gray area. no one but the bad guys or side characters are flawed in any actually interesting or significant way.

at least ganondorf was still the most interesting character in the flashbacks.

and then zelda, oh god ZELDA. i honestly really liked her in botw. i liked how you saw her as a flawed, insecure, pressured teen, and how you saw her struggles to relate to link and how she eventually warmed up to him. you saw her as a flawed person who develops and as someone who cares deeply about her friends and her duties and gets frustrated by her failings.

and then in totk a lot of her more interesting traits- her interest in sheikah tech, her excitement over field study and research, her more defining traits as this incarnation of zelda- are basically sanded down and she’s just this perfect flawless princess with great power and an insanely passive role in the past beyond finally taking some kind of action after one of her friends dies and she’s pushed to the brink. cool. great.

she has practically no flaw in totk. if anyone in the present talks about her, they have nothing bad to say and just want to please her and follow her orders, she is right in telling the gerudo how to train their troops she is right even when misheard to tell people to put themselves in danger and she is hardly meaningfully questioned when her imposter is doing very clearly suspicious shit. neither the story nor any of the characters wants to let her be flawed. she’s just perfect in damn near every way and barely retains any interesting characterization she got in botw. there are some interesting snippets in her being a teacher and setting up memorials to those who died in the calamity, but there’s hardly any more than that, and it makes it really hard for me to give a damn about her. she’s not interesting this time.

the whole thing with zelda becoming a dragon too, is... it’s fine. it’s ok. but the fact that she turns back at the end with no problem whatsoever is one hell of a fucking misstep. why talk about draconification being forbidden for a good reason anyways if it doesn’t actually matter anyways??? if you never actually see any of those fucking repercussions why even bring them up??? i really feel like it would have been more effective for there to have been actual consequences for zelda beyond just fucking flying around half-conscious for a millennium or whatever- have her lose her memory when she’s brought back! there you go! there’s the reason why draconification is forbidden! there’s the thing about losing yourself! plus, zelda losing her memories as a result would mirror link having lost his memories in botw! that has so much more weight and significance then ‘oh uh ignore the warnings from a while back she’s completely fine dw abt it’ i hate that she’s back just like that without any of the consequences that the game suggests.

the dragon’s tears in general kinda just felt weaker than botw’s memories anyways bc you’re more just. watching stuff happen then actually learning anything. it has less characters and yet i feel like you only get to know like half of the important ones. like three of them are all about the same event. a few times they just replay parts of old memories in new ones. if they ever reference a past memory they just show you what they’re referencing instead of leaving you to piece it together. just play the voices or something don’t break the flow of things to play a clip of something i’ve already seen.

plus the fact that totk... barely acknowledges that it’s a sequel to botw really rubs me the wrong way. i understand that loz is extremely loose with its lore, but totk is a direct sequel set in the same world a few years later, and yet the events and characters of botw have might as well been forgotten and its all either ignored, brushed aside, or straight up replaced by something else for no good reason. the continuity between these games is absolutely dismal and to see the different ways in which the events and concepts or botw are just... disregarded really just left a bad taste in my mouth.

just- i love good stories and worlds in video games, and while some games can coast by for me by feeling good to play, having a good and engaging story and characters is usually essential to my enjoyment of a game, and when i don’t care about to the point of disliking the story and characters, and when none of the important areas are fascinating or distinct enough from each other, and when the game even fails to really reel me in with the gameplay...

i wanted to like totk, but it really just did not work for me. i just ended up feeling frustrated and disappointed and even sometimes bored with all of the major stuff and man. totk is really, REALLY, not for me, and it just left me wanting to play older zelda games instead.

...

HOWEVER! there were actually some things i really loved about totk! it’s not all doom and gloom! (well, not all doom, at least)

so! the music was great! not all of it really fit or made a lot of sense with the context in which they played or failed to evoke the feeling they were meant to, but the new tracks in this game were great! i especially love the first two phases of the fire temple’s theme, the depths music, and most of the new battle and boss themes. zelda games almost never fail when it comes to the music.

i did genuinely like the fire temple- yunobo’s ability was used the best in this dungeon, and it had the best five switches gimmick, i loved how you had to hit the gongs (sometimes having to construct a path to account for the weaknesses of yunobo’s ability) and how it then ‘scared’ each of the five statues holding a part of the gate- it was very cute and fit in very well with the general feel of that part of the story. it was the best in terms of difficulty and complexity, but it didn’t have the best boss- the lightning temple had the best boss, and i will admit that even if most of them were easy, i really enjoyed the mirror puzzles, as well as the process to unlocking the dungeon. the wind temple had my favorite visual identity and aesthetic, though, i liked it being a part of this old rito song, and how it was the most distinct in looks from the other dungeons.

the sky islands were honestly fun, even if they weren’t all that interesting. getting to some of the harder-to-reach islands were some of my favorite times i had to use ultrahand, and stuff like the zonai forge island and the one orblike island with the mirror puzzle, and pretty much all of the more complicated parts of the sky islands were a lot of fun to explore and figure out.

being able to ride on the dragons was just really cool, and the fact that they come out of the chasms was fun.

the new horns for the monsters were cool, it helps differentiate the different monster strengths and i just thought they were really neat.

the quest with lurelin village was fun, even if the pirates just being monsters was a real let-down.

the stable trotters were also a fun bunch of characters, that was a good, new way to open up fairy fountains.

all of the new stuff with the yiga was really fun, like getting their outfit and being able to pretend to be one of them and learning the blademaster attack- so much fun it was so cute.

most of the new outfits are really good and useful, and while a bit janky and not that great, the house-building bit near tarrey was endearing.

while none of the main characters interested me, i really, especially liked tauro and yona and penn. for some reason they just appealed to me and i really wish they had bigger parts in the game because they’re interesting and they have good designs and i’d really like to know more about them.

the underground gerudo shelter was pretty cool, to be honest, and the look of the caves was really cool.

i adored the proving grounds shrines- easily my favorite shrines in the entire game, i had no problem spending a decent amount of time in those kinds of shrines, they were fantastic.

the new ingredients and recipes and new weapons were cool.

the way you basically return to the area you started at on your way to ganondorf is pretty cool, that whole path is really neat.

ganondorf in general was a pretty cool boss, even if he ended up being kind of easy for me. the whole final boss sequence was neat.

by FAR, though, my absolute favorite part of this game was 100% the depths. the fact that there was just an entire second layer to the map that was the same size as the surface, just inverted and dark and filled with new bosses and locations... i spent hours down there without going back up to the surface and absolutely had a BLAST screwing around in the dark, lighting up my path with brightblooms and tossing together little vehicles with lights so that i could get to the next lightroot off in the distance. the depths was probably where i ended up using zonai vehicles the most, and it was honestly pretty fun to go around spotting and reaching every lightroot, coming across different mines and weird little landforms and coliseums and yiga camps. the music and plantlife and look of the depths were so good, and it really felt distinct from the rest of the game in a very good way. doing all of the lightroots and getting enough zonaite to max out link’s energy cells was definitely a good move since it made finding shrines and dealing with later zonai machine stuff easier.

overall, tears of the kingdom was a severely mixed bag for me, and while there was stuff i did like, i don’t think it’s enough to really get me to say that i really liked this game overall- after all most of the stuff i disliked was unavoidable parts of the games, and it definitely put a hamper on my interest in the rest of the time. totk is fine, but it’s really not my thing. 

[thygoddessouijathicc]

NFR AU Chapter 1: Prelude

(Disclaimer: NFR!Jack is not doing well. He also has a history of murder and identity theft.)

I am sitting in a somewhat rough chair, across from me is some strangely dressed man with a phone for a head.

Even though he has no eyes I can’t help the feeling he’s staring at me.

This is not my first job interview.

I have worked at 12 other locations before… right? 12? Where did I get that number, I’m sure it’s not 12… how many was it?

The phone stares at me, his gaze is ripping me apart.

I imagine myself post mortem being examined by a group of chimpanzees in lab coats. They are not doing a good job.

I itch at my skin. The orange paint is rather itchy, furthering the discomfort of the skin itself.

I start picking at my skin, trying to pull it off.

The phone interrupts me and tells me to focus.

I forgot he was there.

“What was the question?” I ask.

“Do you have any criminal record?”

“I started both world wars.”

“Ah so nothing serious.”

“No not really.” I admit, I need to up my game, I’m disappointed with my abysmal record.

“Do you have any ID?” He says suspiciously. Or at least I think he does.

I pull out a plastic bag and root around, picking out a card and placing it on his desk.

The card has blood stains on it, a small cut out picture of me glued on and slightly peeling.

The phone man picks it up… he doesn’t seem to buy it, but he also doesn’t seem to care. “Mason Foster?” He asks.

I nod vigorously.

“What’s the blood from?”

“Oh well you know how it is.” I smile, way too wide. I have a bad habit of that, it led to my cheeks getting ripped.

“Yeah sure…” if he had a face I’d say that he looks suspicious of me. “I want this conversation done so you’re hired.”

“Wait a moment phoney, what am I being paid.”

“Tokens.”

“I want cash!”

“And I want to see my family again, we don’t always get what we want.”

“Well if I’m not given cash you’ll never see anything again so you see our conundrum?”

“I’ll see what I can do.” He hisses. “Now sign the contract.”

I glare at him for a moment before signing.

Almost as soon as I do my vision blurs and I fall onto the table.

…

I wake up in a wide open expanse of nothing, a road in the middle of the desert. The road ahead twists and curves unnaturally and water is seeping out from the ground and rising into the sky like raindrops.

“That asshole better not have put me here or he’s fucking dead.” I snarl.

I barely dodge out of the way as a large deer hoof smashes the ground I was on. I look at the creature. It’s a towering 9-legged amorphous beast of smoke, looking down at me with glowing eyes.

“HEY ASSHOLE!”

Its neck extends so it brings its featureless face down to me, I stare into the eyes.

“I WAS STANDING THERE JACKASS YOU CANT JUST DO WHAT YOU WANT, WATCH WHERE YOU’RE FUCKING GOING!!!!!!!!”

“Esimed elbativeni sdrawot gnihcram lla era ew.”

“Save your fucking excuses you almost killed me!!!!!!!!!!!”

“Yawa gnitsaw flesruoy leef uoy od?“

“Yeah I’m calling my goddamn lawyer. You can’t-“ I am kicked away by the creature. That asshole.

I land inside a tower, inside is an elderly version of myself rocking on a rocking chair violently while knitting. 

I pick him up and throw him out the window.

An eye appears where the window once was.

“DO YOUR JOB. FUFIL YOUR SINGULAR PURPOSE SO YOU MAY CEASE TO BE. THE BEAR MADE A MISTAKE DECIDING TO CREATE YOU. I HOPE YOU CAN AT LEAST TRY TO BE LESS DISAPPOINTING.”

I hate it when these things talk to me. I punch the eye and my vision fades again.

…

“EMPLOYEE! EMPLOYEE WAKE UP!” The phone yells. I get up off the table.

“The fuck did you do to me?” I ask.

“I didn’t do anything I just… you just FELL ASLEEP ON MY HECKING DESK!!!”

“Fine, whatever, lie to me and see how that works for you.”

“Just get to work!”

(Note: NFR!Jack is feral.)

[gamingdotcom]

goddamn this game!!! im not even done with my first playthrough and im already trying to figure out what i want to do with my second one.... i mean, ill share anyway. thoughts below the cut!

i feel like my first pass has been a rollercoaster of self-discovery and reflection and an... all consuming affection for a certain vampire twink. i think i have given varying levels of care to the story: i was in and out in act one while i figured out what this game was about and whether or not the story was interesting enough to listen to,¹ but i made a real effort to try and do every little thing before leaving.

in act 2, i kind of tired myself out by being so exhaustive in act 1 so i kind of sped run a lot of it (partially because i was DYING to find out what happens with astarion, partially because of the aforementioned burn out, partially because i was frustrated with the difficulty curve) so i really did not pay much attention. i refocused once dame aylin came into the picture because. hello. how could you ignore that-- but i had lost important beats and foreshadowing because of how i navigated that arc. i feel i have the most room to grow when returning to this chapter.

in act 3, im really slowing down and smelling the roses more, but trying not tire myself out the way i did in act 1. i am realizing, however, as some character arcs reach their crest, that i spent a lot of time and care with astarion and through that very singular focus have missed out on a lot of the other characters!! At this juncture i would say i am interested but not overly invested in the outcome of the overall story arc, and this may well be the result of my inconsistent focus on it.... it could also just be that i have very high standards for a compelling story. From where i stand, having not yet finished the game, i have found that the individual character arcs are the strongest point in the game by far-- i have seen most this through shadowheart and astarion, and although dame aylin's arc is not long, it is fucking powerful. perhaps i will find that the game returns what you give, and i may enjoy other parts of the story more if i give them more focus.

¹ I personally find that most RPG stories fall completely flat for me, so I was not expecting much. For the average game, I am far more interested in mechanics than story beats. Can't tell you why because I love a good book! And a good movie! And good TV!

so, given all this, my intentions for my second(!) run are:

acquire all characters asap (i went without karlach for most of act one, oops!), really try to spend time with them, and rotate through my party so I can see how the different characters interact. this may require slowing down even more than i did in my first run, but since the character arcs ive seen so far have proven to be the most compelling part of the game, i think it will be worth the trouble. i just have to be patient!

plan my character's progression out in advance so the difficulty curve does not hit as hard in act 2

stop looking at guides... altogether. this is a silent killer that i think has fucked with my experience! i have this compulsion to want to do everything perfect and control all the factors i can to give myself the best outcome and i think that has really hurt my experience in a number of ways: 1) ruins the surprise, 2) frames important story beat decisions in terms of costs and benefits rather than whether the choice is in-line with the character would say (or what I want to say), 3) reinforces this fun belief that mistakes should never be made even in fun fantasy game 4) micromanaging to this extent is just.. exhausting! It means im devoting less energy to the story than on how to optimize it to get the outcome i want. not great!

try my very best to not just hit spacebar during major plot beats. i think this will mainly mean playing in shorter bursts because i get attention fatigue if playing for longer than 1.5-2 hours.. and also eating before and drinking water while i play so i dont get hangry.

i think that's it! hopefully i will get a different but still engaging experience with the game! thanks for reading :)

[izzysarchivedblogs]

KNOWING THAT HE WAS GOING TO GET THE OPPORTUNITY TO CALL HAD CONTRIBUTED IT TO BEING A BETTER DAY.

Overall, what he was experiencing was raw, difficult, and goddamn, he had cravings, but he was feeling. Clint was being taught how to process things, he was being taught how to cope with things better. OR START LOOKING FOR BETTER WAY.

Today was the first day where things had felt a little graspable, and his therapist agreed that if he felt certain of it; he could make this call. SPEAKING OF WHICH, IT'S GOING WELL.

He huffs into the receiver as Tony tells him to keep telling himself that mediation was good for him. THAT HE'D LIKE IT. There was something to say if he could be doing archery right now, he would achieve a sort of zen. GIVE IT TIME. He was trying to do that.

❝ Hey, my therapist says I got that too! The A-D-H-D thing, but I told her that bullshits for the birds; granted I also say that about therapy and group. ❞ HE STILL THINKS THAT. Clint's got a lot to be working on, recognizing his mental health was a thing to be taken seriously was one such thing. ❝ Three hours of mediation. Everyone has one hour and then two hours of workout time. I get three cause cast and brace. IT'S TORTURE. So boring. ❞

He may have gotten in very minor trouble for making up target practice games to supplement the additional two hours of mediation when he absolutely could NOT stand his own thoughts anymore. Clint's zen came from having a singular target. Mediation made the target himself which was a terrible idea. ❝ Hey don't you hear the jokes around the superheroics cooler, I got an empty head anyways. ❞

It does not SURPRISE him that Bucky does mediation. One of the unfortunate side effects of un-numbing himself was that his inferiority problems were coming up. AND BUCKY BARNES KIND OF RUBBED ON ALL OF THOSE. ❝ Futzing Bucky. ❞ He mostly keeps his jealousy contained.

THE FACT THAT TONY IS TALKING TO WHEN HE'S OUT ON HEROICS. It makes something curl up in chest, warm and fuzzy, and he definitely feels embarrassed for the way that he is TOUCHED BY THIS. This trying not to hold things inside was something else. ❝ Tin Can, be careful out there please, 'kay? ❞ HE LETS HIMSELF SAY, voice softer as Tony brushes off that he shouldn't be worrying about him. It means more than he was actually can, comfortably put into words that he took his call.

SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO ASK FRIENDS FOR HELP.

That was what he had with Tony, with what he was going to try to do. It's been rough, and he feels so low; but he does want to climb out, climb up. FIND HIMSELF. Be better.

❝ The God stuff is... I am trying; it just brings up my Aunt Francis and than the nuns from St Ignatius memories a lot. ACTUALLY, my therapist kind of looks like Sister Cathy, that old broad is definitely dead now but therapist's not all god stuff like the Sister was. ❞ He doesn't think he's ever actually talked about any of stuff like this. There's little signs that things WERE working for Clint, and that he was DOING the work even if HE HATED IT.

❝ It's... I hate a lot of this, Tony, and I'm really not sure if ever liked myself, kind of hate me at the moment; but like there is six different groups in the schedule daily. ❞ IT'S A LOT AND CLINT THINKS HE MAY ALREADY BE FEELING FATIGUED WITH IT. Has already felt fatigued with it; kind of had been holding on to get a little glimpse of outside.

He's still not talking much in group, doesn't know what to say when he was-is-was-is Hawkeye. That he doesn't talk about specifics of things, the reasons he blamed on wanting to drink, on why he ran to drinks for coping. ❝ I'm just really tired, feels like I've got worms in my skin and gut, I want to walk and go to a bar, or have gin before I have to talk in front of people. ❞ HIS THERAPIST SHOULD BE PROUD OF HIM. HE'S TALKING. BEING HONEST.

see he can put in the work, wants to. chose this. hates it, but no one said anything about the additional feelings on top.

Tony's actually smiling. He's fighting some asshole with a god complex and stolen tech, and he's smiling. Clint's doing the work. He hates it, but he's doing it. And he sounds better. Healthier. More together. More himself.

Tony wishes he could see him. He has the strong urge to pull the man into his arms and nuzzle his face in his hair. He bets he smells clean right now. He's sure Clint wouldn't even fight it.

Tony's crushing on Clint Barton and he's too happy to even try and second guess what these feeling mean. He just feels them.

He gestures to Rhodey when he spots him and the two fly down the sides of a bank of transformers. The noise is horrific and for a moment he's not sure if Clint paused what he was saying or he just didn't hear it over the cacophony of sound outside the suit.

"You just have to keep telling yourself it's good for you. And you know, sometimes you'll actually like it. I mean - little ol' Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder here, meditation can be like torture. But sometimes - man - you get that head empty and it's like having a little mini holiday. Freezer Burn does it, you know? I went out to his house in Indiana and he had this little pyramid he sits under. It's very hippy dippy."

He lands in front of Patsy and guards her from an attack. When she shoos him off again, he's smiling at Clint's question. "Me? Umm... I wanna say upstate? But we might have crossed over the border. Fucking guys been trying to - you know what? I don't even know what he's trying to do? Something to do with mom and dad I think? Who knows. Just punching it out, at the moment. But don't worry about me. I want to hear more about you. You know what helps me with the god stuff? Just reframing it? Like you need to believe in a power bigger than you? Okay so most people think that's god, but maybe that's just you can't do it alone. Sometimes you need to ask friends for help."