#did i just do a full circle

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Market based mistakes.

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#poorly drawn mdzs #mdzs #wei wuxian #wen chao #wen zhuliu #Apologies for how much I skipped in the last part of this episode. #I do love the scene of Jiang Cheng regaining his will to live and the ensuing scenes of Wei Wuxian seeing him off at the mountain base. #At the same time I very much want to keep pressing on with the story. #The notes I have are for scenes I did not draw: #I still think a lot about the symbolism of food in both consumption and giving - especially in regards to the Yunmeng Trio. #Prior to JC leaving we see WWX out buying food for him. Something that initially falls through as JC runs back to Lotus Pier. #But here it comes back full circle. WWX gives away a part of himself to be 'consumed' by Jiang Cheng. #It is about being led by desire (JC wanting revenge to losing his will to live to wanting his core back) #and about being bound by duty to do whatever it takes to see those desires through to the end. #JC can't eat until he has his desire to live back. WWX carves out his own ambitions to help another reach theirs. #And it isn't held up as noble! Not even once! He is routinely punished and criticized for this sacrifice. #Being thrown into the burial mounds really is just symbolism for how we can give away every scrap of ourselves to others- #-and find ourselves at rock bottom. Alone. #When you hollow yourself out it just leaves room for something else to fill it. Something worse.

[fear-no-mort]

can we talk about how we’ve gone full circle with these two pulling eachother literally kicking and screaming to spend time together

#maybe this is incorrect but as someone who is pretty much the same the way i see it is mortys life was peaceful before rick but it also lik #Actually Sucked. like. his parents were constantly fighting and he was getting bullied every day and he couldn’t focus in class he very- #obviously is nd but nobody is trying to help him in having SOME sort of future and understand stuff in school.. like.. #the way i see it is rick pulled him OUT of that. his life was a lot scarier and darker for a while afterward but i feel like after a bit- #he definitely would rather rick did come into his life the way he did. because otherwise morty would just be this shy kid with no friends- #and dysfunctional home life and probably no future forever #and now we’ve gone full circle and he’s doing that for rick now. but that’s just how i see it #rick and morty #odiespeak

[chirpsythismorning]

Some of the evidence supporting Mike not being in love with El is brutal. No, but seriously.

In s3, when El's leg is injured, instead of Mike putting his arm around her waist, allowing him to take some of the weight off her injured leg, he puts his arm around her shoulder, basically having the exact opposite affect of taking the weight off of her, instead just adding more weight for her to have to carry.

Now, I’m not coming at Mike here, I’m actually coming at the writers, because this choice here has everything to do with them using this gesture to signal Mike’s lack of feelings for El, even at the expense of realism.

I say this bc any person with common sense, including Finn and everyone around him and Millie filming these shots, would've known it looked unnatural for Mike to be adding more weight onto El as opposed to taking some off of her.

This means that what Mike did here, Finn was directed to do, and therefore it was for a specific reason.

And we know they could have easily made the opposite choice, because they show us Max AND Lucas doing it.

See how putting an arm around El's waist looks so much more natural? Because homegirl is injured and clearly needs help taking weight off her leg to qualm some of the pain she's experiencing there, which is why Max and Lucas are shown here doing it the correct way.

And so, why can't Mike do the same? Why are the writers making a point to show Mike being incapable of simply taking some weight off of El, instead doing the exact opposite?

I don't think it's as deep as Mike not being able to do something intimate, and that's bc, again we see Max and Lucas doing it.

I honestly think what they're trying to convey with this choice here, is that Mike thinks he's helping El, when he is in fact doing the opposite despite his best efforts. The implications of that and how that sort of aligns with their romantic relationship and what it leads to at the end of s3, going into s4, is pretty spot on.

I do think Mike thinks he's doing the right thing by being with El instead of voicing any doubts at the end of s3, because he is under the assumption that she is in love with him. I do think he believes he is indebted to her and that this is the least he can do after everything they've been through together, which has mostly been riddled with romantic pressures and so continuing that instead of disputing it seems like the only option anyways. Not to mention, he does care for her deeply, so it's not hard to imagine that he's a teenage boy confusing deep care for love (he literally tells us this is his problem when he can only say care and not love to El's face... but that's a whole other conversation).

Still, when it's all said and done, Mike's not actually doing El any favors by being with her romantically, if that is not what he truly wants.

Because that's the sad truth about all of this, which is that you would never want someone to be with you just because you want them. If you knew that they truly couldn't have those feelings for you, you'd want to know, right? You don't deserve someone just because you have deep feelings for them. And I think there's so many layers to this idea, bc many people are capable of not giving Byler a chance bc they truly believe Mike could never return Will's feelings. Will also feels this way atp, so though it hurts, he rips the band aid off, because he would never want Mike to be with him just out of pity or something. No one would want that. And so it all really comes down to who Mike truly loves romantically and wants to be with. And the right thing to do, even if it hurts someone, is to be honest, because being with them just bc you think that will make them happy is never going to be enough if you aren't truly feeling it, or worse, feel it for someone else.

We see how Mike's inability to be honest with El at the end of s3, leads to a season of Mike feeling deeply insecure and undeserving of the love El has to offer him, and even though he does try, he always comes up short. Despite Mike putting up this front that they are the perfect couple, the details are telling us something is off. And it gives him away.

Another example that I think is very similar to this loaded gesture from Mike to El in s3, is the scene in s4 when they hug in the airport.

Common sense ppl, picture this: You're reuniting with your long distance girlfriend. Then suddenly, she runs up to you, with her arms wide open, and instead of opening your arms wide to embrace her properly, you take the bouquet of flowers you brought her as a gift, and shove them against your chest just as she approaches to hug you, effectively squishing the present you got for her (a pretty delicate present at that) for no reason other than to... what exactly?

Like?? El isn't even squishing the present Mike, she's trying to hug you, dude! Your gf is trying to hug you properly and you threw the gift you got for her in between you so you could throw in a careful! x3??

Again, this has less to do with Mike's thoughts and reasoning behind this gesture in a literal sense, and more to do with the simple fact that this is a narrative choice! Mike is not a real person! There are real people sitting down and writing this and actors are having to do multiple takes to act it out. What feels natural for a situation is going to be what is often chosen 9 times out of 10, because of realism and wanting the audience to see stuff happening that is believable. That 1 time though, when it's not being done the way it would usually be, is usually because there's a specific reason for it.!

So the question really is, not why is Mike doing this, but why are the writers having Mike do this, and what message are they trying to convey about Mike's feelings based on his behavior, in these moments where he's just not capable of committing to El genuinely, one way or another?

#byler #no but most of the gay subtext is just so like... you really didn't have to do all that? #gay subtext at the expense of realism? check #mike thinks he's helping el by not breaking her heart and just being with her despite feelings for will he can't deny #very reminiscent of mike's 'maybe you thought you were helping but you weren't. you hurt me! what you did sucks!' #i do think it would be epic too see that moment come full circle but with el saying it to mike this time #bc i'm sure el would much rather have her heartbroken finding out that mike is incapable of loving her romantically #than to find out he was with her bc he didn't want to hurt her even at the expense of his own happiness #like no one wants to have someone be with them out of pity or obligation #we want someone to love us truly and deeply and genuinely! #we see how much el struggles in s4 bc of all the hints she's getting from mike that he doesn't genuinely love her #bc that's the most important part of a romantic relationship #it being equal #and it didn't feel that way #sure she's gonna be pissed #but she's gonna be more pissed he wasn't just honest #friends don't lie obvs

[brother-emperors]

you know that post about how scholars talk shit about each other when they write the phrase 'one might be tempted to assume,' or however it went. the entirety of crassus scholarship is like this.

#thankfully all i do is make comics and i can do whatever i want as long as i can justify the narrative beat #otherwise id be. ough. id be tempted to write a 600 page biography on him attempting to unravel this #B.A. Marshall mentioning Rawson's article on Crassus that initially intrigued me about him and he counters her assertion #that pompey overshadowed him with the triumph in a footnote like in a way we have come full circle #everyone collectively agrees that pompey and crassus were not the rivals that a lot of people seem to think they were #so im glad that we're all shaking hands on that. and that the rivalry they did have was just. the usual kind expected from the political #scene. very fun! for narrative purposes i will continue to make them periodically bite each other #because every time someone goes 'oh yeah they were heirs to sulla' i think im going to lose my mind #it does in some ways make their repeated alliance a little unsettling tho. like. haha ha ehgh. now we have to contend with #other kinds of parallels

[meadowsofmay]

i genuinely enjoy the amount of respect and love and care the circle has for cosmo. i can't possibly know if it will ever backfire given the circumstances they are in but that's not even what's so important right now. what will happen is what will happen but the beginning, the starting point that is actually a starting point only for us. for them? it's one of many that dotted the path of their relationship, their connection to cosmo.

i suppose it is so nice to see because there is an image of an old, obnoxious, know-it-all figures in media that are presented from the perspective — having knowledge is a grant of respect. but cosmo, at least from what we hear others speak of him, is not that. he is an old man that his grandson relative? father? wants to protect because that's how it should be and not the other way around. he is an old friend to madam glask, and he is the closest and hence the dearest, which means she will step over her fear and lost trust of elsie and follow their mission through. he is an associate, a roommate that elsie trusts to keep her safe and keep others safe from her. he is a professor that has earned his respect from rajan.

and he sees them as his children, he cares for them as he would care for his own and yet, not in a belittling way. they are like children to him but they are not children. they are grown and established in life adults that achieved their status in society and that cosmo respects, while caring for them like he would for his children. and it's almost as if they care and love him the same way in response. his human being does not consists only of work and his studies and they can love him like children would love their elderly parent. and they do.

and surely, we don't know what had happened in cosmo's past 'till it'd be revealed or what will happen in the future 'till it will happen next episode. but i just enjoy how likable cosmo is while being a knowledgeable and important part of the candela and the circle. i like how it's easy for the circle to like him and stick with him even when the circle bends.

and you know, that is the epitome of an actual respect, to have such an influence on people.

#may watches candela obscura #circle: tide and bone #ep 1 #i really just wanted to talk about how nice it is to have an old person that did not have conflicts right from the start #i must admit i did worry about the possible parent issues conflict between sam and liam #but the reveal of oscar wanting to care and protect cosmo because that's what he believes should have always been their reality #was heartbreaking #it's such a simple thing to like about the whole plot and the performance #but i do #i do like that cosmo is not necessarily arrogant and full of himself #he is feisty and full of determination and he is not ready to sit in confines of his shop safe from the dangers of the field #but he is not an asshole he is just a grandpa #and that's fucking beautiful #thank you #cosmo grimm #oscar grimm #rajan savarimuthu #dr elsie roberts #madam glask #candela obscura #the circle of tide and bone #aabria iyengar #liam o'brien #sam riegel #ashly burch #gina darling #noshir dalal #critical role

[tj-crochets]

Re the rabid skunk

I’m from a country town and while it’s not something I was taught in school, I was definitely taught by my parents and other adults in my life to report possibly rabid or sick animals. There is some worry about rabies and other diseases diseases rising in the wildlife population so the forest service try to stay on top of it.

It’s a little messed up that no one was taking your concern seriously. Even if it was just a weird skunk, rabies and other animal diseases are no joke and pose a threat to people and other animals.

Thank you! It's very...idk the word. Affirming? Good to know it's not just me that thinks it's like a responsibility to report potentially rabid animals, like it's just a thing you do

#ask away! #for anyone who missed my post about this yesterday #there was a skunk in my yard behaving very weird yesterday #out in bright daylight running full speed in a giant circle not being chased not looking for food #found a hiding place (under the shed in my yard) but did not stay there #came from the center of the neighborhood (away from forest not good for skunks) #ran towards forest then veered away back towards houses #so I tried to call to report the skunk to animal control in case it was rabies (or another potentially zoonotic disease) #and there just! is no animal control! where I live! #absolutely no governmental involvement AT ALL #and the private companies only handle stray pets not wildlife! #which is wild to me #what is government for if not to try to control rabies #like I understand that is not the central purpose of government but I do feel like it should at least be on the radar

[d1gnan]

#fight club got me thinking about how when i was younger me and my friends would play this stupid game #where u get like 8 or so people in a big circle and put your hands in the middle one on top of the other and whoever is on the bottom of th #stack winds up and smacks the top of the stack as hard as they can #if u remove your hand from the stack youre out #and the game goes until two people are duelling each other which usually ends out of like boredom cuz the games would go rlly long since #nobody wanted to chicken out #but wed do it for so long my hands would be like bloated and purple cuz ppl actually used like full strength to hit the stack #there was this really buff kid who would wind up and ppl would drop out from fear of his move alone and after he hit the stack #the whole circle would like tremble #ive seen ppl talk about playing bloody knuckles but ive never actually witnessed a game of that #idk im curious what kind of stupid shit like that yall did #cuz that was like a core memory for me #tumblr polls #my polls #fandom polls #polls #poll time #in the polaroids i just posted too theres a before pic of our hands but someone else has the after one

[shirogane-oushirou]

🌊 summer time baybeeeee 🌊

tbch you couldn't catch me in the water KJNAKSJNF but. ren's an avid swimmer (otter-coded...), and he looooves being on the water, so maybe he could convince me to go out for a short while. he'd be so happy about it... he'd get the zoomies and, once i went back on land, have to swim laps to get it all out (i would sit at the water's edge and take photos of him ^_^ KAJNFNKJN).

this was originally for an art party, with the theme "ducky"!

#thinking about him going out on the water with me with a shirt on for extra protection... #and then we swim to shore and he throws off his shirt to go do his laps. 😇💕💕💕 which i need to draw now. coughing hacking wheezing. #(edit: guess what i did after dinner... :3) #omg i just remembered my first art party art was an oushirou beach pic... full circle... #📌 [ my posts. ] #🎨 [ 046 art. ] #🍄 [ lying on the blade of an emotion. ] #🧃 [ who is in control. ] #🦦 [ can't escape it. ] #🐸 [ look ahead. ] #selfship #self ship #selfshipping #self shipping #open water - #046 art #andouartparty

[asleepinawell]

#final fantasy xiv #final fantasy 14 #ffxiv #ffxivedit #zenos yae galvus #zenos viator galvus #gamingedit #myedit #mp #one of my favorite parts of ew tbh #not even because i enjoy zenos #(which i do greatly) #it's just so fitting and both meaningful to the wol and the player #did you enjoy the story? was it worth it? #piano versions of answers playing in the background to bring it full circle #and like here they are...the two people who were everything the ancients weren't to the extent that they could stand against meteion #the same in their passion and finding meaning in their life but so different in how they approached it #two sides of a coin...a fractured mirror #i still stick with my headcanon that zenos was the one to materialize the teleporter at the end #because of what it says about the wol...the person who can make friends with anyone...can make even the worst person a little better #can inspire someone as selfish as zenos to do this one selfless thing at the very end #that's who they are!

[carryonmylovelies]

sometimes a sweet holiday short story will straight up murder you and kill you. for fun.

#the way that i just COMPLETELY broke down and fell apart and disintegrated into a fucking puddle of misery when i read that..... #PEOPLE HE GAVE HIM HER KISS #HE DID IT #WE'VE LITERALLY COME FULL CIRCLE FROM CARRY ON . IM GONNA START SOBBING I CANT DO THIS AGAIN TODAY QKWNSKSNSJ #IT ONLY TOOK 7 YEARS #IM GONNA GO LAY DOWN IN A GRAVE #its like a fundamental part of myself has been missing for years and years and years and now its finally in its place #i was 13 when i read that scene for the first time 😭😭😭😭😭 now im almost 20 and im STILL THIS FUCKED UP ABT SIMON AND BAZ #the snowbaz brainrot is eternal #that shit will not only stay with you but you will GROW UP ON IT #i have to go stare blankly at a wall for awhile goodbye #simon snow #baz pitch #snowbaz #snow for christmas spoilers #scattered showers spoilers #the snow for christmas sickness

[teetering-dinosaur]

I CANNOT BELIEVE the writers wrote the line "i don't want to be alone" for loki and then left him in a tree for eternity

#arguably the most loki line they've ever written #and then they give us that ending #like thanks :) #thanks for that :)))) #i mean like listen i like the full circle and i can appreciate the symbolism and shit #its a solid ending #but what the FUCK did they do to my boy #hes been so lonely for so long #and they were like #what if he just #is alone forever :) #its a bad day for the bitches who fear they're gonna end up alone forever (me) #loki #loki spoilers #loki season 2 #loki series

[sharp-tooths]

Thinking about the fact that Knives loved western movies as a kid and liked the idea of gunslingers and how after the crash he took the gun from a man he killed and gave it to vash, not only because he wanted his brother to protect himself and join him in killing humans, but because he thought gunslingers were cool. He gave Vash a gun cause he thought having his brother be a gunslinger on a desert planet would be cool. Just like a western movie.

Im dying

#trigun stampede #millions knives #vash the stampede #im just gonna go lie on the floor and cry for a while again #kni at the ripe old age of maybe 7 years old: #my names going to be millions knives #and my brother is going to be a cool gunslinger #and were going to protect our people and kill all of humanity! #im sobbing #on one hand i can see why vash would still so readily forgive him despite the things hes done that alot of ppl would find irredeemable #but also. kni has already been so blindingly consumed by his fear fuled rage #that hes come full circle and doesnt realize hes committed the very same acts he condemns humans for doing to plants #on the very people he was trying to protect #his brother and all the remaining dependent plants #and i personally think the way he went about it was so much more unforgivable and horrific #cause what the ever loving FUCK that was in episode 11 makes me want to puke #and in the beginning of episode 12 i actually almost did #i didnt mean to start ranting in the tags i just have FEELINGS #trigun stampede spoilers

[edge-oftheworld]

HEY! HEY! don't hide all of your pain, don't keep

#100% sure that i did hear those lyrics right rn if i get it wrong when it comes out i'll do something embarrassing #i already love this SO MUCH I genuinely can't think of a more ashton thing to say where he's at rn #i love how 2010s poprock it sounds. slsp full circle #and is it weird i want this to be a 5sos song?? like it probably isn't but damn when was the last time they had a happy anthem? #like it was probably she looks so perfect. A DECADE #self titled vibe. sgfg message. youngblood boppiness. 5sos5 maturity. can't think of anything that screams calm to me #but you get michael writing some bits on this and it will slap i know it. it already will if it's just ash but give it a luke verse and a #calum verse and a michael bridge w ash on chorus? YES #ashton irwin #5sos #5 seconds of summer #michael clifford #calum hood #luke hemmings

[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. 

#i just- *slams head into brick wall* bro i did not have a good time with this game #going back to my silly little comparison point; totk was $70 and my copy of phantom hourglass was $70 #$70 is a bullshit amount for a game but thats no the point here #totk from a technical baseline standpoint as a GAME is worth $70 #its story and the amount of enjoyment it gave me was not worth $70 tho. the story and enjoyment i got from ph was more worth $70 to me #salty talks #loz #legend of zelda #totk #'zelda games almost never fail when it comes to the music' if you talk shit abt ph's soundtrack i'll kill you. i like the dungeon track #i partially have the shinji chair image saved for this but i did also initally save it yesterday when i finished nge #listen this was fine on a surface level but it just wore me the fuck down #link was just some flavor of stonefaced or surprised or determined in any given cutscene and like. idk. wasnt too interested in him either #look i know about the silly little dialogue options. still didnt do it for me #link getting his arm back only makes sense to me bc i got every last light of blessing and heart container and stamina vessel #the gloom in his body is 100% gone hes squeaky clean for me. whyd you take his shirt off tho. at least keep his hat. cant take it seriously #put him in the archaic set or smth his arm is fully visible that way at least and its full circle thats what he wears at the start #couldnt take the whole grabbing zelda sequence seriously bc i missed the (hold) prompt and link flew away lol #totk spoilers #also wasnt really a fan of most of the voice acting yeah sorry. kinda rough all around aside from like ganondorf and dimitri- i mean rauru #mineru and the rito sage were fine too ig. im not going to bother watching any vids or whatever to check again #riju and sidon were fine too #sonia was cool too but everyone else was a lil rough tbh esp with having to say 'secret stone' that name sucks shit #my switch died in the middle of the credits. i had like 25% when i started fighting ganondorf. #it died twice actually cuz i charged it for a few minutes and what like yeah 5% should be good and nope. died again #anyways whatever. im not giving it a rating im tired of this game i dont think i'll be replaying or even just touching it any time soon #music was top notch again tho. made me feel stuff more than the actual story did. cool ig #bitching abt totk

[en-ben]

have u ever considered stanchez

This is coincidental because I was talking about this with my friend yesterday who's seen gravity falls LOL, haven't watched gravity falls myself but from an outsider's view I do see it... (even though I don't really know Stan well)

#im just as surprised as anyone not having watched gravity falls STILL bc im a cartoon enjoyer #I did watch this ship go on for eons always thought it was funny #but ill definitely watch gravity falls... and when I do I'll understand stanchez full circle instead of like some commoner #the way i see it now its two seemingly grumpy but eccentric grandpas why not put them in a room together

[racke7]

Yesterday, during a dungeon where I played as a Machinist (ranged DPS), our tank disconnected.

I don't think any of us actually knew how to dismiss/reinstate a member of the party, so we uhhh... kept going?

Which meant that I ended up effectively playing the tank, because I could run away from the boss, which meant that I wasn't getting insta-gibbed.

We did finally manage to trigger the "dismiss vote", and then we had a tank and it was such a relief, but it was also not nearly as hilarious as me hauling ass around an arena as a dragon tried to murder me.

#laughing #ff14 #video games #we did actually manage to kill a boss like that. my comment was ''i can't believe that actually worked'' #it very much made me remember the treasure-dungeon. that i entered on my own. as a white-mage. #and then made it like five rooms deep over the span of a full hour. just running around and smacking enemies with DOTs. #which was quite possibly the most cursed way i think i've ever played this game. just... run in a circle. keep regen up. keep dots up. #and then just... keep doing that until they're all dead. all fifty of the bastards. horrible way to play. would absolutely do it again. #it's less effort than trying to form a party to do it the way you ought to. #(also also. i very much wasn't the person who figured out how to trigger the dismiss-vote. so i should probably look that up at some point.