i started replaying totk recently, i say replaying bc i did buy and play it when it was first released but dropped it after a couple days bc i was busy w stuff. and so i'm doing a lot of things now for the first time and obv i can't help comparing it to botw and it's genuinely got me so upset how link has been forgotten by so many people, all the people he helped in botw all the quests he did are just meaningless, all my registered horses were carried over but they couldn't keep the character interactions? all the champions are mentioned once with the exception of mipha there's no memories or divine beasts. the zora who had remembered link for 100 years had forgotten him since botw how is that possible. i had to make an ugly house near tarrey town to hang my weapons bc the hateno house was no longer mine 😭😭😭 somehow it made the game feel lonelier, even though botw was more empty there was much emotion in it.

it's not that i hated totk i liked exploring and finding new outfits, the dragons, rediscovering my favourite places etc but idk i was genuinely tearing up thinking about the champions being forgotten and all of link's previous sacrifices meaning nothing. sorry to send these random messages i don't follow anyone else who still blogs about zelda 😭😭

No, I know exactly what you mean! 😢 Honestly (lol can't remember if I've already said this before or not, so maybe I'm re-ranting here, but) my personal take is that totk shouldn't have been a sequel game, especially because Nintendo doesn't like to concern themselves with the continuity between games that a direct sequel like this just needs. With some tweaking/set up/rewriting, totk could have worked as a stand-alone story, and then they wouldn't have had to take away from what botw achieved in the name of making it more approachable to new players.

And yeah, I didn't hate it either! I liked the gameplay and the weapons system and the feeling of stakes whenever you entered a new town and saw how things had all gone to shit. Loved the wells. I just think it was too eager to pretend botw didn't exist while at the same time leaning on it so heavily that it would fall to pieces if you tried to extract the botw out of it :P

"literary/art analysis is stupid and pretentious and dumb and useless what if the curtains are just blue" who cares? pulling meaning out of a narrative or creating your own interpretation is fun

thank you for being #1 lancer fan the world needs more lancer fans

Ho ho ho, of course!! Lancer is CRIMINALLY underrated I tell you, kid deserves WAY more attention than he currently gets

Glad to see another Lancer fan pop in <3!

raise ur hand if u have scrapped every single gameplay u have ever tried to post on this website 🙋🏻‍♀️

I don’t think I’ll ever truly be over the fact that the mirrors throughout Headspace are adorned with a white egret orchid’s petals.

It’s the warmer side of “My thoughts will follow you into your dreams,” and not simply a reminder of Sunny’s guilt and Basil’s sense of loss. Because when that sentiment sits atop the mirror that continuously displays the message “your friends smile warmly behind you,” it’s gentler. More like...

“My thoughts will follow you into your dreams, and I’ll always be the friend who smiles warmly behind you.”

This is probably a wildly unpopular thing to say, but I see chatter and takes concerning Hyrule and the Hylians and Hylia where the fandom dissects them as white European, or more often British coded. I've seen it be argued that this is because of surface level European (like Greco-Roman and Celtic) aesthetics are commonly used for them, though these are pretty shallow wrapping paper at best in game. Not that similarities can't be drawn! I'm saying this with all my Irish distaste for Britain! But it seems to be more of a symptom of ignorance or unfamiliarity with Japanese culture and history, and its own tilt at Imperialism.

Which I get! The average Western Fan's closest touchstone to Imperialism is likely Britain.

But Hyrule represents Japan. It's narrative is deeply rooted in Japanese Shinto beliefs regarding the relationship between man, nature and spirits-- including spiritual purity and impurity-- as derived from Buddhist concepts. Hylians are a fantasy race of elves who are Japanese coded, their Royal Family and Imperial structure and attitudes reflect a Japanese Nationalism that is deeply tied to Shinto. Hylia reflects aspects of the Goddess Amaterasu and her role as a progenitor of Emperors in Japanese myth.

I fully understand that many criticisms that apply also pertain to British Imperialism and their own Divine Hegemony, which is valid. But I think it's also falling short to critique and dissect the meta and intention behind this franchise without bothering to have the context of Japanese beliefs and history, and without bothering to really seek it out.

JP Imperialism formed as a response to the Western encroach and their subsequent focus on forced unification of the east in order to defend against it is deeply reflected in how Hyrule operates. The localisation of games like SkSw and TotK have wildly missed their mark in the impression that they give of certain concepts to especially the North American audience, and entire concepts and references to cultural beliefs and history (and what they might imply within game) are simply invisible to many who do not have that context to connect back to.

And I'm not trying to say that what anybody takes from the story they personally received isn't a valid impression based on their own experience with the games and media around them. There are many interpretations and themes that you can take away and play with.

But I don't think that saying Hylians are just white people coded or following Christianised themes or 'basically Britain' and calling it a day is quite good enough if you want to meaningfully and accurately discuss and dissect the narrative and intent of the Zelda franchise. Being able to critically read it with both external and Japanese context is really important in having the full conversation about what it reflects on real world history, religiosity and nuance.

Need low stakes DLC Psychonauts 2 levels in, at this point, anyone’s mind. Fuck shit up and kick ass in the interns brains? Hell yeah. Otto? Sasha round 2? Milla round 2? ANY Aquato? I’d eat it up om nom nom. I’m begging. As a treat for me please.

I've seen people recently saying that 3H is the Fire Emblem equivalent of Persona 5 but I don't think they really have much in common aside from being my least favorite games in their respective series.

i dunno if youve ever played or know anything about persona five, but the bit thats relevant is that the main character of that seems to have an. interesting relationship with his parents. like he gets sent to juvie for something he didnt do, gets sent to tokyo on parole, and throughout the entirety of the game you do not hear from his parents Once. not a single time do they call him, text, email, nothing. and hes there for almost a full year working odd jobs (and also plot stuff but yk)

all this to say i feel like thats. the kind of relationship hajime had with his parents. they were his parents and they provided food and shelter and sent him to school but. i feel like they just didnt have much of a relationship with him. and didnt care enough to have one. like not necessarily to the point of neglect but they probably worked a lot and werent home very often and when they were home they just. didnt really interact with him. maybe there was even some ingrained disappointment towards him for not having a talent and just being normal? like you said, hajime’s love for talent probably came at least partially from home. but no matter what he did they just never really paid much attention to him or involved themselves in his life. probably took a while for them to even really notice that hed been gone longer than Hopes Peak had implied he would be

i mean he like. Never mentions them in game. they dont come up Once. i think he mentions a grandfather in the country? but. idr if thats in game or in the anime. but like most of the others mention their home lives at least a little even if its in coded language like peko because of. the stuff. he doesnt really ever

thats just my two cents but i dunno. makes me sad to think abt how lonely he was

Yeah I agree, not based in anything but vibes and personal ideas but i think their relationship was like .... bland? Just sort of going through the motions, no neglect or abuse and on paper they're doing fine but there just isn't a strong connection there. I dont think they would have not noticed him being gone, but they weren't as passionate about getting him back as one might have assumed they'd be.

the way the dmlx 3hopes supports end makes me scream and cry etc. like it’s crazy that they ended w The Carrying Scene in the first place but actually for real it is Crazy that it LITERALLY ended w felix carrying dimitri. like that is THE perfect end to their support arc here. felix reaches out to him over & over the entire game trying to help/get through to him………

(^ thank u felix for clearly stating ur thesis statement almost immediately in the B support)

and then of course the king awakens cutscene where felix is the one to actually physically reach out to dimitri in fhirdiad. esp in that scene DIMITRI is the one to turn away—literally every time felix reaches out to him he just does not get what he’s saying & turns him down bc he thinks he’s responsible for fixing everything alone. so for their support chain to end with dimitri ALLOWING felix to literally physically carry him to bed is just so so so so so good and significant and perfect it makes me unwell

(Some people will kill me for this) I watched Neon Genesis Eva back in 2021-ish and the more I think about the show the worse the show gets, I think its a very pretty show, Especially with the strain the animators were put under. But the character writing is pretty awful regarding all of the women in the show, and even disregarding misogyny as a element (Which it IS) The show builds so much momentum just to do nothing with it, This show has a lot of potential it throws away to focus on asuka or whoever shoving her ass in the camera. The themes of human connection are surface level at the best and misguided especially for a audience of 14 year olds at the worst.

Its such a mixed bag I enjoy talking about mostly cause I can find no one who agrees with me, half of the people I encounter just enjoy the cool art anyway and I can get behind that, I just find it impossible to ignore the many many issues with the writing.

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talking to a friend who didn't vibe with TTPD and said she can't get over the Matty of it all and the album gives her the ick and she isn't enjoying it and I'm just like... I respect that and you feel what you feel and shouldn't apologize for it... but I'm glad that after the initial 😵‍💫 of it all I was quickly able to appreciate the music for music's sake and the story being told because I find the album beautiful lyrically and sonically and narratively.

Type of person who says "I think my lipstick would look soooooo good on you!", gives you a kiss on the cheek, declares their lipstick looks fantastic on you and they'd like to see it on you more often, then breezes on by all those mixed signals to continue on with whatever was at hand.

Once I started treating small talk as a bid for connection and stopped treating it as some sort of tedious social expectation, life got a lot easier for me.

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