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gloriousmonsters · 5 months

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Mememememe I want to see

please enjoy a selection from you're on a path in the desert, chapter 2: 'The Ancient', brought about by wondering what ganondorf's motivation is and being honest and brash enough he kind of likes you and is like 'sorry, kid' while murdering you to attempt a breakout in the first chapter. narrated by Zelda, starring Link and Ganondorf.

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You're on a path in the desert. Or... it's more of a beach, isn't it? You can hear the sea. Small crabs scuttle and hide among rocks smoothed by eons of lapping waves; the pristine sands glitter, here and there, with old coins and jewels set in tarnished metal. Pirate treasures, as if a ship was wrecked here long ago. A lonely blue sky arches high above, unmarred by a single cloud. A path of scattered white rocks, like sun-bleached bones, lead toward the edge of the water. At the end of this path, a man with evil eyes is imprisoned. A king. You, hero, must slay him; or it will be the end of the world.

Voice of the Curious: He didn't seem that bad!

- Yeah, he wasn't as bad as she hyped him up to be.

- Bad? He was very bad! I'm completely on board with the 'slaying' thing now.

- Hang on, how are we here? Didn't we die?

> I see what you mean, but he did very much kill us. That was a thing that happened.

Voice of the Curious: I guess, but he was so... sad. He just wanted to escape. He seemed like he'd been there for a really long time.

> He did.

Excuse me, who's this? And what are you saying about dying? Please don't tell me—

Voice of the Curious : We died and we came back to life!

- More or less.

- I died and it was terrifying and now I'm me and also this other part of me and they're both me and I don't know how that works or what's going on and I'm going to start crying probably

> This isn't the first time we've been here. Your 'man with the evil eyes' was the one that killed me, not the other way around.

He's not mine, and... It wouldn't be the same, the other way around. You need to slay him, not kill him.

- I get it. I'm a human, and he's a monster.

> Semantics.

Very important ones. Listen to me, hero. I hoped that this wouldn't happen, and I didn't want to scare you with the possibility. But please believe me—we're walking a fine line, now. All is not lost, but every failure widens his chance at escape.

Voice of the Curious: Really?

I do not like how you said that. This... voice, whatever it is, it seems very young. Don't let naivety influence you, hero. One failure means he's already found a chink in your armor—it is even more imperative you keep your guard up. Whatever he said, whatever he did, put it out of your mind. Focus on this. He is evil, and he will destroy everything if he escapes. You are the hero, the only one with the power to stop him. I—everything depends on you.

Voice of the Curious : That's a lot of pressure...

- I love pressure.

- I hate pressure.

> Are you really sure I can do this?

Yes. You’re the only one that can.

Voice of the Curious: Wow, she sounds... so serious. I don't know if I trust her, but I think she likes you.

Ha. That's... You matter a great deal to me. By definition, of course. You’re the hero, you matter to everyone. But we don't have time to sit here and talk about our feelings, whatever they might be. Your quest is the same, hero. It's time to go forward.

> (proceed to the prison)

N: At the edge of the water, the path of rocks continue—for a little while. Soon they're fewer and farther between, and in their place are footholds of debris, half-rotted hulls of wood, old chests rammed up on some invisible sandbank below the water. There have been many wrecks here, and as you pick your way forward, you see the largest of them up ahead. Splintered and broken, its massive hull impaled on the tall and jagged rocks that rise from the hidden seabed, like towers of some sunken castle. The rest of it is remarkably intact, but it looks ancient. Weathered, by years that have sapped color from cloth and wood and leached memory from material. Every detail blurred. The figurehead is faceless, nearly formless, like the... like the image of a loved one long forgotten.

> Are you all right?

Your path ends—or rather, takes a new form—at the side of the wreck. An old rope ladder leads up the barnacle-encrusted side. The old wood creaks as you ascend, but even that sound is... muted. This ship isn't just wrecked, it's becalmed. The muting of that sound makes you acutely aware of the absence of others. No birds cry in the sky; no fish splash in the water. The land behind you is already lost in a hazy fog. This is a lonely place.

Voice of the Curious: She's making it sound so depressing. It's sad, but it's also sort of cool, right? It's like an old pirate ship! It doesn't feel like a prison, it feels like... like a hideout!

Please be quiet. It's a prison. It might look... odd, but it's a prison.

Voice of the Curious : Do you think there's treasure?

...No.

Voice of the Curious: ...You want there to be treasure too, right?

I'm not interested. We have a very important job to do. To your left, across the weathered deck, a door leads to the fo'c'sle. It's not locked, but it's encrusted with barnacles, warped in its frame. Beside it, a sword is embedded in the wall, as if left there after a battle long ago. It gleams with its own light—

Voice of the Curious: It's not glowing, though. It's just a sword.

It's not—but... Ah. Yes. Well, it doesn't need to glow, does it? It's the hero's sword. It's made to kill evildoers and monsters. It's meant for your hand, and your hand alone. Take up the sword, hero. You'll need it if you want to save us all.

- But it's not glowing. Didn't you say it was important it glowed?

- What if I don't want to save everyone?

> take up the sword

- don't take up the sword

Sword in hand, you force open the door, rusted hinges screeching as you shove your whole body's weight against it. Before you is a sheer drop, lightless, only the first few feet visible in the foggy sunlight that filters past your shoulders. A rope ladder hangs over the ledge at your feet, vanishing into shadow. The air is musty, damp, and smells of moldering spice and rotting silk, wood permeated with gunsmoke and worried by the icy teeth of the ocean over the course of centuries. If this is the prison the king's been confined in, killing him will be a mercy.

His voice echoes up from the darkness, tired but commanding.

The King: I knew you'd return. Come here, boy. Let us speak face to face.

Voice of the Curious: He remembers us! And he sounds... older. I mean, he was already older than us. But he sounds much older now.

Of course he's old, he's been in prison for a long time. Don't dwell on it or wonder about it, the more time and thought you give him the more dangerous he is. Just get down there and accomplish your quest.

> proceed down the 'stairs'

After what feels like half an hour of nerve-wracking descent, feeling for foot and hand-holds in the darkness, light begins to bloom below you. When you come to the bottom, a few minutes later, you find yourself facing another door—this one richly carved wood, remarkably well-preserved considering the state of the ship. It's hard to make out much in the light filtering through the cracks around it, but you can see intricate, geometric patterns, and the snarling face of a boarlike beast carved huge in the very center.

Voice of the Curious: What—

You waste no time fooling around and asking questions, and open the door. Striding within, you find yourself confronted with a surprisingly lavish room, dimly lit by old oil-lamps. Rich rugs cover the floor; a huge bed stands in the back of the room, partly hidden by curtains, and a huge desk carved with intricate details dominates another side of the room. Tapestries, paintings and maps nearly cover the walls, save for a section that seems dedicated to a number of weapons—at a glance you see twin swords and a trident. Everything feels a little... oversized, as if you're a child venturing into the room of an adult. When you look closer, you can see signs of wear and age—cracking paint, books with pages puffed by soaking and drying out, scratches in the fine wood and dust on the tapestries—but the overall effect is still opulent, overwhelming. This feels right for a prison meant to confine a king; it would be suitable for an emperor, confined to his office by the new regime, allowed to keep a pretense of dignity.

But across the room from you, there's a strangely bare section of the wall, interrupted by only two things: A porthole filled more by spiderwebbing cracks than glass, showing only blank darkness, and the King, who stands tall and studies you thoughtfully with pale gold eyes.

The King: You approach me, yet again, with your blade in hand. Interesting.

He's a big man, broad and heavy, a physique that might impress as brutish or sedentary if not for the way he holds himself. Straight-backed, imperious, with a hint of a fighter's grace in the way his stance shifts as his eyes track the step you take forward. There's no gray in his hair, or deep wrinkles on his face, but something about him gives an impression of great age and greater weariness. His face is craggy, but his eyes are delicately lined with black; he wears a topaz on his brow, and fine robes that inspire ideas of entrenched and confident authority. As he seems to reach an internal resolution in his appraisal of you, his teeth bare in what is hard to determine as a mocking smile or a grimace of pain.

The King: I suppose that if you try to kill me this time, it will only be fair. But I'd rather we talk.

Voice of the Curious: Ooh, talk! Yes! I want to know what's going on! Just, um, maybe we should stay at a distance.

Remember what you're here for. Don't listen to him, or him. Please, hero. Kill him now.

- slay the king

- kill him?

- You killed me last time, I'd like an apology before we do anything else.

> All right. Let's talk.

#ganondorf #loz link #loz zelda #slay the princess #as in an au in the style of #wind waker #(essentially i mean obv this is the Wind Waker chapter and VoC is wind waker link tho i might tweak him)#and yes my idea is that the 2nd chapter ganondorfs are mainly based off his different game portrayals #(although i figure just 'ganon'/beast form at the very least might be a chapter 3)#i have so many vague ideas tho... like i'm debating whether i'd want to have a Damsel-esque based off the idea of 'nice' ganondorf #where he's totally defanged and like a happy jock #or lean into the dehumanization element of TotK as being equivalent to the Damsel.. sort of combining it and a more negative take #on the Adversary - not a cardboard cutout LI but a cardboard cutout villain #pretty and threatening with 0 cohesion or depth below the surface #probably netted by wholeheartedly believing Zelda's narration and leaning into your own 'hero' identity in your first encounter #...maybe if you make a bid for compassion/depth even in the face of that you get TP ganondorf?#the mocking warlord who's surrounded by hints of deeper history and context?#ok i'll stop now.#it's an old song and we're gonna sing it again #vic talks #LoZ

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yuelun · 10 months

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/takes a little breath amidst a quiet dash. Starter call!

Though I have threads/asks to get to, I'm curious if one of these would catch anyone's attention. I know sending in sentence starters isn't always up everyone's alley and it's a little harder when it comes to interacting with a character who's canonically dead in present day, like mine. Although (I need to write up the details for the first iteration of it) I do have her resurrected in a present timeline (see tags). If you're interested in me either coming to you, or fishing up something with a bit of a red line, give this a like and I'll see what I can do! Trust me when I say, if we're mutuals, I'm interested in writing with you. See this as a little cheat to grab my attention if you want it!

#[ so i've simply been dying to get her in a modern setting /without/ changing the course of events. ]#[ so while i need to refine the details and the circumstances may differ down the line-- it won't affect interact with most of you-- ]#[ as i heavily tie guizhong to the moon/night due to too many references to it in her attire and symbolisms alike... ]#[ and also to the chasm and its origins-- that's a whole other hc. ]#[ i've decided the first iteration of resurrecting her to simply be based within the concept that the gods never quite die... ]#[ because the elements that they're tied to never do either. they're not 'personifications' by any means-- but they're a part of. ]#[ they can manifest into a corporeal form and in the same way; that form can be broken and destroyed. ]#[ and it weakens them immensely; a much more severe form of osial being 'restrained'/locked away for thousands of years. ]#[ i envision that they can't simply reform. but they could over-time. or at least when 'stars align' of sorts. ]#[ when their element is at its strongest and can gather elemental energy from /somewhere/. ]#[ so /after/ the events of the game thus far-- during moonchase; on the night when the moon is at its fullest... ]#[ and at its apex. it's shining less brightly than it normally is-- and it's because it's being used as a battery of sorts. ]#[ you know all of the dust above cuejiue slope? that cloud of dust moves towards the cliff by the harbor-- by that sole glaze lily. ]#[ and dust from across liyue and possibly even teyvat-- slowly gathers. it would look like a shadow from afar. ]#[ and it gathers and along with the energy that the moon supplies that night; when everything falls into place... ]#[ it allows her to regain her corporeal form as it existed prior. ]#[ this is after 'rex lapis' has stepped down and retreats from his position as archon of liyue. ]#[ she doesn't step in by any means whatsoever-- her re-manifestation is actually (in my verse) witnessed by him from afar. ]#[ and then witnesses it up close as she finally forms after a long time of this process. ]#[ she wouldn't go by 'guizhong' except by adepti who remember; but she might go by haagentus. at least initially. ]#[ /breathes. hi. hello. i'm sae and i'm a mess of an individual-- pls come here and don't leave me despite it. ]#[ ooc. ] wherever her spirit may be among the countless grains of sand and specks of dust between the harbor and the mountains…

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kayzero · 4 months

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in the spaces between not working on zwg and not finishing brother’s burden, i’ve been, uh…

thinking about something new.

#kay original #game development #kay rambles in the tags #Peccatum #Peccatum: Small Town Heroes #name is a work in progress. as most things are.#you can ask me about this project and the ocs i’ve half-imagined if you want to know more about them #but i’m not at the ‘‘ask me about my setting so i can figure stuff out’’ stage yet.#i do know that it’s an rpg. a LONG one too. and it’ll be mission-based kiiinda like FE3H? but not really?#9 party members. each of them have different elemental alignments and each represent a different Game Stat.#everyone has 1 Best stat—2 Great Stats—3 Good Stats—and 2 Poor Stats—and then the ninth stat is a fixed value #i know that two party members are trans. another two members—including the Box Art Protagonist—are disabled #along with the machine party member there is a Dragon who spends most of their time in bipedal form #there is a Fae who spends a large majority of the story hiding the fact that they are in truth a Fae #one of the party members was experimented on as a child and is now part Monster but they repressed the memory so they have no idea #i came up with a shared MP system that has actual story reasons for existing—and it’s gonna be a pain in the ass to code…#i want a relationship system a la Persona except EVERY party member gets a relationship and not just The Protagonist #every party member will have a relationship gauge with every other party member (i guess this is Fire Emblem?)#and then everyone will have a relationship with an NPC that’s unique and exclusive to them #and then they get four relationships with members of the town that you see frequently as you wander around #but it’s a Small Town remember. so the party has to share. there are four categories with three townspeople each so three party members will #have a relationship with each townsperson. but the relationships will be different because the characters aren’t carbon copies of each other #not. not romantic relationships. like friendships and rivalries and sex buddies and apprenticeships and. possibly also romance? mm.#i have to. learn how to code. idk if RPGMaker has a relationship system so i’ll have to figure something else out. maybe RP as a currency...

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tastycitrus · 2 months

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who knew all horus had to do to become strong was put on a swimsuit

#granblue fantasy #me back when i was farming ennead: lol horus is so easy...whose idea was it to make all her triggers CA based in the CA spam element #me now to horus: i owe you an apology...i was not familiar with your game #what are they going to do with regular horus though if summer horus is already light and this strong #i think it would be weird for her to be a different element when she's the light ennead raid #but like. it would be problematic if her base form was in the same element as her summer variant #as you know. you can't have two of one character in one team #either she powercreeps her summer alt or she's worse and the latter is like. lol. lmao even

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euphor1a · 3 months

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OMG A COMEBACK TO THIS GAME? LET'S GO! 🎧🎧🎧

LISSIE HELLO 😁😁!!! yessssss a comeback hehe, wanted to reblog an ask game but didn’t find any that made me interested 🙃, so, decided to bring this one back!! Had a ton of fun doing this last time and this time is no exception 🤠💕

send me a 🎧 and i’ll assign your blog a song i like, based on the vibes/aes! <3

#📬; aleyna’s mailbox #🍶; ask games!#🧚🏼‍♂️; mutuals!#lissie 🪐#writingmochi #🤔🤔 hm well... it took me some time to decide on your songs #but i think all them carry a sort of cyber sound #(based on your mobile layout!! i already gave you space themed ones so had to disregard your desktop theme)#all of them have different vibes though a bit #but they can be associated with your blog layout and your writings!#idk all three had elements that made me draw the correlation aksfhdfhg #hope you like them <33 #thank you for sending in ^^

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starsandthorn · 3 months

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read through alien space for star rail context and every frame himeko's in you can faintly hear me in the bg trying hard not to think about how much she looks like diluc

#personal stuff #delete later #remembering the reason i got into honkai in the first place was to see what similarities genshin might have inherited #and going oh yeah!! this is fun actually #anyway yeah. woe same hair color bangs and art style be upon ye. the little hair loopy is driving me crazy #don't get me started on the red eye that pepper mint has contrasted to the delusion. good night #the manga itself was really interesting though! i haven't read a whole lot of the honkai manga bc i don't know where to start really #like i've read azure waters bc i love my girl. and second key for gay people lore #but i haven't read any of the others i don't think #also REALLY funny to me who didn't finish apho 2. originally i thought welt's star rail experience was an isekai.#i honest to god thought void archives hit him with a train and he woke up on a different train #while funny. the actual reality has me head in hands. the image of star rail himeko that welt sees and recognizes her.....auuuugh.#and the very person who rescues him is the person he feels like he did wrong by lying to her. agh.#but yeah! i only knew a little bit abt himeko's dad based on what we're told early in game #so i originally speculated that genshin murata's father was the og pyro archon who died and she took his place #but now i'm not entirely sure.#chances are. since we've seen archons inherit the same Ideal along with their element. murata probably fought her predecessor #and took their place #ACTUALLY FUCK ME. WAIT.#LIBEN'S LINE ABOUT NATLAN . WAS HIM TALKING ABOUT OTHER WORLDS.#at first i thought it was just a cheap way for the developers to talk about their other new game and maybe it was BUT ALSO.#AND AT LEAST ONE MURATA WAS OBSESSED WITH GOING TO SPACE.#HMMMM #listen i am not all that excited for natlan purely on the basis that i know mhy is going to fuck up every character design #but plotwise maybe i am allowed a little bit of hope. lol #anyway void archives pretty. i get it now.

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deepseacityunderground · 3 months

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i forget how fun the battle and social mechanics in pokepark 2 are....

#i always wonder why they didnt make a third entry in this series #well. i know they didnt because it didnt sell very well. but still #with a bit of tweaking and a removal of some of the more annoying motion based features inherent to being a wii game #and we could have gotten a really cool exploration of pokemon battling in a 3d non-turn based space #with an animal crossing-style social simulation element #i guess pokken fills that niche but its significantly different in scope and mechanics

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literaryspinster · 5 months

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Yes I've read Battle Royale, yes I think it's better than the Hunger Games, no I don't think that means that The Hunger Games has no reason to exist.

#battle royale #the hunger games #the base concepts are the same #the worldbuilding details and the characters are very different #they're both valid #istg some people act like two similar concepts have never coexisted before #i wish you would have had this energy for fables and once upon a time #even though fables was a comic and ouat was a tv show #but if we're talking books how many thousands of thrillers and romance novels have almost identical storylines at the surface?#personally i think what made battle royale more compelling was the fact that the kids all knew each other #whereas the focus on image and celebrity and the heavy sci fi elements were what set thg apart

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red-dragon-archfiend · 1 year

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Another Pokemon hot take for you: Charizard receiving two separate Mega forms in gen 6 was a blatant attempt to sell more merchandise and get people hyped for gen 6 after gen 5 was a relative failure, but the results did make Charizard actually really cool as a competitive Pokemon and both forms look sick

#musings #pokemon #dragons #like if any kanto starter was going to get two megas charizard makes the most sense because it's the most flexible #it has the widest movepool and historically has specialized in both attack and special attack depending on your build #personally i think venusaur and blastoise should have gotten two megas as well #a grass/fairy mega venusaur designed as a special sweeper and a water/steel mega blastoise designed as a defensive wall would both be cool #i think this is better than getting rid of one of the mega charizards because charizard having two megas adds a mind game element to it #predicting which charizard your opponent is using based on the rest of their team is a really cool dynamic #and also there's that one time a player in a championship brought a mega charizard x plush with him to battles #while he was using mega charizard y #he used an actual plushie to fool his opponent into planning around the wrong charizard #that's so funny to me #i also appreciate both mega charizards individually because they're both really cool and strong in different ways #mega charizard x is a fire/dragon type giving it the coolest type combination in the game #which is also a very strong one offense-wise #flare blitz and dragon claw or outrage give it excellent coverage #very few things resist both and stab + tough claws make both attacks hit like a truck #it only really needs those so it can run dragon dance for setting up (which is also cool) and roost for recovery #you can even run a tank version that uses will-o-wisp and invests in defense #mega charizard y meanwhile is more like classic charizard but it has drought #which makes its flamethrower incredibly powerful and lets it use solar beam effectively #and anybody who uses fire types often knows how much they appreciate having grass type moves in the team #solar beam plus drought means that mega charizard y actually has a good matchup against most water types #which is totally weird for it #but yeah point is charizard is actually really neat from a competitive standpoint

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the-busy-ghost · 2 years

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Something comforting to think about today- there are lots of people in the world who hate, loathe, and despise my favourite books

That doesn’t sound like it should be comforting because of course at heart I want everyone to love them as much as I do. And it does annoy me when people hate books based on what I sincerely believe to be a complete misinterpretation of them (cough-cough, the recent “Wuthering Heights is just a silly problematic romance novel” issue). But if I’m being honest I also hate it just as much when people LOVE my favourite books based on a complete misinterpretation of them and for all the wrong reasons (”XXX did nothing wrong!”- what book were you reading???). And in either situation it isn’t really my business, though I reserve the right to be irritated.

But lots of people have valid criticisms of these books. Others simply didn’t vibe with the book on a given day and maybe never will- they don’t owe me or anyone else a reason. And I may not agree with them, but I do like it when I can completely understand why some people don’t like these books. For example, I think “Middlemarch” is one of the greatest novels I’ve ever read but for other people, it’s just not for them! They simply enjoy a very different kind of book, or they were disappointed that it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, or they couldn’t understand the characters, or it just wasn’t the right time for that book to come into their lives, or it was just too damn long for them.

And firstly I find that comforting because it shows that we’re all different souls. We all have different tastes and experiences, and that means that our favourite books actually MEAN something to us, rather than just being a Generic Important Book That Everyone Likes. And often the reasons why one book is my favourite, are very different to the reasons that they are someone else’s favourite- the best books are multi-faceted after all. It’s a wonderful testament to the diversity of human experience and creativity (because in my opinion, there’s a great deal of the reader’s own imaginative ability goes into engaging with a book). So all that is required is for people to be open-minded and assume that when someone says they love a book, they have their own reasons, and these might not even be the reasons you think.

And secondly of course, is that if even the books that I think are the best thing to exist, a physical symbol of worldly greatness, aspiration embodied, don’t appeal to everyone- then the things I create in turn don’t need to either. If even the greatest authors have harsh critics who will simply NEVER like their work, why are we all worrying so much about the merest hint of rejection, in life as much as in art?

#I talk a good game of course rejection is still very painful for me #And note valid constructive criticism is a different thing from rejection but if people's books can survive completely dumbass rejection #Based on complete misreading of the situation I think I can survive someone not liking me #books #reading #booklr #Also constructive criticism of my favourite books is good because it means I get to go back think it over #Argue it through in my head; point out other passages of the book in defence of it #And STILL come out of it loving the book possibly even more because it's drawn my attention to things I didn't realise about it #And sometimes I can't answer them fully either and that's ok too #Sometimes I've had the same thought as a novel's detractors and they've drawn attention to it #For example I was wondering at the end of Wuthering Heights why Heathcliff bothered keeping Nellie around #Why didn't he just send her packing rather than continuing to employ her at Thrushcross Grange #And I have lots of ideas but none of them quite stick yet #One is that she's possibly an unreliable narrator so she may- against her better judgement- have helped him more than she likes to admit #Another is that he is labouring under the impression that he can control her and so keeps her around in case he needs to use her influence #A third is that he needs a witness- there's some element of performativity in his cruelty and SOMEONE needs to see him destroy things #But I also like the idea that the four of them are all siblings really #Nelly- though she has a mother and other family at home- spent much of her youth at Wuthering Heights #And describes herself as Hindley's foster sibling in the sense that her mother was his nurse (a powerful bond in the pre-modern era btw)#So really she's as much one of the Wuthering Heights Nest as the lot of them #Heathcliff doesn't have as much reason to despise her as Hindley nor does he have so much reason to love her as Cathy #But she's still a sibling of sorts and maybe Heathcliff- whether he recognises it or not- sense that she has a right to be there #He doesn't seem like someone who needs a family but then maybe he's not as in control of the Heights as he thinks he is #I really don't know yet I will have to reread it #But yeah I think Nelly is as much a part of that nest of trouble as the rest of them #I'm getting off topic though- but see what I mean about negative criticism being important and fascinating!#Ok so I keep finding my way back to Wuthering Heights a lot over the last few weeks but this applies to othe rbooks too #I had similar feelings about some of teh criticisms of Flemington #reading log

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majimassqueaktoy · 1 year

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When I went to start playing the series I was just like "well 0 takes place first so I'll start with that then do the rest in order". Personally I just don't understand why some people are like "no it has to be *insert ridiculous order here*" when like we know the chronological order of the games. Kiryu, Daigo and the jimas appearing in 7 wouldn't be the same if you hadn't played the previous games. 0 adds to Nishiki's story in K1. Stuff like that.

Yeah, 100% especially Nishiki- seeing him and Kiryu's friendship in 0 and then seeing it fall apart in yk1 is easily the most compelling part of the game outside of Kiryu and Haruka meeting and bonding, even with the addition of the scenes showing Nishiki crack under the pressure it still wouldn't hit as hard without seeing all that came before.

#see if Nishiki wasnt the main antagonist of 1 then I could see kinda see playing 0 after playing the first 5 games #because it could be cool to go back and see Kiryu and Majima young and learn their backstory #*Could be*#like in theory #but overall Im glad i started on 0 with no knowledge of the later games bc it just hit different #I cant earnestly say I would have followed the series through without 0 anchoring me to begin #but yeah the nishiki element is why im like nah. no. play 0 first. play yk1. cry.#lmao #ask #like wrecking first timers to play 7 is funny to me too #bc if you like turn based its fine but id youre like me and turn based is painful then thats HORRID advice #scare me off the other games lmao

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vaspider · 5 months

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In defense of retellings & reimaginings

I'm not going to respond to the post that sparked this, because honestly, I don't really feel like getting in an argument, and because it's only vaguely even about the particular story that the other post discussed. The post in question objected to retellings of the Rape of Persephone which changed important elements of the story -- specifically, Persephone's level of agency, whether she was kidnapped, whether she ate seeds out of hunger, and so on. It is permissible, according to this thesis, to 'fill in empty spaces,' but not to change story elements, because 'those were important to the original tellers.' (These are acknowledged paraphrases, and I will launch you into the sun if you nitpick this paragraph.)

I understand why to the person writing that, that perspective is important, and why they -- especially as a self-described devotee of Persephone -- feel like they should proscribe boundaries around the myth. It's a perfectly valid perspective to use when sorting -- for example -- which things you choose to read. If you choose not to read anything which changes the elements which you feel are important, I applaud you.

However, the idea that one should only 'color in missing pieces,' especially when dealing with stories as old, multi-sourced, and fractional as ancient myths, and doing so with the argument that you shouldn't change things because those base elements were important to the people who originally crafted the stories, misses -- in my opinion -- the fundamental reason we tell stories and create myths in the first place.

Forgive me as I get super fucking nerdy about this. I've spent the last several years of my life wrestling with the concept of myths as storytelling devices, universality of myths, and why myths are even important at all as part of writing on something like a dozen books (a bunch of which aren't out yet) for a game centered around mythology. A lot of the stuff I've written has had to wrestle with exactly this concept -- that there is a Sacred Canon which cannot be disrupted, and that any disregard of [specific story elements] is an inexcusable betrayal.

Myths are stories we tell ourselves to understand who we are and what's important to us as individuals, as social groups, and as a society. The elements we utilize or change, those things we choose to include and exclude when telling and retelling a story, tell us what's important to us.

I could sit down and argue over the specific details which change over the -- at minimum -- 1700 years where Persephone/Kore/Proserpina was actively worshiped in Greek and Roman mystery cults, but I actually don't think those variations in specific are very important. What I think is important, however, is both the duration of her cults -- at minimum from 1500 BCE to 200CE -- and the concept that myths are stories we tell ourselves to understand who we are and what's important to us.

The idea that there was one, or even a small handful, of things that were most important to even a large swath of the people who 'originally' told the store of the Rape of Persephone or any other 'foundational' myth of what is broadly considered 'Western Culture,' when those myths were told and retold in active cultic worship for 1700 years... that seems kind of absurd to me on its face. Do we have the same broad cultural values as the original tellers of Beowulf, which is only (heh) between 1k-1.3k years old? How different are our marital traditions, our family traditions, and even our language? We can, at best, make broad statements, and of inclusive necessity, those statements must be broad enough as to lose incredible amounts of specificity. In order to make definitive, specific statements, we must leave out large swaths of the people to whom this story, or any like it, was important.

To move away from the specific story brought up by the poster whose words spun this off, because it really isn't about that story in particular, let's use The Matter of Britain/Arthuriana as our framing for the rest of this discussion. If you ask a random nerd on Tumblr, they'd probably cite a handful of story elements as essential -- though of course which ones they find most essential undoubtedly vary from nerd to nerd -- from the concept that Camelot Always Falls to Gawain and the Green Knight, Percival and the grail, Lancelot and Guinevere...

... but Lancelot/Guinevere and Percival are from Chrétien de Troyes in the 12th century, some ~500 years after Taliesin's first verses. Lancelot doesn't appear as a main character at all before de Troyes, and we can only potentially link him to characters from an 11th century story (Culhwch and Olwen) for which we don't have any extant manuscripts before the 15th century. Gawain's various roles in his numerous appearances are... conflicting characterizations at best.

The point here is not just that 'the things you think are essential parts of the story are not necessarily original,' or that 'there are a lot of different versions of this story over the centuries,' but also 'what you think of as essential is going to come back to that first thesis statement above.' What you find important about The Matter of Britain, and which story elements you think can be altered, filed off or filled in, will depend on what that story needs to tell you about yourself and what's important to you.

Does creating a new incarnation of Arthur in which she is a diasporic lesbian in outer space ruin a story originally about Welsh national identity and chivalric love? Does that disrespect the original stories? How about if Arthur is a 13th century Italian Jew? Does it disrespect the original stories if the author draws deliberate parallels between the seduction of Igerne and the story of David and Bathsheba?

Well. That depends on what's important to you.

Insisting that the core elements of a myth -- whichever elements you believe those to be -- must remain static essentially means 'I want this myth to stagnate and die.' Maybe it's because I am Jewish, and we constantly re-evaluate every word in Torah, over and over again, every single year, or maybe it's because I spend way, way too much time thinking about what's valuable in stories specifically because I write words about these concepts for money, but I don't find these arguments compelling at all, especially not when it comes to core, 'mainstream' mythologies. These are tools in the common toolbox, and everybody has access to them.

More important to me than the idea that these core elements of any given story must remain constant is, to paraphrase Dolly Parton, that a story knows what it is and does it on purpose. Should authors present retellings or reimaginings of the Rape of Persephone or The Matter of Britain which significantly alter historically-known story elements as 'uncovered' myths or present them as 'the real and original' story? Absolutely not. If someone handed me a book in which the new Grail was a limited edition Macklemore Taco Bell Baja Blast cup and told me this comes directly from recently-discovered 6th century writings of Taliesin, I would bonk them on the head with my hardcover The Once & Future King. Of course that's not the case, right?

But the concept of canon, historically, in these foundational myths has not been anything like our concept of canon today. Canon should function like a properly-fitted corset, in that it should support, not constrict, the breath in the story's lungs. If it does otherwise, authors should feel free to discard it in part or in whole.

Concepts of familial duty and the obligation of marriage don't necessarily resonate with modern audiences the way that the concept of self-determination, subversion of unreasonable and unjustified authority, and consent do. That is not what we, as a general society, value now. If the latter values are the values important to the author -- the story that the author needs to tell in order to express who they are individually and culturally and what values are important to them* -- then of course they should retell the story with those changed values. That is the point of myths, and always has been.

Common threads remain -- many of us move away from family support regardless of the consent involved in our relationships, and life can be terrifying when you're suddenly out of the immediate reach and support of your family -- because no matter how different some values are, essential human elements remain in every story. It's scary to be away from your mother for the first time. It's scary to live with someone new, in a new place. It's intimidating to find out that other people think you have a Purpose in life that you need to fulfill. It's hard to negotiate between the needs of your birth family and your chosen family.

None of this, to be clear, is to say that any particular person should feel that they need to read, enjoy, or appreciate any particular retelling, or that it's cool, hip and groovy to misrepresent your reworking of a myth as a 'new secret truth which has always been there.' If you're reworking a myth, be truthful about it, and if somebody told you 'hey did you know that it really -- ' and you ran with that and find out later you were wrong, well, correct the record. It's okay to not want to read or to not enjoy a retelling in which Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere negotiate a triad and live happily ever after; it's not really okay to say 'you can't do that because you changed a story element which I feel is non-negotiable.' It's okay to say 'I don't think this works because -- ' because part of writing a story is that people are going to have opinions on it. It's kind of weird to say 'you're only allowed to color inside these lines.'

That's not true, and it never has been. Greek myths are not from a closed culture. Roman myths are not sacrosanct. There are plenty of stories which outsiders should leave the hell alone, but Greek and Roman myths are simply not on that list. There is just no world in which you can make an argument that the stories of the Greek and Roman Empires are somehow not open season to the entire English-speaking world. They are the public-est of domain.

You don't have to like what people do with it, but that doesn't make people wrong for writing it, and they certainly don't have to color within the lines you or anyone else draws. Critique how they tell the story, but they haven't committed some sort of cultural treachery by telling the stories which are important to them rather than the stories important to someone 2500 years dead.

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*These are not the only reasons to tell a story and I am not in any way saying that an author is only permitted to retell a story to express their own values. There are as many reasons to tell a story as there are stories, and I don't really think any reason to create fiction is more or less valid than any other. I am discussing, specifically, the concept of myths as conveyors of essential cultural truths.

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felixandresims · 3 months

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KICHEN 2Point0 :)

It’s been well over a year since the last Harlix collaboration, but we are happy to finally be able to announce the KICHEN 2Point0! It all started way back in 2019 with the original KICHEN, so we decided we wanted to bring it back full circle and finally focus back on our much-loved room of the home. A lot has changed over the past 4.5 years, not only in our own personal work but the multitude of custom content creators that also now create kitchens for your Sims. In 2019, there were slim pickings for your homes. Now, there is such a vibrant array of content to choose from, and it really is an excellent thing for all.

In the years that followed, we have really focused on improving our technical skills and artistry, which we hope you can see with this latest set. The stand-out item for us both in the original KICHEN was the wishbone chair. We have personally both tried to find another dining chair that tops it and failed miserably! It is just the perfect chair for use in so many different settings, whether it be modern or even a rustic setting; it’s just so versatile. It deserved an update to our latest techniques and colours & it’s the only item from the original KICHEN set that has been reworked for this newest iteration. Also, back in 2019 we were a little too scared to use our internal name for that item, but in 2024 we are happy to share the appropriately named WISHBONER chair with you 😆

The KICHEN 2Point0 is also designed to fit perfectly into our current Klean & Soho sets to fulfill the kitchen part. For some reason, we always seem to be in sync with our set themes, and no more so than with Klean & Soho. The overlap was very scary tbh, with many Pinterest pins selected independently but shared in common, so we decided to do this 2 part collaboration to create a kitchen to fit both of our current sets, with the hope of creating a much more in-depth set which includes all elements required to make your dream kitchen. This first part focuses on the foundations of that dream kitchen.

All items are Base Game compatible and can be found by searching the b/b catalogue using the keyword 2Point0. As the items are designed for both of our current sets, they will also appear when you search using the keywords KLEAN or SOHO.

Set Items include:

- Counter (raised with legs) - Counter (standard) - Island (raised with legs) - Island trolley (3 pieces) - Cabinets (short) - Cabinets (tall) - Appliance Cabinet - Fridge Nooks (high & low) - Built-in Sink (wide & standard) - Dining Table (1, 2 & 3 tile) - Wishboner Dining Chair - Shelving (multiple height endings, middle & standard end pieces) - Hanging Feature Pendant Lights (multiple variants)

Now on Patreon Early Access

Public release on the 7th of May

The collaboration will continue next month and focus on appliances and clutter for your kitchens.

#ts4cc #ts4 cc mm #ts4 cc finds #ts4cc download #ts4 maxis match #new york #townhouse #house of harlix #felixandresims #harrie cc #ts4 kitchen #kitchen

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