#while also being critical of its more

[dndspellgifs]

I say this as a LOTR fan but like, Tolkien racism apologists, what are we doing here? Like, an author can have progressive ideas and be egalitarian and still be a product of his time.

"Oh, he didn't mean to make such an East-West dichotomy, it's just that Melkor's original strongholds in the North sank under the sea–" girl fuck off.

The most prominent adjective he uses to telegraph to the audience that a person is of the enemy is "swarthy", a word with such negative connotations, it took me years to find out it just meant dark-skinned.

[valtsv]

the truly insane thing is that i'm still in trauma therapy for internet drama that happened to me 4 years ago. like my life is objectively better in every way and i've more than proven myself capable of weathering some horrific shit and coming out stronger, but what ultimately boils down to an abusive "friendship" on their part and a few immature and fear-motivated decisions on mine still casts the world's longest darkest shadow of public humiliation.

[ganondoodle]

(oh hey, we didnt have a long rant in a while, this wasnt supposed to be so long, as per usual with me ... i looked up some refs of the botw sonau ruins since i wanted to see how to combine its design to my sonau design in my totk rewrite- and this happened ... in case this sounds too angry or aggressive, its not meant like that, im not imploding about it, its just frustrating and annoying to me)

i have a problem with pretty much every inch of totk, and theres lots of big problems, and lots of things i find absolutely bafflingly stupid decisions-

one bafflingly weird and stupid decision to me, though there are way more important ones, is the nigh complete seperation from botw sonau (zonai) design aesthetic and totk sonau design aesthetic- its so .. weird and utterly unecessary it will never stop bothering me, its one that has relatively little impact in development but huge impact on the believability of the world

you have these ancient ruins of long gone people (that imo should have stayed a mystery, since that sense of lost history you cannot grasp makes both the world more believable and real feeling and will never let you stop thinking about, if you care about that kind of stuff at least- but i talked about that in length before im sure), but whats left leaves you still with a pretty clear design aesthetic, at least in the buildings that remain (the armor less so bc it really doesnt look like anythign ancient and just doesnt really fit together)

and then you make a game around them- but ... completely redesign their aesthetic .... in a rather big contrast too, for literally NO reason, there is not a single reason to do that, not even the excuse of trying to seperate the two games in their core aesthetic (like in the case of the shiekah- though that too is stupid bc ITS A DIRECT SEQUEL- IF YOU DONT WANT TO MAKE MORE OF THAT DESIGN THEME or leave it in for that matter THATS CORE TO THE PREVIOUS GAME DONT MAKE IT A DIRECT SEQUEL YOU DUM-) can do any work here, the botw sonau ruins werent many, it was background stuff, it wasnt a main theme and it didnt carry any importance in the game itself

like, botw sonau architecture was dark stone with red highlights (a color that usually fades rather quickly, imagine how strong it had to be once, maybe it was even more colorful at some point), bird, boar and dragon carvings, torches in bird shape, alot of swirls and round patterns among the blockier rough shapes, its was pretty detailed with patterns and pictures all over it --

totk sonau? blendingly white stone, all blocky shapes like unfinished blender models, not a swirl to be found, green hologram lights (or cold white light, i dont think there are any totk sonau torches, just those weird candle things- most light sources are lamps in impeccable shape all giving off that cold white light) and gold blocky script, theres rarely alot of detail on them, the pattern most often present beign a scale pattern ... one which i dont remember appearing anywhere on the botw sonau ruins in that way/that often, the only animal motif is a dragon head every now and then and it honestly feels tacked on, like they scrambled to try and connect the two in any way shape or form, white gold and green, theres nothing red anywhere, they neither connect to the botw sonau architecture nor to the one armor set- or its description, totk sonau have nothing to do with the phirone (faron) region (aside from that one quest that could have been placed anywhere), they are weirdly modern and techy, theres nothing "barbaric", not even their clothes are in any way connected (im so sick of all that gold tbh) even their magic isnt really .. magical, it all feels like science fiction type tech stuff (even though they said they wanted it to feel magical, couldnt be further from that tbh) the design of their magic symbols dont line up with their own building aesthetic or anyone elses even, its so messy

if you do the quest to get the fith sage its even more apparent- its the direct contrast between botw and totk sonau, its like a cut into a mod, theres no overlap, you cant argue that its bc the botw ruins where exposed to the elements and thats why the color differs- the totk sonau ruins left to rot both in the underground and in the literal sky are all just as if not more exposed, yet they all remain in rather good shape, all keeping the white and often completely colorless look, most damage being just some clumps of mold (?) or something having fallen over, and if they were protected so their color didnt change? wheres the red? the colors all should be in pristine shape then but its not bc there is no color

their excuse of "uuuh the hylians build those things in honor of the sonau!!" they tried to give doesnt work, like all other excuses, if they did why the hell does it look so different? sonau stuff was all over the place, you have the blueprints right there, WHY even build it? in those regions nonetheless that were of pretty little importance as far as we know, if this were the case they should be on the forgotten plateau or around hyrule castle but they are not- ALSO if the hylians built them for them .. so after they died out .. why then is there some weird mechanism with their actual aesthetic there in the ones in phirone? if they built it while they were still there ... why make it look so different?? ADDITIONALLY hyrules style of architecture is closer to the totk sonau one than the botw sonau so you cant even say it was influenced by their own style bc botws sonau is more different than both of them

it also adds to the .. feeling of something being off about the entire game (like it felt to me even shortly after starting to play), while i dont want to touch on the stupidness of how they handled totk shrines since thats another long rant i already did before, the sudden appearance of totk sonau style stuff literally everywhere (and the disappearance of anything not plot relevant shiekah bc it just went poof according to interviews and neither that nonsensical excuse nor anything in the game making sense- bc in the end they just wanted it gone and didnt care) would seem LESS weird if it was in the style of botw sonau, you know that style, its been here the whole time and more of it appearing would seem much less jarring, even if it doing so in completely non sensical ways- it would at least lessen that weirdness

i do not get why you would do that, did your designers have nothing to do so you made them make an entirely new aesthetic? did you not want your holy perfectly goodest god king to be anything but the most clean and kingly looking so you didnt even go for the barbaric idea from botw?(which i am not a fan of either) bc of course someone supposed to fill the role of perfect example of how to be good king of holy hyrule to zelda couldnt look "primitive"? was that given to the ancient hylians instead? with their designs going, to me, rather close to a mix of native american and ancient greek aesthetic (uh oh)- to contrast them to your superior alien that brought the idiots on earth technology since we didnt have enough tired tropes in here already? thought that design theme was more sellable? simply didnt care? (tbh, most likely in my eyes given the carelesness of the game to connect in any way to botw, much less in a meaningful one)

(those where written like questions but i dont expect anyone to answers for, it just sounds better)

[bardan-jusik]

cannot get over lately the realization that while repcomm is widely criticized for being 'anti-jedi', it's WAY kinder and more understanding to all of its force-using characters and the jedi order as an organization than actual anti-jedi fans are

[alaskan-wallflower]

soda with heterochromia is canon in my heart <3

i don’t wanna spoil too much but i’m proud of how this ended up and felt like sharing lol

[sludgekludge]

can you give us the rundown on your vaggie/lute thing? i dont think you ever ended up posted it but ive always been curious

i did Not post it bc the post i wrote out made me sound like an insane person. moreso. than usual. this also unfortunately made me sound like an insane person.

this is all very much personal opinion over overt critique i think. though i would still call adam/lute a Bad choice, narrative wise.

the gist is i think vaggie/lute have infinitely more interesting potential than adam/lute (which is the direction you can tell it's going from day 1) not even in a 'aww i like tis ship!' sense just in a. idk story sense.

if lute/vaggie were some kind of weird toxic yuri, vaggie being left behind as violently as she was and lute's pure vitriol towards her makes more sense imo? as is it just makes lute feel cartoonishly evil. why would she even do that, over adam? does she even have that authority? why would she even be following vaggie in the first place...is she really the type who'd spare someone that makes (what she perceives to be) an unforgiveable decision? like...really, would she let vaggie live.

primarily what comes to mind i guess is that i think there was a lot of interesting (and imo thematically relevant) potential for that kind of relationship between the two of them. vaggie being someone who was forced out of an abusive poisonous environment, and then finding growth and love amongst the people she had been manipulated to look down upon is already kind of canon i guess but i think lute, with the context of vaggie being some kind of potential romantic interest of some kind, having to come down and witness that this person she has such history with is not only happier, but happier with someone who isn't lute when she's in what lute perceives to be the worst possible position. because i'd imagine lute cannot imagine anything lower than being in hell. i'm sure she would perceive sparing a demon as a personal betrayal, if a loved one did it. anyway would that not be compelling. i don't think lute would regulate those feelings well lol. esp if we want to tack on 'her bestie was literally permamurdered to death and vaggie is actively affiliated with the side that did it' like. come on. right. do you understand. grabbing you. do you understand-

i guess ultimately i find it wasted potential to not set up something between the much more emotionally charged dynamic between lute and vaggie (esp as their current animosity feels kind of meaningless to me. why is lute so cartoonishly evil. what was their relationship before vaggie got goofed) over some kind of one sided pining between a confident woman like lute and a man who was never even very nice to her

tl;dr: vaggie and lute being two confident strong fighters and lute being drawn to that only to reject her vehemently when vaggie shows compassion and then grapple with lingering feelings watching her almost-ex become happier without her would be crazy yuri and yet

[artfulacrostic]

okay i know we're past ddba 1x08 now and i still haven't finished articulating the meta i have for 1x04 but LISTEN im unable to suppress my Thoughts about the titles of all these episodes. veryyyy interesting choices imo! this is about to be a LONG ASS POST so warning you here and now.

okay so in this post i wanna talk about episodes 1 and 3, which both feature titles based on what are commonly perceived as old irish blessings. for ep 1 we have "may you be in heaven a full half-hour before the devil knows you're dead" = heaven's half hour, and for ep 3 we have "may God hold you in the hollow of His hand" = the hollow of his hand. now the actual origin of both of these is usually attributed to being "irish blessings", but there is some amount of disagreement about the precise origins, and how authentic or inauthentic they actually are. also is it just me or are the writers for ddba obsessed with the idea of references to irish culture and/or matt's relation/lack of relation to it?? ep. 5, lol....

anyway, the phrase that inspired the title for ep 1 is, as best as i can find, possibly the last line of an irish drinking toast, but i couldn't find nearly as much online discussion of it and what i did find seemed unsubstantiated. therefore, i'm gonna leave that one as a more nebulous nod to general circumstances of the episode (literal drinking toast to cherry, with foreshadowing to foggy's impending demise) with just a sprinkle of matt's distant ancestry for fun.

ep 3's title, meanwhile, has a LOT more interesting background! the way that heather does the title drop ("may God hold them in the hollow of his hand") implies that she's using it in the way that references this "irish blessing" poem/song:

May the road rise up to meet you, May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, The rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

now, this poem has dubiously vague origins, but one thing that is known is that the first line is basically a slight mistranslation of an actual old irish phrase, where people tend to mistake one word that means "be successful" with another word that means "rise". so while the actual meaning is closer to "may your road/journey be successful", the fact remains that the first line does appear to have an origin as a general irish "good luck". the rest of the poem, however, is probablyyyyy not exactly an ancient blessing, but something people came up with to accompany the mistranslation line. several irish people on reddit have called it "yank tosh", which i personally think is hilarious, bc that sounds about right. (i'm a us citizen with irish ancestry that i'm about as connected to as matt is, aka mr. "where's your family from then?" "i'm from hell's kitchen").

in addition, you might have noticed that rather than "the hollow of his hand", the poem actually reads "in the palm of his hand". this is as far as i am aware the more common modern phrasing (and the one i'm familiar with, from the embroidered pillows in my grandmother's house on the irish side of my family—for context i'm about as connected to my irish ancestry as matt is, aka mr. "where's your family from then?" "i'm from hell's kitchen"). however, from searching online it does appear that "hollow" is still used once in a while, just not as often in the context of the poem, especially when it's set to music.

soooooo now we finally get to my argument: despite the title drop via heather which points to the poem, i think the deeper and more accurate reference that the ep 3 title is really making is to isaiah 40:12, which is the origin of the actual God-holding-something-in-the-"hollow"-of-his-hand imagery. check this out:

 12 "Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and weighed the heavens with his palm? who hath poised with three fingers the bulk of the earth, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?"

now that's what i'm TALKING about. your context for isaiah 40—let me be clear, i am speaking from a context of catholic study of this book, since that's what i grew up on and that's presumably how it's relevant to matt our catholic guilt poster-boy—is that post-babylonian exile, isaiah the prophet's message to the people of god is 1) comfort for their pain, 2) reassurance that their sins will be forgiven, 3) hope for the future aka the coming of the lord and how it's imminent and they need to get ready for that, and 4) general glorification of god's awesome power and strength, etc, and that if they have hope in him and persevere everything's gonna be allll good, baby!

unfortunately. the biblical israelites are not so good with the idea of the exile as a just punishment to absolve them of their previous sins, and they express that they feel they have not received the justice they deserve:

  27 "Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel: My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?"

and basically the next bunch of chapters in this book is a piece by piece dissection of why they're wrong about this; god is literally putting them "on trial" in order to refute their arguments here, as he says in the first verse of isaiah 41:

1 "Let the islands keep silence before me, and the nations take new strength: let them come near, and then speak, let us come near to judgment together."

so! what does all this biblical circumlocution add up to in relation to episode 3? glad you asked!

if the episode represents the main themes of isaiah 40 and the book in general, then here we go:

a) what is matt guilty of or feel that he's guilty of? aka, what is his sin that is being paralleled with that of the biblical israelites? well, most recently we have attempted murder, the death of foggy due to association with him, the death of other people (father lantom, etc) due to association with him, and probably other less grave but still bad things like chronic severe and premeditated lying (lol), willfully missing mass (seems like it from how we see him passing by and not going in to the church), etc.

conclusion? i'd say that if the israelites can be forgiven for their sins— 

 2 "her iniquity is forgiven: she hath received of the hand of the Lord double for all her sins..."

—then so can matt, despite everything.

b) in the same vein, what has been causing matt pain? aka, what has been his babylonian exile? i'd say probably the loss of his old life, which, as we heard in ep 7, is still so raw after a year that he feels like his new life is "fake" (ouch).

conclusion? i'd say guess what matt, good news:

1  "Be comforted, be comforted, my people, saith your God..."

...aka don't worry, the pain is coming to an end. one way or another, his babylonian exile is about to be over.

c) what is coming in the near future, and what should matt do to get through it? well, here's the clincher: salvation is coming. get ready.

 4 "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways plain."

this could not just be literal "prepare the way jesus is coming but also a metaphorical sort of, "the oppressed will be lifted, the high and mighty (fisk) will fall, the corruption can be cleansed, and the fucking terrible shit hand you have right now could get better". it super hurts that this episode (1x03) feels like a success for those goals for a moment before hector gets murdered and matt and hector's family are all left with nothing but good intentions.

conclusion? catholicism is big on not just faith, but also works, so matt needs to keep going in the face of all this shit and trust that due to both his own efforts and his faith, things will improve. also not to mention,

29 "It is he that giveth strength to the weary, and increaseth force and might to them that are not." so matt my guy hang in there.

d) the hollow of his hand means WHAT EXACTLY, THEN? you are thinking. GET TO IT? well, here we go: heather's toast is a bit bitter for matt to swallow, why? because of this:

 12 "Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand...?  14 With whom hath he consulted, and who hath instructed him, and taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and shewed him the way of understanding?"

what this boils down to is power: who can do these things? only god. who can god consult with on these things? nobody, because god invented them. god being able to measure all of the waters in the world in the vastness of just one hand provokes an image of awesome power beyond human comphrension. this phrase and much of isaiah 40 in general is a comprehensive reminder of why, in the catholic belief system, god is in charge. not humankind. god knows everything, is everything, and has a Plan that involves holding every creation gently in the palm of that hand, just like the water, measuring the breadth and span of their existence and understanding them down to every atom.

the toast hurts because matt believes god is all-powerful, all-knowing, and yet god's plan didn't involve foggy nelson surviving. god may be holding the court case, foggy, and men who cook in his hand, measuring them and protecting them symbolically, but on earth, it's humans who have to put in the work, because free will is a thing. this is what matt believes. and he believes that he didn't put in the work. he couldn't protect foggy, just like he can't protect hector from being murdered even after doing his best to win his court case. heather might be making a pithy wish for god to appreciate and protect the case, foggy, and a man who cooks, but the man who cooks is still going to be the only one of those things intact by the end of the night.

but he hasn't allowed himself to fully succumb to despair, even in this spiral he's been in for the entire season. he can't, because he has to put in the work. the question is, what is the kind of work he's meant to be doing? what is god's plan for him? so deep down, even though he's in pain, exiled from his old life, a sinner who can't even make it through the doors of church, salvation is coming. he can't make himself extinguish his belief, or stop hoping.

 31 "But they that hope in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall take wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint."

[ganondoodle]

Please tell me what you hate about TotK

ÖwÖ !

how much time do you have? and how much do you want to read? bc i deeply hate everything about totk (for many many reasons that cant just be dismissed as just 'not my taste' or similar, i dont hate many things, very few in fact, but this game deeply and personally hurt me and my passion- it essentially killed my hyperfixation in zelda)-

what i like would be much shorter; i like the sound the parasail makes when you use it in the rain, most music, you can have more horses, the underground is .. a neat idea (but badly executed), you can FINALLY touch the dragons (and in exchange they ruined them for me ...) and uhm ... master koga is there :3

(graphics and style is basically botws so that doesnt count though i still love that and .. the designs... mostly)

the short version; the writing sucks, the gameplay sucks, except for koga theres no character that is well written or enjoyable to me, the world design sucks, theres no connective tissue between botw (which isnt flawless by any means but i love it ..... or used to love it ..) and totk beyond it being called a sequel, pretty much every single one of botws flaws was doubled down on and i cannot believe how few people actually seem to realize this?? if you cared about anything botw and like thinking about things totk will stomp you with its hefty price tag bc it makes it clear it does not care and you are stupid for caring about anything, you should stop thinking and jsut take whatever they say no matter how little sense anything makes, every even mildly interesting idea is either never followed up on/expanded or is even actively contradicted in itself (which is soemthign this game is excellent at, constantly contradicting itself in every aspect but like .. like its unaware of it) it tries to do everything and thus commits to nothing, tries to please everyone and thus comes out saying nothing and meaning nothing and doing nothing, it loooooves to copy botw but gives it a different paintjob and makes it worse but presents it as better instead of actually adressing the issues botw had, ganondorf .... oh my dear ganondorf, you deserve to be in a better game *sniffs*, i have never before felt like im being made fun of by the game im playing, but now i have-

even the short version gets long (and i didnt even go into detail or into the reasoning q-q) but boi i have so many issues with this game its kinda fascinating, i have talked about alot of it but given tumblrs search likely still sucks it might be hard to impossible to find all those older rants njskfsdbjk

(if you dont care about ... text, or stories and just play it after work for mindless fun in short bursts it might not seem bad at all but once you start thinking it quickly and utterly crumbles, you might say i care to much and well, yeah, thats how hyperfixations work and i dont choose what to focus on either lol)

for a long while i used to try and sound the most tame and nice about it all but at some point of constantly being argued with (often aggressively) back when twitter used to be usable i started to not give a fuck anymore so if this may sound harsh, i have long gotten tired of all that so now im trying to literally just speak my mind with very little "what if i sound mean qoq" filter

[fvckw4d]

The concept of queerbaiting annoys me. I was told that it refers to a work of fiction pretending to cater to a queer audience but then pulling back from it to avoid alienating homophobes, which is an incredibly specific thing. But a lot of people seem to think that it instead means "any time there's any gay subtex, metaphor, or ambiguity" or "whenever something from 1995-2012 was being a normal amount of homophobic for the era."

[ganondoodle]

kind of expected that the ability breakdown wouldnt get that much traction (especially on twitter bc if it doesnt do well in the first few hours it might as well be dead) but what i didnt need to wake up to was looking at my twitter notifications and thinking there was a long comment on it at first but then i read it and it turned out to be some guy having dug up one of my old totk tweets where i talked about how zelda was treated-

and if a quote retweet with a thread attached already starts with "this entitled brat didnt understand that zelda was being a history nerd by being in the past and getting to experience it herself" with two screenshots attached of the end of totk with zelda staring at the cam all uwu (which has ??? to do with their point??) i dont even want to know what else was in that thread

if thats how the majority of the fandom is then im even less surprised that nintendy doesnt even have to try to write anything good :I

ah yes, i am a game nerd, and by putting me in a game where i stand around doing puppy dog eyes while being shoved around by NPCs is me being a game nerd OBVIOSULY

[sukibenders]

Okay so question for the HOTD fandom, as this thought process has been circling in my mind for a while but: wouldn't it have been better for Rhaenyra, as well as Jace and Luke, if she...stopped having kids after them? By that I mean, if you already gave birth to two kids who don't resemble your husband, who already have to carry a heavy burden of being obvious bastards to those around them with their only saving grace, for lack of better words, being the fact that their dragons hatched in the cradle, and you yourself have to deal with the heavy pressure that resulted from this decision (which, I understand as her choices were limited...in a way), why have Joffery, who would only raise the scrutiny? Then, on top of that, why would you also have kids with Daemon, a literal blood supremacist (who questions your rule at every turn), that now makes it even more obvious the situation that Jace and Luke have to go through? Like, am I overthinking or would this have been a better option for Rhaenyra, as well as Jace and Luke?

[rouge-the-bat]

something i love discussing with others is the different ways people experience kin bc its so interesting the vastness of how everyones personal experiences with it can be. i really dont get people that will be like "kin is only ever LIKE THIS! everyone else is fake!" or trying to act like people with kin past lives (or anyone that "takes kinning too seriously") are crazy. like just!!! how do yall not enjoy the vast and unique experiences of other people!! how do they not fascinate you!!! its INSANE to me

[mejomonster]

the more i listen to behind the bastards podcast history stories, the more i'm like 'wow rich people really will do endless horrible stuff in pursuit of ever more wealth (even if they're already comfortable and could remain comfortable simply NOT doing more horrible stuff to others)' and also 'wow lack of empathy is a huge problem'

[prettyflyshyguy]

............................................. I'm regretfully writing a fanfic.

It's not gonna be big, but dialogue has been running in my head 24/7 and if I don't write it down I'll explode. Writing is a fun break from drawing besides and I genuinely feel like slowly dissecting other characters is helping me revisit my original stories, and dissect my own characters and bring more continuity and subtlety into them.

[waywardsalt]

small little thing abt botw/totk and the future of zelda games considering it seems likely that future zelda games might be in the same style as those two and how i feel like botw/totk don't actually feel like zelda games (kind of messy i just typed this out in a kind of informal or whatever way) (this post is long af btw so uhhhh yeah)

im part of the group that claims that botw/totk aren't 'real' zelda games but... i guess they are technically 'real' zelda games, but... they sure as fuck don't feel like it, and because of that, i'm not at all excited with the idea of future loz games being in the same style, especially with the pitfalls these last two games have fallen into having been things that past zelda games did especially well, it feels like things have been sort of flipped on their heads in terms of what's being valued or whatever

like... the best parts of older zelda games were things like the story and the characters and the puzzles and the dungeons and stuff like that... the best parts of botw/totk right now are just the gameplay. people enjoy these new characters, but they dont have the narrative backing that older games do, they don't have the same impactful arcs or roles allowed by a more linear story

the point i want to get at though is how botw/totk honestly don't feel like direct evolutions or steps up from past zelda games but rather just... entirely different game styles (open world games) with the zelda flavoring and worldbuilding and story styling slapped on top.

i mean... i feel like a half-decent example of some other well-known franchises that have jumped on this (honestly kind of thoughtless) open-world bandwagon are mario (mario odyssey) pokemon (sword/shield and scarlet/violet) fire emblem (kind of. with some free-walking segments in 3 houses and engage) and the soulsborne type games (elden ring), these are all other well known and storied game series' that have somewhat made the move to open world, and i think that switch was a bit smoother, kept the core and integrity of the games that came before much better than botw/totk did

elden ring is the easiest to explain- the gameplay loop and core mechanics are the same and build upon past games' you just have more room to run around and get killed in with some little open-world flourishes like material gathering.

fire emblem is... a bit less flexible in terms of changing up the core gameplay, and the addition of open-world segments are added to add bonuses to the strategy gameplay and allow for more support-building oppourtunities and little minigames, and its more or less evolution from echoes' dungeon-crawling bits and the customizable castle in fates. the core gameplay still effectively works the exact same, just with some little class or mechanic tweaks and additions.

mario odyssey, though each world was pretty massive, still had your typical 3d mario platforming, and the new hat stuff fit in pretty well with olderpowerups and gimmicks, and the boss battles feel and work pretty similarly to the way they used it- odyssey does feel like an evolution from past mario games (ps. playing two-player with one person as cappy snaps the game in half. its the secret easy mode lol)

the new pokemon games are pretty much just the same as past pokemon games, theyre just open world and buggy as fuck rip have extra little open-world flourishes that build on what past games set up. the battling works the same as ever and the progression is the same with a number of powerful trainers you have to battle to continue forward.

with botw/totk... the progression is dramatically different in terms of power-scaling, world presentation, item-gathering, puzzle-solving... pretty much everything in the established zelda format. i get that it was pretty much the aim with botw to have a fresh start and throw out a lot of the old standards but it just makes them feel so dramatically alien to past zelda games; theyre completely different experiences in pretty much every single way, and as such they dont feel like what we've (well, people who have started with and spent a lot of time with other loz games) learned to associate with the zelda titles.

with open world games in general it's a bit harder to have a truly impactful narrative akin to those in past zelda games, anyways. i will admit that botw was a good execution of trying out something entirely new, and the narrative and gameplay and world actually complement each other very well, so despite what i've said in the past I can't really fault it's narrative too much since it's a less traditional sort of narrative and effectively does what it aims to do very well.

totk, on the other hand, proves that this style of game does not mesh with the old style of storytelling at ALL. linear games can have proper narratives with coherent stakes, developing characters, twists and reveals and building emotion and mood- and all of that is thrown out the window with totk when they decided to try and have both a more linear story with actual reveals and development and emotion, while also letting you literally spoil it for yourself out the gate.

you can't really have a well-executed story when players are capable of doing things drastically out of order and of jumping into story beats without the prior buildup and straight-up ruining what could be otherwise emotional reveals, and players being capable of doing this is hard-baked in how the game fundamentally works. I honestly feel bad for people who found the fifth sage by accident before anything else.

you can't effectively have a linear story with character growth and plot developments and impactful moments while also allowing it to be experienced out of order and with massive time gaps in between; with this kind of stuff, you can't really have your cake and eat it too. say what you will about the linearity of past zelda games, but i bet you that midna wouldn't be as beloved as a character as she is if it weren't for the linear order of the story and its events. certain parts of storytelling may demand for a linear manner of telling that story.

botw's story works because none of the memories reveal anything groundbreaking taht you don't already know; they are optional and merely give you more information about these characters from link's past and simply inform you about the girl keeping ganon at bay. if you find a late memory first, that's fine- it technically doesnt reveal anything too important to you, it just fills in some gaps for you and your player character. it makes sense within the story itself for the world to be so open and for you to be able to do what you can; the story is not the focus, nor is it even needed to beat the game. the story was made with the gameplay and what you are allowed to do in mind, and as such doesn't include things such as in-depth character development or important plot-twists.

on the other hand, you can easily spoil totk's biggest plot twist in a handful of different ways completely by accident, just by getting curious about the world around you. this can shatter a lot of the mystery or tension in the plot and this can happen completely by accident to someone playing the game organically and blindly. the story itself doesn't take this into account, it reads more like a linear story that would be more suited to a linear style of play, coming across things in order to ramp up the stakes and let things be revealed at the best possible time. (tbh totk's story doesnt seem to take the player into account in general, if the game forcing you to watch basically the same long cutscene four fucking times says anything, jesus christ)

narrative pitfalls aside, botw/totk put heavy emphasis on gameplay, but not in the same way older zelda games did, and as such trade away the unique items and gimmick-y game-specific mechanics for a small toolset handed to you out the gate. what botw/totk do- giving you everything you need from the start and having very little true varation in the gameplay from then on out- make sense and works just fine for an open world game. there is, however, a lack of actual depth to that gameplay that other open world games do have (off the top of my head, the ability to unlock and upgrade abilities and have general character upgrades in fenyx rising as well as the impressive depths of elden ring's combat and character customization system). the most depth botw/totk has to the actual gameplay is just the fourish different weapon types and the ways you use your fourish abilities (saying fourish bc for real ultrahand and fuse are fundamentally the exact same thing). there is also just raising the little defense numbers on your armor and getting more stamina and health, but that does absolutely nothing to the actual gameplay but make link more durable.

i mean, sure, health in past loz games just makes link more durable, too, but thats how health upgrades in any other game work.

the gameplay switch makes sense, considering the switch from a linear puzzle-adventure concentric game to a more sandbox-esque open-world game, but it does not mesh with the former loz formula at all, so while the shift in style makes sense, it makes me think that you can't have a previous-style loz experience in an open-world sandboxish sort of game. especially with how in totk you can very easily bypass most of the fire temple just using the mechanics handed to you at the start. you can't have the same type of zelda dungeons in a game where you are allowed to do it 'wrong' and the game itself does not allow for the same kinds of puzzles.

i am of the opinion that so long as future zelda games work the same way botw/totk did, we will not get old-school zelda-style dungeons again.

the loss of a variety of items used for specific puzzles and environment switches is the loss of a varied dungeon experience and the loss of the same kind of world and character progression as past zelda games.

you are handed everything you'll ever need at the start of botw/totk. the only thing that will meaningfully change is how much damage you do. there are no alternate strategies opened up by new items that can double as weapons, no new traversal options or routes opened up by things such as grappling hooks or clawshots or whips or specific wands. even the battle system is drastically different, instead of being enemies that take specific amounts of hits to die while you can obtain progressively stronger swords, enemies are just damage sponges and you can get all kind of weapons that just do different numerical amounts of damage.

the bosses themselves- big staples and draws of zelda games- also work extremely differently. instead of having to leverage specific items to expose weak spots or having to fight in a specific manner to do damage, you are just asked to... do damage. even in totk's bosses, where sage abilities are most certainly helpful, the only boss i found to truly require a sage ability was the lighting temple's boss; the others i either hardly used the sage at all (i didn't use yunobo at all in the second phase of the fire temple boss and hardly had a need for tulin with the wind temple boss [esp considering i was using a 3-shot lynel bow to make the poor fucker a cakewalk]) or found that alternative solutions felt better, like resorting to splash fruit on repeat water temple fights instead of wrestling with having to activate and use sidon's ability. the sages are honestly fairly poor replacements for dungeon specific items.

this kind of causes botw/totk to play more like a poor man's dark souls or just like any other open world rpgish game. i don't play botw/totk for the experience of a zelda game, i play it because it's an open world game that i can walk around in for five minute before switching to something else because i liked something in that other game better.

the combat in botw/totk isnt designed in such a way that makes it feel good. mineru's mech is fucking dismal, but since it's just either shooting with a bow or attacking with one of three types of melee weapon with some timing for a dodge, it can get stale fast. it doesn't necessarily even feel good, since there's not enough variety for it to get really engaging. (this is def an uneven comparison, but elden ring's combat feels considerable better with the different dodges you can do and the amount of attack options you have with just one weapon, not to mention the amount of control you have over your general fighting style.) combat in botw/totk at hour 1 is the exact same as combat in botw/totk at hour 100, the only different being the amount of damage you do or how much of a beating you can take.

it just... the styles of botw/totk can't allow them to feel the same as older zelda games. the shift in style was clearly a good move to draw in series newbies and shake things up, but it comes at the caveat of making them feel distant from their predecessors and uncomfortably similar to other games like them. it's hard to avoid comparisons with elden ring when on the surface they are very similar games, one just feels more true to its core identity

this all is said without mentioning the way in which botw/totk lore feels almost dismissive of past series staples and seems intent on not looking back while also taking every fucking attempt to nudge you and say 'hey, remember that zelda game' and honestly all that shit does is make me want to play a different zelda game.

botw/totk seem altogether very desperate to distance themselves from past zelda games while also being unable to really tear itself from what came before and it just culminates in me spotting linebeck island on the map and going 'damn i miss linebeck' and turning the fucking game off to play phantom hourglass instead. say what you will about phantom hourglass, but it certainly handles its story progression and character development infinitely better than the game that lets you accidentally shatter the impact of the story by deciding to check out that cool temple in the distance of the depths

[fantastic-mr-corvid]

Rametto coming out [as not a man] fic is still a wip but i wrote the actual 'coming out' part today, and thought i would share it given how short it is. its certainly not a conventional coming out conversation, but when have any of these fuckers been conventional.

warnings: use of 'bitch' as a gendered term? as in Rametto using it to self describe her identity, while maintaining plausible deniability. and then Cecio using it as an acknowledgement of what Rametto is implying [being trans].

-

As Rametto was ransacking Cecio's precious snacks cupboard, Cecio thought through how to return to the topic Rametto had raised, how best to feel out if it really was going there.

“Tired of being the little brother?”

Rametto paused, eyes unfocusing, thinking how to respond “I think I prefer being the little bitch,”

It came out hesitant, more vulnerable than the sharp tongued teen had been in front of Cecio for a while- probably in front of anyone for a long time.

“Huh,” Cecio’s brows furrowed as he pondered that answer, moving backwards to sprawl on the lone chair in the cramped kitchen.

Rametto frowned back at him.

Cecio shifted his entire body language in response, trying to lighten the mood again “Sit on the counter, little bitch, don't pretend you have class now,”

No matter how fast Rametto was to cover the actions up, Cecio still saw his shoulders drop, still saw the relief and twitch of his lips.

Rametto responded in kind, closing the cupboard after collecting the snacks on the counter, before swinging up next to them.

“But you can? Same fucking block, same fucking school, you sure are a lying bastard.”

Cecio outright grinned, “and your a little bitch, what a pair we make”

Black stained lips split, showing a flash of teeth as the teens head threw back and what sounded like a hyena cackling filled the tiny kitchen.

“What a fucking pair we make, what a fucking pair,”