paytheduck

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finding solace 🌼

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did the dinosaurs look at the meteor and think "how pretty"?

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These posts are cousins to me.

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This website is so so so good

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shorthands for dumbassery that i have grown to love deeply

"how dare you say we piss on the poor" in response to someone misinterpreting your post

"_ isnt gonna fuck you" for suck up behavior

"woah. should we tell everyone? should we throw a party?" for who the fuck cares

"and what if the world was made of pudding" for when would this ever matter.

"and sharks are smooth both ways" for a group of people heatedly arguing with 1 guy who is fucking with them all

".. but its about a witch in the alps finding her lost cat" for someone trying to sanitize something to the point of absurdity

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This minecraft short comic called "A strange Coast" made by Ian Flynn I believe, I found in a book from my library I work has to be one of the most beautiful and respectful takes on the game.

It understands minecraft so perfectly and doesn't treat it as childishly as the other stories in it did.

And all that within 10 pages and no word spoken.

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I was getting pretty fed up with links and generators with very general and overused weapons and superpowers and what have you for characters so:

Here is a page for premodern weapons, broken down into a ton of subcategories, with the weapon’s region of origin. 

Here is a page of medieval weapons.

Here is a page of just about every conceived superpower.

Here is a page for legendary creatures and their regions of origin.

Here are some gemstones.

Here is a bunch of Greek legends, including monsters, gods, nymphs, heroes, and so on. 

Here is a website with a ton of (legally attained, don’t worry) information about the black market.

Here is a website with information about forensic science and cases of death. Discretion advised. 

Here is every religion in the world. 

Here is every language in the world.

Here are methods of torture. Discretion advised.

Here are descriptions of the various methods used for the death penalty. Discretion advised.

Here are poisonous plants.

Here are plants in general.

Feel free to add more to this!

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That post that's like "stop writing characters who talk like they're trying to get a good grade in therapy" really blew the door wide open for me about how common it's become for a character's emotional intelligence to not be taken into consideration when writing conflict. I remember the first time I went to therapy I had such a hard time even identifying what I was feeling, let alone had the language to explain it to someone else. Of course there are plenty of people who've never been to therapy a day in their life who are in tune to their emotions. But even they would have some trouble expressing themselves sometimes. You have to take into account there are plenty of people who are uncomfortable expressing themselves and people who think they're not allowed to feel certain ways. It also makes for more interesting conflict to have characters with different levels of understanding.

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Glad that you're feeling a little bit better!

But yeah, it seem like there is a direct correlation between how much you genuinely love and try to engage with totk material and how much it's going to upset you, most of my friends that are more casual about tloz LOVED the game but meanwhile I was there like "… well… I guess that the depths are pretty cool…"

I just can't really take the story at face value, the Hand of Nintendo keeps breaking my immersion constantly so it's only really interesting to me if I ignore most of the plot and go full conspiracy theorist (which is… not an ideal way to engage with any work) with the zonai as a culture of staunch imperialists trying to rewrite history in their own image and even THEN

Well, anyway, i actually quite enjoyed the long rambling posts, it made me feel a little less alone in disliking parts of totk, but I'm glad to see you back at doing your incredible art!

feeling much better now having gotten some sleep (the dont trust how you feel about yourself past 9pm is good advice no joke)

of course all my criticism of totk still applies but im feeling less depressed about it, tho i will say its honestly kinda baffling how many times the game actually got me interested and excited about stuff and then just kinda drops it in a dead end, of course they were those kind of things in botw as well but it seems much less .. balanced in totk

(not even just the big things like making me want to actively do something to help zelda turn back when it just gets solved on its own in the end, but also some lil things like the fact that so many NPCs tell you about that newly discovered animal species and when you find the dongos they are just gem vending maschines)

in the end i can say, no, i dont like totk, tho i still love the graphics and the way the world is made ( botw showed me jsut how immersive and alive a world can feel i love it to death), i liked the gameplay and that it kept the freedom botw had established, the bossfights are mostly fun (tho i wish you could refight more of them), i LOVE the yiga and im glad they got more of a spotlight, the music is FANTASTIC i keep catching myself humming along, alot of the sidequests are much bigger and feel like you are actually doing something, i like how the sages are a bit more integrated into the story, the majority of the new designs are great, both the japanese and german voice acting is great, and the end fight has some of the best build up i have ever experienced, my heart starts to race when that music build up starts even tho i have beaten it 3 times already-

however, the story is both simple and incredible flat with lots of stuff that doesnt make sense especially when it was said to be a sequel, the zonau should have stayed a mystery imo, they failed to make me care about them even a little bit and often felt forcefully crammed into the world and its history, i think you could have told an incredible story taking place in the present and leave the past be the past, you easily could have connected botw and totk in a much better way than they did, i dont like how it changes aspects about botw all the while nigh ignoring it ever happened, it still feels like it was trying to be a replacement and not a sequel and all the referencing and callbacks to the old titles may have been done in good faith but that and including time travel yet again ultimately lead to people ripping each other to shreds over trying to prove its placed in the old timeline despite it making no sense at all and confusing people even more; often when the game made me care or be excited about something it was dropped in a dead end, there was a ton of missed opportunities and lost potential to tell a much more nuanced and interesting story/lore, and thinking about it only makes me sad for the things that could have been

overall i think my disappointment is outweighing my fun and the only way i can keep playing it while having fun is ignoring everything that isnt, which works quite well most of the time since im pretty much done with all story stuff but i keep slipping into my little rants nonetheless; i will say its making me a little worried about the future of the franchise, but i know im in the minority and maybe i will just have to accept that the new stuff wont be for me anymore and i should not hope for anything that interests me xD

except for some meme material or specific characters i love i dont think i will make much use of anything totk tried to establish, and i hope thats fine with the lot of you (<3) hopefully that also means my ranting days are over xD

anyway, back to making niche art i go! (sorry for making you endure these long ass rambling posts :,) )

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Ganondorf in ToTK is, of course, a missed oppurtunity for a more nuanced narrative, but thats not going to stop me from exploring what Nintendo will not.

I like looking at him like a man who was justified, but ultimately got carried away by his own ambition and hatred. Hell. He was seen as a "Hero" by the Gerudo, so clearly he was not a tyrant to them. Not at first.

I don't believe there was an actual war between Rauru and the Gerudo- though Rauru clearly did seek to conquer them via Cold War means. In addition to flaunting his power that Rauru and his family wear as accessories, there are not many easily traveled paths in and out of the desert. It would be simple to restrict trade and starve them out if Rauru got impaitient.

Regardless of his intentions, Rauru was essentially disrespecting their sovereignty, and Ganondorf took insult to that. Perhaps because he saw that as a threat to his own power, perhaps because he took insult with Rauru playing at King. Maybe some of it had to do with his care for the Gerudo, but i do think it was more so the first two.

He's a fascinating character if you actually put some thought into him. Hes not selfless. He starts by doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, and those wrong reasons are what ultimately drive his ambition to the monstrous one we know by the end of his story.

Again. A travesty Nintendo ignored the potential here so much.

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me: what if we subverted the imperialism trope with zelda realizing that rauru is the aggressor in the equation because 100 years is not enough time to wash away her diplomatic skills and she just knows that the gerudo people would not be hostile if not for a justifiable reason. sure, it takes a while for her to gain ganondorf's trust just based on her association with rauru and sonia, but he does end up trusting her somewhere down the line and fills her in on what's happening. she's absolutely horrified. as a result, she works alongside ganondorf to seal away rauru by gathering the sages and convincing them to protect their respective domains from conquest. but here's the twist: what if link still gets mentored by rauru's spirit at the beginning, and thinks rauru is a benevolent king? imagine zelda's last words to him in the final memory, nothing but a frenzied "link, do not trust the king of darkness!" but he doesn't know which king: ganondorf or rauru, because the gloom has corrupted ganondorf's body and rauru, who had unsettled him since the beginning. but then he realizes it's rauru, and it's deliciously ironic since rauru's power is light but as always, every light has a shadow.

totk enjoyers: hold my beer i'm gonna fucking crucify a korok

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The Divine Right to Rule

I’ve seen a few people say that Ganondorf has a shallow motivation but his motivation is deceptively more nuanced. Ganondorf subscribes to a Chinese Philosophy that in modern days is often used as a model for tyranny: The Mandate of Heaven

The basic premise is that Power is self evident of being correct. That if you win then it was destined by the Gods that you were right. You were mandated by the Heavens to win and therefore you can do no wrong. “It is a kings right to conquer” as Ganondorf says in the English dub

He hates Hyrule and Rauru in particular because Rauru has power beyond Ganondorfs limits but rather than use that power given to him to conquer Rauru rules through peace and understanding. By Ganondorfs philosophy this means Rauru doesn’t deserve his kingdom, doesn’t deserve his subjects. It belongs to Ganondorf because he has the power to take it. The Gods made men of power to exercise that power, they have no right to squander it.

Japan in particular is a fan of giving their villains this motivation. People who want to conquer, who hate peace simply for existing and believing that power is all that matters. “I’m right because I’m strong, I’m right because I win” another example in video games from Japan would be Shido from Persona 5 who even more blatantly believes in “the Mandate of Heaven”

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Something something Ganondorf being born into a tribe that is always on the outskirts, explicitly coded as POC no matter how fantastical they get.

Something something power not just being magic or a crown but a dominating force in the world. Being the ones who make the rules, who say go, who have access to resources to make life better. Power as a ticket to fighting oppression.

Something something Ganondorf needing power to make the world better for HIS people. the tribe he’s responsible for. Ganondorf not just needing power but Wisdom to know how to lead and Courage to effect change when no one will listen. Ganondorf seeing the green hills of Hyrule and knowing he could lead his people out of the desert and into the promised land.

Something something the corrupting force of power. No matter how small a little bit corrupts your soul and turns you greedy. No matter how good your intentions Power will always twist and writhe and claw at any bit of your heart it can to twist it into something unimaginable and unrecognizable from what you first wanted.

Something something fairytales always twisting wishes into what they wanted but there always being some kind of awful twist or catch one has to deal with. How one’s intentions are always different than the outcome.

Something something the Triforce of Power ending up in the hands of a man with good intentions and a selfish heart, splitting so he can never have the full means to truly lead his people to the land he wished for them.

Idk…it’s just something.

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oh you're in a horror film/book and your phone died/has no bars? how boring. I think phones in horror SHOULD work. they should ding only to have the protagonist check and find nothing. they should get calls from somebody you don't know but is still somehow in your contacts. google maps should lead you to one place, no matter what address you type in.

phones are such a big part of our daily lives, removing them from horror removes the horror from our experience. what if the horror felt like it could happen to you, right here, right now? what if it felt like it was already happening?

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GGAAAAANNNNNOOOOOONNDDDDDOOOOOORRFFFFFF!!!!!!!!!