I think what particularly annoys me with the "zelda was always gameplay before story" is that... it's not true? At least I don't think it's true in the way people mean it.
Zelda games were always kind of integrating story based on the standards of the time. When game stories were in game pamphlets, Zelda's stories was in the pamphlets. ALTTP tried to tell a pretty complicated stories with the limitations of the time. OoT was actively trying to tell an epic, cinematic tale packed with ambiance and expand what 3D could offer that 2D games struggled with. Majora's Mask is deeply character-driven in many, many ways. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess are both pretty concerned about their stories, down to the point that some people were bored by TP's cutscenes in particular. Skyward Sword, from what little I have played it, is very very invested in its characters and their journey (and 2D Zeldas have Link's Awakening, Minish Cap... None of them are visual novels, but they are concerned with emotional journeys, character arcs, mysteries about their own world...)
What is true is that the narrative wraps around the mechanics, and not the other way around. The mechanics drive themes, aesthetics, emotional beats and character journeys; and that's great. The world is a puzzle, and the world is delightfully absurd when it needs to be, full of heart when it calls for it, dark and oppressive when it suits the player experience.
That does not mean the games aren't invested in their stories. Even BotW has a pretty complicated story to tell about an entire world rather than one specific tale or legend --all of it at the service of the gameplay, which is exploration and mastery of your environment.
So. Yes, none of the Zelda games are million-words long visual novels that care deeply about consistency and nuance; but stories don't need consistency or deep lore to be meaningful and serve an emotional journey. Again: gameplay is story. The two cannot be so easily parsed from each other.
And Zelda as a franchise obviously care deeply about story, characters and setting (and still does right now --otherwise there wouldn't be a movie), even if it doesn't try to imitate prestige narrative-driven games, which is great and part of why I love this series so much. Doesn't mean it couldn't have done better in the past, it obviously could have, but I feel like pretending that nobody ever cared about story or character is just... false? It's a huge disservice to the devs too. Some of them obviously cared immensely.
The "gameplay above story", at least in the extent to which it is paraded today to defend TotK, mostly, is a really recent development. And I think it's one that deserves to receive some pushback.
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Is there an archive for all of your analysis? I want to read them in order 🙇♀️
I was gonna say yes and link you to the in-built tumblr blog archive with my tag ‘analysis’ but then I remembered I tag inconsistently. Oops! So here is a huh, attempt. Chronological order is less important imo than topic but for what it’s worth the oldest are the ones to the left. Gonna pin this. This got too much for Tumblr to handle so unfortunately I have to split between reblogs.
This is all for Dunmeshi because I haven’t done nearly as many analyses for anything else. Divided by post type and topic but I do repeats when relevant. My older ones tend to be less polished so uh apologies for that, I’ll put my favorite ones in bold. Looking back there are a lot of posts I’d like to either streamline or remake more complete...
Many of this contain spoilers so for that be careful and refer to individual tags.
Masterposts: laimar crumbs (discontinued) - marchil crumbs - Chilchuck’s family - beastkin tattoos - Nakamoto household
Compilations: Marcille’s smile to Laios - Izu dad Chilchuck - Laios bragging faces - Teasing Marcille gone wrong - Chilchuck drunk/drinking - Chilchuck being crass - Chilchuck hugs (incomplete) - Kaka - Hien & Benichidori - Marcille & Chilchuck worsties (incomplete) - Chilchuck old man posture (incomplete) - Chilchuck's type 🤨 (incomplete) - Chilchuck wristwatch - Helki - Marcille and Chilchuck parenting Izutsumi
LAIOS: Succubus scene analysis - Laios-Shuro fight analysis - Izu-Laios relationship analysis - autism & the nonhuman - Laios' nightmare aka autistic existential horror - Laios and chimeras
MARCILLE: Mothers & mom friend Marcille - Chil & Marcille contrasts & parallels - love languages - Marcille and separation - Marcille's view of Chilchuck - Marcille and romance - Marcille and being a burden
CHILCHUCK: Chil’s sense of humor - Chil & Marcille contrasts & parallels - love languages - Chilchuck is underweight - Chilchuck’s family masterpost - Chil’s wife’s appearance - Chilchuck character analysis speedrun - Ask: Chil & wife and change - Ask: Chilchuck, good husband? - Chilchuck’s succubus - the importance of law - getting hired & job description - Chil's buckle shirt & wardrobe - Chilchuck, family & alcoholism - Chilchuck & guilt - Chilchuck and drinking: when and how - Chilchuck in song lyrics
IZUTSUMI: Mothers & mom friend Marcille - Izu-Laios relationship analysis - Nakamoto household masterpost - Izu & alcohol
FALIN: fairy’s child parallels - short Falin analysis - Falin who cares too much and too little - Thistle & Falin - Trans Falin
THISTLE: clown costume & belonging (+ read tags) - Homegrown (web weaving) - Thistle & Delgal and death - Yaad & Thistle - Thistle & Falin
TOSHIRO: Nakamoto household masterpost - Toshiro likes bugs + Falin relevance - Toshiro’s succubus - Trans Toshiro (and Falin) - parallels to Kuro and Forva
Minor characters: Lycion’s dysmorphia + follow-up on his past addiction - Kaka compilation - Chil’s daughters & party brotps - Nakamoto household masterpost (every related character including Toshiro's family members) - Hien’s younger sister - unnamed buzzcut gold-stripper - Dandan - a Hien reading - Yaad & Thistle - Chil's daughters and marriage - Helki - unnamed canary with eye tattoo) - Kuro parallels
Gen: Reactions to the dark magic resurrection
Marcille & Chilchuck: marchil crumbs - contrasts & parallels (not ship) - Taking care of each other sick - Marcille & Chil’s daughters - their love languages (ship but analytical focus) - pre-canon dynamic (not ship) - astrology (ship & short) - Chilchuck's type 🤨 - waxing poetic (good summary) - marchil from Marcille's end - Marcille and romance - marchil & stability
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Hiya! The post you did about reader giving the 141 a pet turtle/tortoise was so cute 😭. I was wonder if you could do a similar thing but with a pet snake 🐍 They’re my favorite animal and it would make my day❤️❤️❤️
Hey there! I love all reptiles, so I'm more than happy to take on this request :] I can do requests like these with snakes and turtles just fine, but I don't think I could ever write this with cats or dogs haha! Sorry about Ghost, though, but I don't think he likes snakes and nothing could change that, though!
TF141 Receiving a Pet Snake from Reader
Price: I feel as though Price would know nothing at all about snakes and how to care for them. Yes, he thinks something like a ball python is kinda cute, but that’s about it. He’s never really considered a snake before. So you can probably imagine his surprise when you waltz in with a ball python. He’s not disgusted by it, but he would be hesitant to touch it at first. What if it bites him? Though, as soon as you tell him that it reminded you of him, he’d probably grow attached to it. However, you’re gonna have to help him with building a proper enclosure for the little snake. Once you’re done, once you’ve left the little critter in his care, he’s gonna buy a lot of books on how to care for snakes. I don’t think he’d be too creative with names, so he’s probably gonna name it “Mister Slithers” or something. It’s a name a child would give to a snake, but he thinks it’s cute, and it makes him smile, so he kept the name. When he’s home he probably lets Mister Slithers roam around freely for the most part, with supervision. That snake better be super tame, because he will handle it (with care) and give it lots of pats and cuddles. If he could, he’d give it a little kiss on its little head as well, but he doesn’t want to get sick. It’s probably well fed too. Depending on whether or not it’s an active little fella, he might even give it a living mouse or something. But if it prefers to snooze all day? He can go with thawed frozen food as well. Overall, that snake is probably going to live a long and happy life with him. He’ll get attached to it very easily very quickly.
Ghost: I’m sorry to say this, but you’d need to be super innocent and super close with Simon in order to give him a snake and have him not hate you immediately. He canonically has trauma when it comes to snakes, so I don’t think he’d be happy at all if you gave him one. Yes, you likely didn’t know about that because he’d never tell you, but if you’re anything but the most oblivious and innocent person out there then he will believe that you’re trying to make him relive some of his worst times on purpose. If you are that innocent, then there’s the tiniest chance he might accept it, but I don’t think he’d be a good owner at all at first. He wouldn’t want to go near it, even if it’s just a small Garter Snake. The snake would likely be on the brink of starvation and dehydration at first. For the sake of not making this angsty, I’m going to say that he’ll feel extremely bad for it and start feeding it and taking proper care of it. I don’t think he’s going to let it out of its enclosure for the first few years. In fact, he probably only keeps it around because he loves you. I’m sorry, but he doesn’t trust snakes. It’s a miracle he keeps it alive in the first place. I don’t think he’d give it a name either. Something like “the snake” or “the reptile”, and that’s it. If it gets sick then he’ll take it to the vet and give it the medication it needs, but that’s it. He’s glad snakes are, for the most part, independent creatures. That means he doesn’t need to be around it. His skin crawls whenever he looks at it. I’m sorry, but he wouldn’t be happy and he wouldn’t be a good owner either.
Gaz: And then there’s Gaz. He revels in you giving him a snake. Truth be told, he feels a little bit of kinship with them. His father used to call him a snake for being a trans man and actively transitioning. He’s a traitor, a backstabber, to his family, and he really does enjoy that fact by now. Call him a snake and he gets all smug and is actually thriving. You could give him something like a King Cobra, a snake that is actually venomous, and he’ll be fine. When he was younger, he’d actively researched how to take care of snakes since he, ever since his family disowned him like that, wanted to get one. If it’s a female snake, then it’s most definitely going to get his deadname. If it’s a male? He’ll probably name it either “Kyle”, after himself, or one of the other names he considered before “Kyle” stuck. Oh, he’s going to be such a proud snake owner. That snake will miss out on nothing. It will be well taken care of and have the most beautiful enclosure it could ever have. He’ll probably pet it too just because he trusts the snake. Considering he’s such an observant man, he’ll probably rarely ever, if at all, anger it, so he’ll be safe. Although I do believe that he’d keep some antivenom around, just for good measure. The snake probably trusts him a great amount too. He’s not at all a bad owner to have, he’s very loving and respectful. Besides, you gave it to him, so how could he not love it? It’s probably gonna live a long and healthy life. And yes, he would take plenty of pictures with it, always considerate enough to send you some updates on how it’s doing as well. Though, every time he sends you a selfie of him with his snake, there’s a little mischievous glint in his eyes. He’s happy, don’t get me wrong, but he feels more badass and dangerous with his little snake around.
Soap: He has no problems with snakes either, but they’re not cuddly enough for him. He’d rather have an animal that he can chase around his home. That baby Burmese Python you gave him is adorable, don’t get me wrong, but what exactly is he supposed to do with it? Either way, he always gets surprised when he sees how much his little “Sniffer” has grown after deployment. Yes, he’ll scold it for being that big. “Bonnie, how could you grow this much without me? Don’t you know that I need to care for you every step of the way??” He refers to himself as the snake’s “Daddy” as well because he’s just that fond of it. He probably builds it a nice shed as its enclosure since he has a pretty big garden and loves having something to do anyway. He also jokes that little Sniffer can actually sniff out drugs. Some of his friends take him seriously. That snake is going to be so spoiled. Whenever he’s home, he’ll let it roam around freely, even letting it slither all over his body. No matter how big it gets, he’ll work out to be able to handle it. Sometimes, when he hasn’t touched it yet, he’ll kiss his fist and give it a little fist bump. He loves showing Sniffer off, especially to the people who don’t like snakes. Even better if those people are hesitant to touch a snake. Sniffer does grow to be pretty big, but it’s very tame. Unless it’s hungry, in which case it’s probably tried to bite Soap before. But he doesn’t mind that, he also gets pissy when he’s hungry. As much as he’d love to let Sniffers sleep with him, he keeps it in its enclosure during the night. Better safe than sorry. Overall, he loves the funky big fella.
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