#i was seven when it came out

[probablyaseamonster]

Remembered that the Clutch Powers movie exists. Going a little bit insane atm

[flickering-nightfall]

Some bugs for fun!

[calithso]

seven 'ur not funny' lawless

→ → →

seven is from @infamous-if!!

[blueskittlesart]

I've heard that while most people really really love BotW and TotK, some people hate those two for going open-world, and some people hate TotK specifically for something about the story. As the resident Zelda expert I know of, what do you think of those takes?

"something about the story" is a bit too vague for me to answer--if you look at my totk liveblog tag from back when the game was newly released or my general zelda analysis tag you may be able to find some of my in-depth thoughts about the story of totk, but in general i liked it.

the open world thing though is something i can and will talk about for hours. (I am obsessed with loz and game design and this is an essay now <3) breath of the wild is a game that was so well-received that a lot of the criticism from older fans who were expecting something closer to the classic zelda formula was just kind of immediately drowned out and ignored, and while i don't think it's a valid criticism to suggest that botw strayed too far from its origins in going open-world, i am more than willing to look into those criticisms, why they exist, and why i think going open-world was ultimately the best decision botw devs could have made. (totk is a slightly different story, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.)

Loz is a franchise with a ton of history and a ton of really, REALLY dedicated fans. it's probably second only to mario in terms of recognizability and impact in nintendo's catalog. To us younger fans, the older games can sometimes seem, like, prehistoric when compared to what we're used to nowadays, but it's important to remember just how YOUNG the gaming industry is and how rapidly it's changed and grown. the first zelda game was released in 1986, which was 31 years before botw came out in 2017. What this means for nintendo and its developers is that they have to walk a very fine line between catering to older fans in their 30s and 40s now who would have been in nintendo's prime demographic when the first few games in the franchise were coming out AND making a game that's engaging to their MODERN target demographic and that age group's expectations for what a gaming experience should look like.

LOZ is in kind of a tough spot when it comes to modernizing, because a lot of its core gameplay elements are very much staples of early RPGs, and a lot of those gameplay elements have been phased out of modern RPGs for one reason or another. gathering collectibles, fighting one's way through multilevel, mapless dungeons, and especially classic zelda's relative lack of guidance through the story are all things that date games and which modern audiences tend to get frustrated with. for the last few releases before botw, the devs had kind of been playing with this -- skyward sword in particular is what i consider their big experiment and what (i think) became the driving force behind a lot of what happened with botw. Skyward sword attempted to solve the issues I listed by, basically, making the map small and the story much, much more blatantly linear. Skyward sword feels much more like other modern rpgs to me than most zelda games in terms of its playstyle, because the game is constantly pushing you to do specific things. this is a common storytelling style in modern RPGs--obviously, the player usually needs to take specific actions in order to progress the story, and so when there's downtime between story sections the supporting characters push the player towards the next goal. but this actually isn't what loz games usually do. in the standard loz formula, you as the player are generally directly given at most 4 objectives. these objectives will (roughly) be as follows: 1. go through some dungeons and defeat their bosses, 2. claim the master sword, 3. go through another set of dungeons and defeat their bosses, 4. defeat the final boss of the game. (not necessarily in that order, although that order is the standard formula.) the ONLY time the player will be expressly pushed by supporting characters towards a certain action (excluding guide characters) is when the game is first presenting them with those objectives. in-between dungeons and other gameplay segments, there's no sense of urgency, no one pushing you onto the next task. this method of storytelling encourages players to take their time and explore the world they're in, which in turn helps them find the collectibles and puzzles traditionally hidden around the map that will make it easier for them to continue on. Skyward sword, as previously mentioned, experimented with breaking this formula a bit--its overworld was small and unlocked sequentially, so you couldn't explore it fully without progressing the narrative, and it gave players a "home base" to return to in skyloft which housed many of the puzzles and collectibles rather than scattering them throughout the overworld. This method worked... to an extent, but it also meant that skyward sword felt drastically different in its storytelling and how its narrative was presented to the player than its predecessors. this isn't necessarily a BAD thing, but i am of the opinion that one of zelda's strongest elements has always been the level of immersion and relatability its stories have, and the constant push to continue the narrative has the potential to pull players out of your story a bit, making skyward sword slightly less engaging to the viewer than other games in the franchise. (to address the elephant in the room, there were also obviously some other major issues with the design of sksw that messed with player immersion, but imo even if the control scheme had been perfect on the first try, the hyperlinear method would STILL have been less engaging to a player than the standard exploration-based zeldas.)

So when people say that botw was the first open-world zelda, I'm not actually sure how true I personally believe that is. I think a lot of the initial hype surrounding botw's open map were tainted by what came before it--compared to the truly linear, intensely restricted map of skyward sword, botw's map feels INSANE. but strictly speaking, botw actually sticks pretty closely to the standard zelda gameplay experience, at least as far as the overworld map is concerned. from the beginning, one of the draws of loz is that there's a large, populated map that you as the player can explore (relatively) freely. it was UNUSUAL for the player to not have access to almost the entire map either immediately or very quickly after beginning a new zelda game. (the size and population of these maps was restricted by software and storage capabilities in earlier games, but pretty muhc every zelda game has what would have been considered a large & well populated map at the time of its release.) what truly made botw different was two things; the first being the sheer SIZE of the map and the second being the lack of dungeons and collectibles in a traditional sense. Everything that needs to be said about the size of the map already has been said: it's huge and it's crazy and it's executed PERFECTLY and it's never been done before and every game since has been trying to replicate it. nothing much else to say there. but I do want to talk about the percieved difference in gameplay as it relates to the open-world collectibles and dungeons, because, again, i don't think it's actually as big of a difference as people seem to think it is.

Once again, let's look at the classic formula. I'm going to start with the collectibles and lead into the dungeons. The main classic collectible that's a staple of every zelda game pre-botw is the heart piece. This is a quarter of a heart that will usually be sitting out somewhere in the open world or in a dungeon, and will require the player to either solve a puzzle or perform a specific action to get. botw is the first game to not include heart pieces... TECHNICALLY. but in practice, they're still there, just renamed. they're spirit orbs now, and rather than being hidden in puzzles within the overworld (with no explanation as to how or why they ended up there, mind you) they're hidden within shrines, and they're given a clear purpose for existing throughout hyrule and for requiring puzzle-solving skills to access. Functionally, these two items are exactly the same--it's an object that gives you an extra heart container once you collect four of them. no major difference beyond a reskin and renaming to make the object make sense within the greater world instead of just having a little ❤️ floating randomly in the middle of their otherwise hyperrealistic scenery. the heart piece vs spirit orb i think is a good microcosm of the "it's too different" criticisms of botw as a whole--is it ACTUALLY that different, or is it just repackaged in a way that doesn't make it immediately obvious what you're looking at anymore? I think it's worth noting that botw gives a narrative reason for that visual/linguistic disconnect from other games, too--it's set at minimum TEN THOUSAND YEARS after any other given game. while we don't have any concrete information about how much time passes between new-incarnation games, it's safe to assume that botw is significantly further removed from other incarnations of hyrule/link/zelda/etc than any other game on the timeline. It's not at all inconceivable within the context of the game that heart pieces may have changed form or come to be known by a different name. most of the changes between botw and other games can be reasoned away this way, because most of them have SOME obvious origins in a previous game mechanic, it's just been updated for botw's specific setting and narrative.

The dungeons ARE an actual departure from the classic formula, i will grant you. the usual way a zelda dungeon works is that link enters the dungeon, solves a few puzzles, fights a mini boss at about the halfway point, and after defeating the mini boss he gets a dungeon item which makes the second half of the dungeon accessible. He then uses that item in the dungeon's final boss fight, which is specifically engineered with that item in mind as the catalyst to win it. Botw's dungeons are the divine beasts. we've removed the presence of mini-bosses entirely, because the 'dungeon items' aren't something link needs to get within the dungeon itself--he alredy has them. they're the sheikah slate runes: magnesis, cryonis, stasis, and remote bombs. Each of the divine beast blight battles is actually built around using one of these runes to win it--cryonis to break waterblight's ice projectiles, magnesis to strike down thunderblight with its own lightning rods, remote bombs to take out fireblight's shield. (i ASSUME there's some way to use stasis effectively against windblight, mostly because it's obvious to me that that's how all the other fights were designed, but in practice it's the best strategy for that fight is to just slow down time via aerial archery, so i've never tried to win that way lol.) So even though we've removed traditional dungeon items and mini-boss fights, the bones of the franchise remain unchanged underneath. this is what makes botw such an ingenious move for this franchise imo; the fact that it manages to update itself into such a beautiful, engaging, MODERN game while still retaining the underlying structure that defines its franchise and the games that came before it. botw is an effective modern installment to this 30-year-old franchise because it takes what made the old games great and updates it in a way that still stays true to the core of the franchise.

I did mention totk in my opening paragraph and you mention it in your ask so i have to come back to it somehow. Do i think that totk did the gigantic-open-world thing as well as botw did? no. But i also don't really think there was any other direction to go with that game specifically. botw literally changed the landscape of game development when it was released. I KNOW you all remember how for a good year or two after botw's release, EVERY SINGLE GAME that came out HAD to have a massive open-world map, regardless of whether or not that actually made sense for that game. (pokemon is still suffering from the effects of that botw-driven open world craze to this day. rip scarlet/violet your gameplay was SUCH dogshit) I'm not sure to what degree nintendo and the botw devs anticipated that success, (I remember the open world and the versatility in terms of problem-solving being the two main advertising angles pre-release, but it's been 7 years. oh jesus christ it's been SEVEN YEARS. anyways) but in any case, there's basically NO WAY that they anticipated their specific gameplay style taking off to that degree. That's not something you can predict. When creating totk, they were once again walking that line between old and new, but because they were only 3ish years out from botw when totk went into development, they were REALLY under pressure to stay true to what it was that had made botw such an insane success. I think that's probably what led to the expanded map in the sky and depths as well as the fuse/build mechanics--they basically took their two big draws from botw, big map and versatility, and said ok BIGGER MAP and MORE VERSATILITY. Was this effective? yeah. do i think they maybe could have made a more engaging and well-rounded game if they'd been willing to diverge a little more from botw? also yeah. I won't say that I wanted totk to be skyward sword-style linear, because literally no one wanted that, but I do think that because of the insane wave of success that botw's huge open world brought in the developers were under pressure to stay very true to botw in their designing the gameplay of totk, and I think that both the gameplay and story might have been a bit more engaging if they had been allowed to experiment a little more in their delivery of the material.

[brighteststar707]

Parallels

You carry parts of past lives with you. You can't help it, you're made up of all the people you've loved before.

A reset theory idea I revived from a years-old draft about picking up traits from people you spend a lot of time around (as I'm quite prone to doing🤭).

There has always been this strange familiarity to you. Even back in the early days, it always felt like you were someone Saeyoung had known for years.

He likes to tease you about being easy to read, but it's more than that. The things he recognises in you are things he has grown to love so much in his closest friends.

He loves to tell silly jokes just to hear you laugh. When he promised you a life that would be happy and without worry, he meant it. Your laugh is infectious, addicting even. A laugh from you is an affirmation to someone as insecure as him.

It took him a while to catch on to the way your giggles resemble Yoosung's sometimes. It's not every time, but more than enough times to be a noticeable quirk of yours. The slight hiss of air escaping through your teeth, the precursor to a proper, real laugh.

That was the first parallel he drew. But it was not the last.

He thought he was imagining things at first, making connections where there weren't any to be made. But then you teasingly called him honey for the first time, truly affectionate and sugary-sweet and it was impossible to not think about how he had seen Zen do the same thing before to make fans of his blush. Of course, this trick worked just as well on him when you did it. When you were in these moods, you were magnetic, more so than even Zen could be.

There is something about how, during discussions, you pause to gather your thoughts right before you're about to conclude a point. You have told him you do it to try and collect your thoughts into a coherent sentence so you don't jumble everything up. He thinks it's smart (and cute). It's something he is trying to implement in his life now.

He also knows it's something Jumin practices and advises others to do too. On occasion, during RFA gatherings, Saeyoung watches you and Jumin have a conversation and fall into similar patterns of speech. It's mesmerising, like watching two mirror images.

It is only after a few years, after getting closer to Jaehee at all that realises there are similarities between the two of you too.

He sees a small echo of her in the way that you tackle challenges, not just the resilience he has always known you're capable of but the way you can dissect a problem down to its core and handle it piece by piece. In the tone and cadence you use when instructing others, kind but deliberate, with no room for doubt.

But she's also in your excitement, in the way your voice builds up and rises in pitch when you're talking about something you love. If it wasn't something he recognised from your first weeks together, he'd attribute it to your many musical movie nights.

It wouldn't be fair to say that these traits are identical to theirs. They're things that are so inherent to you, he couldn't imagine you without your funny hiss-laugh or the cadence of your voice when you're measuring out your words. He finds comfort all the same in the little overlap between you and his friends. It may puzzle him sometimes, but he wouldn't change it for the world.

The cherry on the cake was one day when you were chatting and you scrunched your nose before telling a joke, in the same way he knows he does sometimes. His heart swelled three sizes that day and he wouldn't stop teasing you about it.

[chryblossomjjk]

some people are literally turning on jungkook bc they wanted to victim blame newjeans and he made them feel dumb… also not for nothing you guys really need to temper the way you talk about him (and other idols) because the shit i got in my inbox last night about “he doesn’t understand english” “he doesn’t know what he’s doing” is just ODD

[maelswife]

And since were on the topic of s4... Hearing this again brings so much nostalgia

S4 was the only season I watched when it was releasing (AND OF COURSE IT WAS THE LAST SEASON) and just by remembering how I waited every week for the episodes brings a tear to my eyes, and those little animations after the Ed(／。＼) Such great memories ESPECIALLY since Mael finally got revealed and I was SCREAMING like crazy seeing it.

I so need to rewatch 7ds.

[togamicchi]

minecraft story mode was always good idgaf it was fun and exciting and had a little bit of whimsy and queerness(jesse )

[thecryptidart1st]

How we feeling on the FNAF movie casting?

look i had my heart set out for Willem DaFoe since Spiderman: No Way Home and at first i was mad that they got live action Shaggy to play William

but then i remembered they got fucking live action shaggy to play william bc that man was and has since been the perfectly cast Shaggy and i want to see him as fucking feral as possible now

(also like….it’s so unfair the most iconic cartoon character of the 70s is now related to william fucking afton)

ALSO: ULTRA INSTINCT PEEPAW. JUST SAYING

[figsbass]

mutuals reblog with the first season of dimension 20 that you watched as it was coming out week to week. mine was the seven

[shrews-art]

I could write a whole essay about how Victor Vale and Kell Maresh are two sides of the same coin, opposites yet somehow similar when it comes to their relationship with pain

[oifaaa]

Would you recommend giving MHA a read?

I dont usually like recommending things just bc taste can be very subjective however if you like superhero stories I'd say give it a go just keep in mind it definitely has its not a perfect series it is a fun one tho if you don't take it too seriously

[antidotefortheawkward-art]

Sun Wukong's assorted lingpai (mandate tokens)

[ID: 1) An illustration of the two sides of a mostly rectangular lingpai made of wood. One side reads "令" and the other reads "弼马温", both written in seal script. The bottom of the lingpai is adorned by horses facing outwards, clouds by their feet.

2) An illustration of the two sides of a stone lingpai shaped mostly like a rectangle, but flared at the top and bottom. One side reads "令" and the other reads "美猴王", both written in seal script. The top of the lingpai is adorned with a dragon-pearl surrounded by flames and clouds. The bottom is adorned with mountains, the sea, and coral. The borders of both the top and bottom are decorated with clouds and flowers. The top is swirled in a way that resembles a lingzhi or a ruyi.

3) An illustration of the two sides of a red jade lingpai, shaped mostly like a rectangle but with a curved top. One side reads "令" and the other reads "齐天大圣", both written in seal script. The top of the lingpai is adorned by a ruyi with a flower and mountain at its center. Below the ruyi is a lotus flower, which sits on top of the forehead of a Yazi carving. Clouds extend out from either side of Yazi and below him are flowers. The two sides of the lingpai have the carvings of cloud pillars wrapped in a stylized waterfall. At the bottom are clouds which could also be the foam from the waterfall. Lotuses float atop this foam/these clouds. At the center of the bottom is a mountain with a ruyi at its foot. This ruyi also has a flower within it.

4) The lineart for the three lingpai, with accompanying commentary. The one labeled "BiMaWen" reads "carved and burned wood," "simple, only horses and clouds," and "ornamental, basically no power." The one labeled "Beautiful Monkey King" reads "carved from a chunk of Sun Wukong's stone egg," "customized from Ao family royal lingpai template," and "mostly sea, cloud, and dragon pearl imagery." The one labeled "Great Sage Equaling Heaven" reads "carved from red jade," "fully custom, in style of an emperor's lingpai but HuaGuo," and "flowers, waterfalls, mountains, ruyi, Yazi, and clouds imagery." At the side are simple doodles of the three lingpai. The first is light brown with a yellow cord, captioned "simple cord, no tassel." The second is grey with a red cord and tassel, captioned "silk cord and tassel." The third is red with a red cord and tassel, captioned "braided cord," "jade and gold accented." End ID]

[miumiins]

love ♡ scenario

[bilboyagathechickenfootedhobbit]

Finished my anniversary diptych just in time.

And again, I know the quote on the right is incorrect; it’s a joke between my husband and I and while it’s canonically wrong, it’s correct in our own personal canon 💜

[synintheraven]

Back with more edited pics that look almost the same but have slight differences - also went with warmer tones this time so it looks like summer can be a thing in medieval England