you were raised in comparison.
it wasn't always obvious (well. except for the times that it was), but you internalized it young. you had to eat what you didn't like, other people are going hungry, and you should be grateful. you had to suck it up and walk on the twisted ankle, it wasn't broken, you were just being a baby. you were never actually suffering, people obviously had it worse than you did.
you had a roof over your head - imagine! with the way you behaved, with how you talked back to your parents? you're lucky they didn't kick you out on your ass. they had friends who had to deal with that. hell, you have friends who had to deal with that. and how dare you imply your father isn't there for you - just because he doesn't ever actually talk to you and just because he's completely emotionally checked out of your life doesn't mean you're not fucking lucky. think about your cousins, who don't even get to speak to their dad. so what if yours has a mean streak; is aggressive and rude. at least you have a father to be rude to you.
you really think you're hurting? you were raised in a home! you had access to clean water! you never so much as came close to experiencing a real problem. sure, okay. you have this "mental illness" thing, but teenagers are always depressed, right. it's a phase, you'll move on with your life.
what do you mean you feel burnt out at work. what do you mean you mean you never "formed healthy coping mechanisms?" we raised you better than that. you were supposed to just shoulder through things. to hold yourself to high expectations. "burning out" is for people with real jobs and real stress. burnout is for people who have sick kids and people who have high-paying jobs and people who are actually experiencing something difficult. recently you almost cried because you couldn't find your fucking car keys. you just have lost your sense of gratitude, and honestly, we're kind of hurt. we tell you we love you, isn't that enough? if you want us to stick around, you need to be better about proving it. you need to shut up about how your mental health is ruined.
it could be worse! what if you were actually experiencing executive dysfunction. if you were really actually sick, would you even be able to look at things on the internet about it? you just spend too much time on webMD. you just like to freak yourself out and feel like you belong to something. you just like playing the victim. this is always how you have been - you've always been so fucking dramatic. you have no idea how good you have it - you're too fucking sensitive.
you were like, maybe too good of a kid. unwilling to make a real fuss. and the whole time - the little points, the little validations - they went unnoticed. it isn't that you were looking for love, specifically - more like you'd just wanted any one person to actually listen. that was all you'd really need. you just needed to be witnessed. it wasn't that you couldn't withstand the burden, but you did want to know that anyone was watching. these days, you are so accustomed to the idea of comparison - you don't even think you belong in your own communities. someone always fits better than you do. you're always the outlier. they made these places safe, and then you go in, and you are just not... quite the same way that would actually-fit.
you watch the little white ocean of your numbness lap at your ankles. the tide has been coming in for a while, you need to do something about it. what you want to do is take a nap. what you want to do is develop some kind of time machine - it's not like you want your life to stop, not completely, but it would really nice if you could just get everything to freeze, just for a little while, just until you're finished resting. but at least you're not the worst you've been. at least you have anything. you're so fucking lucky. do you have any concept of the amount of global suffering?
a little ant dies at the side of your kitchen sink. you look at its strange chitinous body and think - if you could just somehow convince yourself it is enough, it will finally be enough and you can be happy. no changes will have to be made. you just need to remember what you could lose. what is still precious to you.
you can't stop staring at the ant. you could be an ant instead of a person, that is how lucky you are. it's just - you didn't know the name of the ant, did you. it's just - ants spend their whole life working, and never complain. never pull the car over to weep.
it's just - when it died, it curled up into a tight little ball.
something kind of uncomfortable: you do that when you sleep.
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i think another reason why i REALLY love the eah shannon hale books (aside from how generally amazing they are) is how shannon hale expands more on the royal and rebel problem.
like in the show, we don't really explore the sides of the royals and rebels beyond the usual stance of whether they go against following their stories and support raven, or whether they want to follow their stories and condemn raven for not signing and starting the entire rebel movement.
but in the books i love how shannon hale expands upon the sheer amount of utter classism present in the eah world, and especially present in this school; perfectly encapsulating how those in power are very, very concerned about keeping this brand of classism ongoing, about keeping that divide between the 'Royals' and the 'Commoners' apparent.
just the little details of the royals and the commoners having different seats in the auditorium, with the royals having comfortable padded seats as opposed to the commoners having more uncomfortable and hard chairs, how they both have different common rooms; just the little details in general which highlight how the entire concept of destinies and signing the book and legacies is a system that is established in order to keep this classism going.
the legacy system honestly just breeds more of this classism; it tells the royals they are above the commoners and it tells them about how they deserve the happy endings and the prince charmings and the glittering gold palaces, and it tells the commoners of their place beneath the royals and firmly shows them the differences between themselves and the royals and how the commoners should be happy and complacent with the endings that they get.
overall, it tells both of these groups to simply accept what is being presented to them; presents the narrative that change is unfamiliar and dangerous and bad, and as such, they should never question their system and should instead just be happy with what they get, because, surely, this system is fair, so it just ends up being what they deserve.
hell, even the fact that before raven basically formed the royal/rebel movement, people were simply separated on the basis of being royals and commoners; it could literally not be made more obvious.
anyways, i just love the way shannon hale's books expand on this and i love how you can very clearly see the ignorance present in the eah world and how everyone's worldview is turned on its head because of raven and her actions 10/10.
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Comparing your work to other people's is a great way to kill your joy for a thing so let me be clear and say this is not that, I am just a human person with human emotions and sometimes that means needing to be the tiniest bit petty and then moving on. You know. For your health or something.
There is a very popular cosplayer who coincidentally keeps doing the same costumes as me, and I am just the tiniest bit annoyed about it, because as is the case with many (...most) very popular cosplayers, they have a very specific, airbrushed, conventionally attractive, perfect makeup, etc aesthetic to all their photos that is. Not what I personally value in cosplay, at least. Which is fine! Different people having different approaches to costumes is part of what makes cosplay such an interesting hobby!
But it does bother me a tiny bit that the work I put into my costumes is not necessarily the kind of work that gets attention, and it does make it a little glaringly obvious when it's The Same Characters.
(Also you all know the kinds of characters I cosplay. I gravitate towards them in part because they have weird energy, not super put together attractive energy. But that's only part of my point.)
Anyways. I do not follow them on Instagram because why would I do that, but nonetheless I saw that they're apparently also doing a Laois cosplay now, which I guarantee will get lots more attention than mine. And for the most part that's fine, I love cosplay and I love doing my weird little thing and I especially love that I do in fact know other people that value the same things as me & that we have fun together. I will have a great time in my fun little costume, dressing up with my friends in their fun little costumes and I am looking forward to it. And I do not actually need likes to validate that I am becoming a pretty damn good cosplayer (whose stuff is better quality than many popular cosplayers' because I care more about craftsmanship than I do getting attention). I am even thinking pretty seriously about having Laois be my first ever competition costume if the armor turns out alright, because I think I'm genuinely getting to that level.
But it would just be kind of neat if being a weird little guy with weird little ideas who is into the hobby because I like sourcing historical patterns and materials and thinking about the worldbuilding that goes into costumes and creating neat little "in-universe" ephemera to hand out to people and all the things I like didn't always mean getting overshadowed by Instagram Perfect Attractive People.
Alas. Okay glad that's out of my system I'm normal again. I'm going to make some more chain mail.
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I was at first in love with totk, and I still think mechanical wise, its quite impressive
And when I collected all the tears and saw the "story" I genuinely got upset in a good way (at first), because man! Did they really got the balls to go that far? Is there nothing I can do for her? Now I MUST do all the temples, see how it plays out and --oh, I've got this cutscene already. Why are all the people so dumb about Zelda, I KNOW where she is, Link say something-- Link??
After finishing all the temples and almost falling asleep, I stopped playing the game, looked up the last boss and remaining cutscenes and went "Thats it?"
Watching other people (including you) being critically about so many things, both character and mechanical wise, I've almost startled myself with a realization what the gnawing feeling I constantly had, actually was.
Totk feels like a fanfic.
And don't get me wrong, I love fanfiction, I think its great and important, I adore fanfic writers, I love finding gems, I love reading self indulgent stories, see new spins and interpretation of characters. I love the casual, the passion, the creativity!
But totk gives me the same feeling everytime I am reminded that Fifty Shades is a Twillight fanfic.
The world is there. The faces I know and grew to love are there. But everything is ever so slightly different, uncannily so. Just how some characters talk, how they act, how they were placed in the story. The Zonai appearing out of nowhere, but no, they always had been there you see, they were these super magical advanced people but they all died, the king is so tragic. And you see, the king is super cool and powerful and-- oh I dont get to interact with him outside of the tutorial. Did they try to do another King Rhoam-- but wait, that only worked because we didn't knew he was a ghost-- totk wait stop why do you take him out of the story, why couldn't he be a companion, he IS ABLE TO TALK THROUGH THE ARM LET THE OLD GOAT COMMENT ON STUFF?? If you bring up all this ancient stuff and you still got a ghost lingering, let him talk?? (I never ended up getting Mineru but I smell wasted potential as well)
Im not even mad, I am disappointed. It feels like the devs saw what all the lore hunters got attached to and talked about and then just... took the "cool". All the Zonai stuff could've easily been Sheikah tech, but got just reskinned to look more exciting instead of being its own thing.
Like... at this point I prefer what fans are doing over what Totk gave us. The characterization of Rauru (and everything Zonai), projects like you do of what totk couldve been, the little nuggets of actual highlights and details of love fans find in the game. I found much more enjoyment in these concepts than I got from a 70bucks game. And thats depressing.
I love fanfiction. I dont love it when my corporate 70 dollar, six year development, console exclusive game feels like a story that passionate fan couldve written miles better in a week (and I've already seen much cooler and interesting rewrites and ideas).
Zelda has been a huge part of my childhood and its depressing seeing it treated like that. It always was about the story, the epic, its The Legend of Zelda for crying out loud. To be courageous to enter a dungeon, to be wise and solve all the riddles. To become powerful over the journey you embarked on. Zelda to me is the campfire story you tell to others and go into the woods or the beach and imagine what monsters you would slay. Zelda is not the sandcastle you build in the sandbox and then add dinosaurs and star wars ships because you didn't had any other toys, and just stumble into and over some story to entertain yourself until lunch is ready.
I'd have an oracle of seasons over another totk any day at this point. They should've just make the mechanics of totk its own thing, but I guess they were scared it wouldn't sell if it doesn't have a Mario or Zelda skin straped over it.
Anyways, sorry for the mini rant - love your art, love your thoughts and insights, and I am looking forward to see more of it - Zelda related or not (your original characters look amazing, I adore your style sm)
Hope you have a great rest of the day!
*nods along through this entire rant*
idk how many of my rants you have read but yeah ... yeah ... and the further you think about it the further it all falls apart, the wasted potential of it all and the goddamn audacity of them to do those interviews in which they make it EVEN WORSE is just
i know the expectation for a direct sequel to botw was huge and understandbly so but i really REALLY think it would not have been that hard to make it a good follow up even taking into account that totk was originally a DLC, pretty much all of botws aspects could have been developed further, i dont know what could have happened to make totk have turned out like this .. literally it feels like something had to have gone wrong, its like someone who doesnt know zelda nor botw at all was given a few prompts and then just made some generic fantasy story while the rest worked on ultrahand for 5 years
the technical impressive things ARE technical impressive, but i dont think it was necessary nor served the game well in any way (and i LOVE building games- however totk is neither a building game nor a story game nor a zelda game nor an exploration game nor a sequel imo) but zelda, this zelda, is not made for that and i cant help but think it was mainly to encourage people to make some ridiculous mechs so it can go viral on tiktok (not trying to discredit them, it IS cool what they are doing but i .... have my doubts if zelda is the right place for that)
ill stop there bc i have ranted so much about everything i dont wanna repeat it here again; it just doesnt feel like a real game (derogatory), it feels extra bad bc i was not really into zelda when botw came out and while i did get it as soon as i could (months after release since i just started a minijob and didnt have the money) i only over time grew to love zelda this much again, devouring any theories and anything about it bc i loved it so much- i was never into it like this when a new title was announced and dont own any special editions so i bought the totk collectors bc i was just so damn excited for it after the 2019 trailer dropped (god i want that time back ... it looked so much more like it was going to be an actual sequel) even if i was already worried it wouldnt be good at that point given how much i started to sense stuff i dont like about the newer trailers
i recently sold it at our local gameshop bc it was like a thorn in my side given how expensive it was and how dissapointed i was in the game, i genuinely think that, technical impressiveness aside, totk is the onyl zelda i truly cannot stand (for alot of reasons) and im genuinely worried for the future of the franchise
i bought an Oki (Okami) figurine for what i got back and i feel much happier with that :3
(also on a note, i did finish the game two weeks after release but stopped playing it right then and hadnt touched it since, i also streamed all of what i played and its still up if you want to see my slow descend into madness fjkdhkdhjk
though its been a long while since then and i by far did not talk about everything back then, just what my most immediate frustrations were while still playing)
(also the gameplay isnt as good as people make it out to be, so much is so frustrating and punishing to use i am kinda baffled it got through like that and most people call that its best aspect ..... though i guess if the rest is so much worse even mid gameplay can seem good ooooooooh how dare i)
also thank you for liking what i do!!! <3 it means alot to know it is appreciated by someone :D
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