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(no subject)
Dec. 17th, 2018 12:31 pmAlso I keep compulsively checking Tumblr and then remembering there's nothing there today and I shouldn't even be logging in.
I'm gonna miss the hellsite, honestly.
I'm gonna miss the hellsite, honestly.
(no subject)
Dec. 15th, 2018 04:29 pm I really love reading blog posts from people getting Really Mad about some niche thing I could normally care less about because it opens your eyes to something you’d never even notice.
Just found an entire post by a lady who was really mad about the way people prune shrubs. I never really thought that there could be more than one way to do it.
(Or: The Earl tries his hand at ludonarrative criticism.
Crossposted to Tumblr.)
What can I say about Majora’s Mask that hasn’t been said before? It’s the game that people analyze from a story perspective. Its dark themes and heavy use of symbolism make it interesting to pick apart, and it’s been around so long that basically everyone has said their piece.
But most of the theories and analyses focus on how Majora’s Mask makes the player feel the dread of apocalypse that the other characters feel, or how the heavy themes of death and loss impact the narrative. (Or, that favourite of lazy theorycrafters, “everyone is dead and this is purgatory”.) There’s one part of Majora’s Mask- a central part!- that no one talks about, and that’s the symbolism around the masks themselves.
I’m gonna look at this symbolism through a semi-Jungian lens. Obviously, spoilers for Majora’s Mask follow.
( TL;DR: Link’s inner conflict in Majora’s Mask is shaped by uncertainty about his identity. To solve this conflict, he tries to fill a number of archetypes and social roles, symbolized by masks. )…Wow, that was an adventure. This is probably the longest piece of meta I’ve ever written, but I needed to get this out of my head.
If there’s anything you want me to expand on, please reblog or reply to this post and I’ll do the best I can to elucidate.
Thanks for reading!
Crossposted to Tumblr.)
What can I say about Majora’s Mask that hasn’t been said before? It’s the game that people analyze from a story perspective. Its dark themes and heavy use of symbolism make it interesting to pick apart, and it’s been around so long that basically everyone has said their piece.
But most of the theories and analyses focus on how Majora’s Mask makes the player feel the dread of apocalypse that the other characters feel, or how the heavy themes of death and loss impact the narrative. (Or, that favourite of lazy theorycrafters, “everyone is dead and this is purgatory”.) There’s one part of Majora’s Mask- a central part!- that no one talks about, and that’s the symbolism around the masks themselves.
I’m gonna look at this symbolism through a semi-Jungian lens. Obviously, spoilers for Majora’s Mask follow.
( TL;DR: Link’s inner conflict in Majora’s Mask is shaped by uncertainty about his identity. To solve this conflict, he tries to fill a number of archetypes and social roles, symbolized by masks. )…Wow, that was an adventure. This is probably the longest piece of meta I’ve ever written, but I needed to get this out of my head.
If there’s anything you want me to expand on, please reblog or reply to this post and I’ll do the best I can to elucidate.
Thanks for reading!
(no subject)
Dec. 12th, 2018 10:00 amThere's some... interesting interplay in Nintendo's N64-era RPGs between the player and character.
Specifically, it's assumed the 'player' is a child, and thus in order to make the protagonist relatable and sympathetic to the player, the protagonist is either a child forced into an adult role or an adult with very childlike qualities. So you get a mustachioed Italian plumber running around doing errands for pocket change with total innocence on how... sketchy some of those errands are, or a character who constantly switches from being an ordinary child to being a child in an adult's body, or an older child cursed into looking like a Deku Scrub (who is coded as a very young child, complete with barely veiled hostility from certain adults)....
It creates this weird tension between what the player understands, what the assumed player understands, and what the character understands. It's really fascinating - especially with stuff like Majora's Mask, which has the Coraline Effect like whoa.
Specifically, it's assumed the 'player' is a child, and thus in order to make the protagonist relatable and sympathetic to the player, the protagonist is either a child forced into an adult role or an adult with very childlike qualities. So you get a mustachioed Italian plumber running around doing errands for pocket change with total innocence on how... sketchy some of those errands are, or a character who constantly switches from being an ordinary child to being a child in an adult's body, or an older child cursed into looking like a Deku Scrub (who is coded as a very young child, complete with barely veiled hostility from certain adults)....
It creates this weird tension between what the player understands, what the assumed player understands, and what the character understands. It's really fascinating - especially with stuff like Majora's Mask, which has the Coraline Effect like whoa.
(no subject)
Dec. 12th, 2018 12:51 amWe live in a time and place when there are so many works of art being made every day that we can't keep track of them all, even "just" the ones that their makers share with the public. And this is a good thing. Every bit of art that gets made makes the world a better place, even if some of it is really only good for the artist.
...But it makes me sad realizing just how much art- great art!- gets made, these days, for stuff that's basically disposable.
Brilliant performances on TV shows that will only last another season because they're getting killed by executives; beautiful art and fluid animation made for cartoons that are basically toy commercials; art and music made for video games that are put out every two years like clockwork....
If the greatest piece of music ever made was written for the Transformers soundtrack, how many people would notice?
...But it makes me sad realizing just how much art- great art!- gets made, these days, for stuff that's basically disposable.
Brilliant performances on TV shows that will only last another season because they're getting killed by executives; beautiful art and fluid animation made for cartoons that are basically toy commercials; art and music made for video games that are put out every two years like clockwork....
If the greatest piece of music ever made was written for the Transformers soundtrack, how many people would notice?
(no subject)
Dec. 10th, 2018 06:33 pmK, can we bottle some of this magic mental health smoke in a bottle and make it available any time I want it?
Because today has been GREAT, my earlier bitching notwithstanding.
I got a commission finished, I read about half of a (n admittedly short) book, I got a bunch of Sims stuff made for my Secret Santa I'm doing over at GOS, and I'm even (probably) gonna manage to do my PT exercises.
Now being able to do that CONSISTENTLY would be great.
Because today has been GREAT, my earlier bitching notwithstanding.
I got a commission finished, I read about half of a (n admittedly short) book, I got a bunch of Sims stuff made for my Secret Santa I'm doing over at GOS, and I'm even (probably) gonna manage to do my PT exercises.
Now being able to do that CONSISTENTLY would be great.
louis "it's not gay if she's prepubescent" de pont du lac has never seen a grown-ass woman turn into a vampire.
i'm just imagining a situation where he's, like, seeing it happen
and she's just kinda sitting there staring at the wall
"why aren't you screaming in agony"
"what?"
"doesn't it hurt?"
" hon, you've never had period cramps" (no subject)
Dec. 9th, 2018 12:37 pm It's interesting how horror, comedy, and pornography can all blur into each other with relative ease. Like how comedy that's done badly can be deeply unsettling nightmare fuel, or certain kinds of slasher "horror" that are more sleazy and titillating than actually scary, or very weird fetish porn that makes people who don't have that fetish either laugh or go 'ewwww'.
I think it might be that all three 'genres' are, more than anything else, trying to get the reader to have an emotional experience, and everything else comes secondary to that goal? Like, you can have comedy (and horror, and smut) without strong characters, a complicated plot, or a strong theme.
So when the wrong notes get hit, and the reader has the wrong kind of emotional experience....
I think it might be that all three 'genres' are, more than anything else, trying to get the reader to have an emotional experience, and everything else comes secondary to that goal? Like, you can have comedy (and horror, and smut) without strong characters, a complicated plot, or a strong theme.
So when the wrong notes get hit, and the reader has the wrong kind of emotional experience....
aka: Wreck It Ralph: Vanellope Von Schweetz's Gay Awakening.
Really cute movie, had a lot of heart and soul even under all the product placement, loved that there wasn't a dumb twist ending and the story came out of the characters wanting different things (fancy that!).
Really cute movie, had a lot of heart and soul even under all the product placement, loved that there wasn't a dumb twist ending and the story came out of the characters wanting different things (fancy that!).
[TS2] FECKING SIMS
Dec. 5th, 2018 07:13 pmI was going to try to get some TS2 gameplay up on here so I'd have something on here other than "YAY NEW SOCIAL MEDIA/BOO HEADACHE", so guess what my game decided to do?
If you said 'kersplode', you'd be right. Argh.
If you said 'kersplode', you'd be right. Argh.
... Is the icons.
I've been setting up a good set for this journal- shame you only get 15, but my $$$ for dumb internet things is basically limited to LoveNikki fullsets.
Still, I've got a good variety ofprettyboys expressions of emotion to choose from.
I've been setting up a good set for this journal- shame you only get 15, but my $$$ for dumb internet things is basically limited to LoveNikki fullsets.
Still, I've got a good variety of
Hi, I'm one of the tumblr refugees you've heard about. Made a Dreamwidth, did nothing with it, but I figure it's time to start trying to use the thing. So hello, world!
