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it was such a good decision to include a death counter in celeste. it turns failure into something players are bragging about and bonding over instead of a source of shame. that is so beautiful and cool can we all think about failure like celeste
help me choose a new profile picture
keep roxas kingdom hearts
pink deltarune
link
v2 ultrakill
adachi rei
hello i'm naydra :) or lyn :) don't care :)
my pronouns are they/fae and i'm not really picky about gendered terms EXCEPT please call me mg. (mage) instead of mx. queen, king, bro, girl etc. are all fine :)
i mostly yap about video games i like but also share things that make me smile or i think are interesting :)
my tags:
#naydra likes deltarune
#naydra likes kingdom hearts
#naydra likes zelda
#naydra likes ultrakill
#naydra likes yapping (posts about everything else)
#naydra likes a lot (my favorites)
i am kinda shy but i will always appreciate conversation in my notes and spam liking and stuff. don't worry about being annoying i do not mind!!
i will post about adult things sometimes so 18+ please
hello fellow kris fans
friendship is so awesome. do y'all ever think about how awesome friendship is
i like her
*does this to u*
you are a person worth being you are a person worth being you are a person worth being you are a person worth being you are a person worth being
i cannot be allowed to play ultrakill it was too fun i will get too into it
uh oh deltarune's deconstruction of The Silent Hero and specifically link legend of zelda was a little too effective and now i'm starting to feel disgust at the concept
for context link legend of zelda is a character who's meant a lot to me since i was like 13. there was something about him that i was so drawn to, that i saw myself in, that i wanted to become, so i did. held on to an ideal of courage and kindness and being a little too careful to avoid the impulsivity that so often plagued bravery. i found the idea of being a wandering hero very romantic; i fantasized about running away from home, leaving everyone behind, becoming someone nobody knew. that way, i could be free of the expectations for who i was supposed to be. and, since i'd be a hero of course, who helps people, everyone would like me. they'd like me, and help me out, and i'd be gone before i could be anything less than perfect in their eyes. (i have changed a lot since then, but this is relevant to my points i promise)
this is what i saw in the character of link. not somebody who was me per se, but somebody i wanted to become and learn from. i guess it's not the worst choice of character, but that's not really who he's supposed to be, i think. what he was meant to be is a blank slate, with personality and backstory just vague and subtle enough that you can make him whatever you want. as much as i like to pretend he's not, and think of him on his own as a character, he was designed to be relatable and inoffensive.
'why isn't link nonbinary or gender ambiguous?' is an age old question. at least i've been thinking about it for a while and some others in sorta niche circles. it would balance out the gender ratio of the three triforce weilders and make him measurably more 'neutral,' so why not do it? because male is seen as the default. maleness is the optimally inoffensive option because neutrality or ambiguity or even femaleness are seen as 'special' or 'other.'
you can follow this line of thinking in other ways too: why is his skin the color it is? why is his role usually as a violent enforcer or protector? why must he do so much alone?
'zelda has some issues with racism, misogyny, and transphobia' is a cold take that other people have made much better than me, but the point i'm making is that, link, as a character designed to be relatable and inoffensive, plainly shows what's considered to be normal and the biases contained in that. (and this is despite everything that makes him special and important to people outside the norm; i'm not saying he's meant to be 100% The Most Normal Guy, just that he embodies out expectations of a fantasy hero and a video game protagonist quite directly)
all of this is because he's a blank slate, meant to be relatable and projected onto. because of his role as a silent protagonist, he'll never be allowed to express a real personality---nothing deeper than a nose for mischief or love of animals. a backstory and some character relations if you're lucky.
to me, link is emblematic of a wish to never have to be known as weird or flawed or vulnerable. it doesn't really matter who he is because his sole purpose is to play the role of hero. he embodies courage by foregoing himself and all other aspects of his identity in order to play that role. the world wants him to be someone else, and he willingly obliges.
kris does the opposite of this, increasingly as the chapters go on. they're bursting with personality, because unlike link, they're free to push the boundaries of our expectations. they get to be someone not everyone likes or relates to---they go out of their way to show that they're anything but what you expect. they're still our silent protagonist, barely, bearing classic markers like quiet tendencies, odd habits, and general mystique, but now these things are built to be questioned, with threads woven throughout the game giving hints as to what they might mean. ultimately, they paint a picture of a character with a rich and complicated and controversial personality. the finer details are subtle, but their more extreme actions make it impossible to deny.
my favorite reading of kris is one where they are choosing, early on, to restrain themself, in an attempt to fit into the more classic silent protagonist box. so as the game goes on and they express themself more openly, it can be thought of as an active choice. that has become what courage means to me---the choice to be vulnerable, despite all the expectations and obligations and misunderstandings. kris is who they are, and i like to think they're slowly learning that that's okay. i want them to get a happy ending because i think the desire to be someone else they feel in this reading is wrong about them.
everyone deserves to exist and express themself. everything that makes you weird or vulnerable is breathtakingly beautiful. i want to see it, and i want to live in a world where people feel safe to be themselves. i believe it truly makes the world better to be yourself unabashedly, and i think the concept of kris deltarune agrees with me. the concept of link does not.
