It's just you and me, Post Office. Just you and me.

I have gifts that still need mailing (mostly for bubbles and Claire) and emailing (for uninformed and Rex, sorry about the delay guys-- no good reason for it, I just get home late and then am lazy about mailing of all types) and I'm planning to do so today, tomorrow, and Saturday if necessary. Claire wishes to chat over the weekend! So if I mail them today, perhaps she'll get her presents before we talk. That would be cool, huh?

I also need to arrange Kristentimes, because how will I ever give her her presents? She mailed me awesome Unicorn candy and jewelry and, most importantly, The Bhagavad-Gita which she remembered I'd been looking for a copy of, which made me SMILE THE BIGGEST SMILE ♥ so, yes, hangouts are definitely required! Perhaps we will go bowling and talk shop again?

I also also need to see Emma, whose elaborate present must be wrapped up before I can do so, so I guess my weekends will be spoken for with actually doing stuff for this month. Last week of the month we are in fact going to FL to visit with Danny's family after all, because his eccentric grandfather is funding the trip for everyone. Which is super cool!

That aside, a little more SW:TOR. Last night before workouts, I ended up playing a bit and decided to kill Skavak after all, and come back to do side-quests afterwards. Rather than even try to do it alone and get frustrated if I failed, I brought Bret and Danny along with me and we made short work of him. Hooray! So now I've started my "legacy", the last name shared amongst all my characters, apparently. In a fit of forgetfulness, I-- well-- forgot that I had planned to go with 'Eldara' so Matachin would have the right last name when I played her. Instead, I picked 'Meridian', which turned out surprisingly not to be taken. So, he's Soldat Meridian now, which is a bit on the meh side, but not bad, either. (It does not have the same kind of lyrical zing I prefer on character names, but really, in my head he is just always 'Soldat' anyway. The surname is superfluous.)

Edit: Post about how you're going to get off your ass and do something important for your pals that you have not yet done: all your friends graciously respond that it's no big and you needn't worry about them.

You guys why are you all so awesome I'm still trying to send out your gifts ASAP. *fistshake!*

Keeps lingering, must be discussed

I've been thinking about intended audiences, and entitled audiences. Lately, it's because of things like Skyward Sword, or Disney movies. Then, I wanted to think about things I have clearly not been the intended audience for, like Deerskin and Toy Story 3 (and especially, especially Christopher Nolan's I Hate Batman And You're all Peons movies, but aside from trying to be funny instead of bitter, I can't even step back from that one enough to analyze why I'm not the intended audience, unfortunately.)

I don't get the entitlement, basically. I understand frustration when you don't get what you wanted. I don't know what I wanted from Toy Story 3, except to be proven wrong-- see, I saw the previews and said 'nah, I'm not interested', but when I later admitted that, people who had enjoyed the movie told me to give it a shot, which was very good natured of them. The long and short of it is, I still didn't like the film, and the only thing I'd kind of hoped was that I would actually like it and be able to talk with my friends who liked it about it.

With Deerskin, I know I was disappointed because I did not expect the book to go there. I thought, 'you know, that's the only place this could go that I would absolutely not be okay with', and it went there, and it rolled around in it. I violently disliked it because it went to a subject matter that was already definitely not my thing, and then it proceeded to handle it in a way that I found totally lacking. But you know what, I definitely was not the right person to be reading it, either. What I thought I was getting when I went in was...well, I expected another The Hero and the Crown, I guess. But I don't really feel like I have a right to have been so vocally bitchy about it, because quite frankly, aside from being irked by the stance 'you can't have an opinion if you don't read the whole thing', I was just out of my gourd. A book that was clearly not written for people who feel the way I do, and I'm acting entitled by being upset about it, I think, because quite frankly, there are a LOT of books out there that I could have read instead that probably ARE for me.

On the flipside, I'm a fan of Disney and I'm a fan of Zelda. Disney is really rough to be a fan of. People hate Disney for all sorts of reasons; because they don't approve of the Princess franchise; because they hate children; because they hate things that they see as 'geared' to children; because they 'never liked cartoons', which basically amounts to seeing the movies as only being accessible to children. I've also heard 'because they're terrible' or 'because they're racist' or 'because they're sexist'.

And I gotta say: How're they more racist or sexist or terrible than like, every other movie that's just like them? And who cares if you, a bitter twenty-something who hates children, smokes, and runs cthulu-themed D&D games, don't like Disney films? I think it's safe to say that you are probably not the intended audience, so rather than lie to you with a half-assed attempt at pacifying you, aren't they better off sticking to their intended audience and letting you go watch the horror, thriller, and sci-fi films that are actually going to be interesting to you?

It's not rocket science. We develop preferences for things, we try new things, sometimes we like them, sometimes we don't. If you don't like something, you stop trying it, and that's completely reasonable. The only source of conflict is, maybe your friends like something you don't, so you can't cut it completely out of your life, maybe. I have that problem sometimes, especially if it's something that everybody is into, so yes-- I understand what I think of as the typical nerd kneejerk reaction of 'oh my god, shut UP about that, everyone is talking about it and I'm sick of it' just as much as I understand the friend kneejerk reaction of 'oh, come on! please give it a chance? I want us to be able to enjoy this together!'

For the most part, while you will see things like the disturbing MLP:FiM fandom that seems to think it is the true demographic for the show, people tend to agree that if they don't like it, it's not for them and that's fine, they have other stuff they like that they can go do. And that's fine! I'm absolutely in alignment with this opinion.

For some reason, people who don't like Legend of Zelda games are incapable of understanding this point.

I have complaints about Skyward Sword, and I'm a huge Zelda fan. I have some serious complaints, like why the hell did you force me to use the motion-plus controller when I have to recalibrate it every five minutes? and what the crap was that asinine bullshit battle at the end? talk about anti-climactic. And most especially: Why didn't you name him Ganon? There was no reason to call him Demise. It was obvious who he was. Why bother pretending otherwise?

I have a lot of smaller problems with the game too. I did not care for Girahim and his yaoi-fanbait. There was a lot of yaoi-fanbait in the game, but I was okay with everything except Generic Anime Villain with Silver Hair #367. In the end, I liked Girahim enough not to be totally disappointed, but overall everything fell very flat. The "Adam and Eve" parallel? No explanation what-so-ever. It felt incredibly pretentious since there was no adequate indication that Zelda or Link had any desire to stay there until the very end, while Groose actually fell in love with the planet, yet left it inexplicably behind.

I was pissed off by the fact that the entire planet apparently consisted of corridors, off the edges of which were bottomless pits I could fall into. What the fuck was that? Was it too hard to think of puzzles that allowed there to be fields to run around on while I was solving them? Even "raised columns of disturbed earth with an annoying, but not fatal fall" would have been less arbitrary. I heavily disliked that element of the game. I disliked the lack of musical cohesion in the game, especially after the incredible experience of Twilight Princess. I felt like the side characters deserved more time and the side-quests deserved to be more important. And you know, I could have stood to have a new-game plus mode where I got to play as Zelda with Impa as my trusty companion. And it never stopped being annoying to have Fi along as my idiot button, telling me the obvious when I was fully aware of it-- because Fi's only character development occurs in the last second of her existence, when she tells me that apparently, she grew fond of me. Talk about depressing!

So, to be clear: I have problems with the game. I can find problems with the games that came before it. But they're problems that are RELEVANT to the actual game, problems that could be fixed with work and examination of the product. The problems I see people bandying about in conversations around the water cooler, or forums and blogs online? "Why isn't there voice actinnnnng?" "Omg, I still had to find keys to go unlock the doors! So boring and lame!" "God, why is this game still the same kind of game it's always been? Why can't it be more like Halo or an MMO?"

Guys, the answer to all your complaints is really simple. Go play something else. If you want voice acting, or dungeons without puzzles, or graphics that focus on your shiny ass and let you customize your characters, there are plenty of games for that. But this is Zelda. It's a certain type of game, and it's good at being that type of game. If you want a different type of game, you should probably stop playing Zelda! And you should especially stop bitching like you're entitled to better, because frankly, if you dislike such integral things about the product, then you are clearly not the intended audience. They owe you nothing, because it is not for you.

That isn't too much to ask, is it? I really don't think so.