#sentimental stuff

I rarely post my face and/or the personal, sentimental stuff on here, but @zeusprah and I have had a tremendous part of our 9+ year friendship involving tumblr, so here’s to “online” friendships and all the ways that they can be so much more than just online. This incredible goddess of a woman and I met through a niche Facebook page we’d each found through the glee fandom on tumblr and fell into rhythm instantly and easily. We met for the first time in person earlier this month, and it was honestly like nothing was different than any other time we’ve spent, other than it being a hell of a lot easier to hug.

Ooooh this is a super good question!  Get ready for story time!

When I was a child, both of my parents were really into video games.  We were not a very well-off family, but my dad saved up for a NES and later a SNES, which we had when I was born.  My parents loved Dr. Mario, Wario Woods, Super Mario Bros, and Donkey Kong Country, so they would play them a lot when I was young.I vaguely remember us buying the N64, but I was very, very young (like 4-5 years old), so I have like fragmented images of my dad setting it up on our TV.  Star Fox 64 was one of the games he loved to play (along with Banjo-Kazooie and Super Mario 64-- later, he went really hard on the Rogue Squadron and Star Wars games because he absolutely adored Star Wars).  

I think some of my earliest memories are of me watching my dad playing SF64-- and the level that comes to mind tbh is the Fortuna/Fichina level, which he really just liked to play over and over again because he loved fighting Star Wolf.  I actually remember watching him play through all the way into the Andross fight and I remember Andross traumatized me for awhile, LOL.  I also remember thinking Slippy was a girl when I was a kid.  Dad really liked Peppy, he used to quote him all the time, which I thought was really funny when I was a kiddo.

When I turned 9 years old, my dad’s company was bought by a much, much larger company and we were forced to move to another state (we’re US citizens).  I was really upset about the whole thing because I obviously didn’t want to leave any of my friends and I was quite shy!  My older sister was in band, so she would be gone a lot in the fall due to band contests and my little sister was too young for me to really play with, so I was kind of lonely to a degree, I guess?  My parents were scared that perhaps the move had been too harsh on me, so one day when my sister was gone at band stuff, they gave me Star Fox Adventures as a way of being like “Sorry life has sucked lately, here’s something to remind you that we love you.”

Anyways, I remember playing SFAdv for the first time and I fell in love with Krystal basically immediately because she was a cool fox lady with sick ink and a badass staff.  I played for quite a bit, then I went to bed, and I had like horrible dinosaur nightmares that night that almost put me off from playing the rest of the game, but I was like “no, this is fun also I want to save the cool fox lady” and I ended up playing until this dumb part in Moon Mountain Pass where you have to throw the bombs across the wind vents and I got mad because I sucked and couldn’t do it properly?  Then I came back like a year later and proceeded to be stuck on the Test of Fear for like.... ever.  ... Until I got to middle school, then I think that’s when I finally beat the game.

But, anyways, because I had watched my dad play SF64 so much as a kid, I already adored the SF series, then I played SFAdv and my love for it like tripled.  I joined the online fandom between Adventures and Assault and have been a diehard SF nerd since!  When Star Fox Zero was about to come out, remember telling him about how it was a SF64 remake.  He had long since put his gaming days behind him and his wife (my stepmom) pretty much discourages gaming in general, but he still had that sort of soft smirk on his face when I was talking to him about it.  He ended up gifting me the game for my birthday!

My father passed away this last October (right after Starlink came out, actually) due to complications related to gliomatosis, which is a very rare, lethal form of brain cancer.  He is honestly the reason I started gaming and he introduced me to the series.  Tbh if he hadn’t, I don’t think I would have even received Adventures, and this blog certainly wouldn’t exist.  So, really, everything you read here-- all the headcanons, memes, theories, analyses, etc-- those are all because of my dad and his love for the series.  

I don’t usually like sharing pics on the void known as the internet, but here’s one of my faves of me and him from a few years back.

Scanlan’s letter? 

Matt confessing Vax turned out fate-touched because he wanted to do something special for Liam because he knew his friend was going through some rough times?

Everyone appreciating how Sam played Scanlan/bards?

Matt at the end saying CR is the thing he is the most proud of in his life? What a wonderful man... I love them all.

Drawn for my 2 year old niece. My little nerd baby.