.hack
With the announcement of .hack//Z.E.R.O. I thought I'd do my "once every 5 years" revisit of .hack. (Is there a word for that?? Like "biannual" but twice a decade?? There's gotta be a word for that...)
(AMBIENCE FOR THE PAGE. IF YOU WANNA.)
The layout is based off my memories of a forum theme from The World @ Blackwings.net, circa 2004. It had Lycoris as the focus, but it was from the first volume of AI Buster (not the second, like I have here). Pretty sure it had black as a theme color instead of dark red, but, y'know.
I tried to see if I could find a snapshot of it from the Internet Archive. Instead I found forum posts I made 22 years ago.
That little question mark by my username was me intentionally ignoring the gender section in profiles in the year TWO THOUSAND AND THREE. Wish I could see what I used as an avatar. :(
I remember this thread so strongly and viscerally. Unfortunately the Internet Archive did not actually archive it. The Greatest Thread in the History of Forums, Locked by a Moderator After 2 Pages of Heated Debate. (Actually those were the threads where people would compare Mia & Elk's aromatic grass to weed. Intense.)
I also found two different .hack fansites I made LMAO... None of the images in the archive worked but this guestbook comment from myself... "Not meanly or you'll be hearing from me" feels like a thing I would still say.
Anyway, reminiscing about .hack fandom and Y2K internet...not quite the same as actually talking about .hack...I will talk about .hack now......
.hack//Z.E.R.O.
It's probably a bit stupid to have this hope for Z.E.R.O. but I would really like if it was retelling of season 1 of .hack. Like the MC in the trailer isn't merely a Kite-face, they're truly Kite, but with a new story and diverging events. I would especially like this if the AI Buster trio made it in and maybe finally got some closure after literally decades (this hope is excessively unhinged and I will be disappointed). I don't have much else to say about this game for now since it's SO early in development. I will be buying it day one no matter how it turns out; EVERYONE PLEASE SUPPORT CYBERCONNECT2...!!!!
.hack//SIGN
Starting my .hack-a-thon off with SIGN. I was about five minutes into the first episode when I realized I could theoretically watch it at 1.25 speed, but the moment I tried it just felt...wrong. SIGN has gotta be fucking molasses or it's just not SIGN!!!
I think one of the primary reasons I like season 1 of .hack over season 2 is the sense of hopefulness as speculative fiction...their ideas on how the internet might be used to communicate and connect with others, how you can be a different version of yourself online. SIGN really epitomizes that optimism to me, while also firmly saying, "but remember, you still have a life outside too."
I like Bear and Mimiru's friendship. A teenage girl and a middle-aged man are friends online and it's legitimately not awful or weird at all. He's just like an extra dad to her. We could have had an internet like this. We could have had an internet like this.
This was my first time rewatching it since having read G.U. Begins and engaging with it through this lens I am constantly stricken by how ALL of Sora's behavior is stained by loneliness. He's like a cat knocking furniture off of counters just so you'll pay attention to him. He wants friends so bad (I don't think he has any ACTUAL awareness of this, for the record). If he can't have friends he'll just force people to give him their member addresses.
He's always been my favorite character of SIGN anyways, but the fresh perspective......
I know this moment is about friendship specifically but there's something so funny about this baby queer looking at two lesbians and going, "this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my entire life?" Anyway.