#you had such a good setup from botw

[blueskittlesart]

I've seen your previous posts on Hylia and Skyward sword, so I was wondering if you go further into that? and what zelink you might prefer, botw/totk or skyward sword

i assume this is about this comic bc it's the only sksw analysis post of mine that still consistently gets notes lol. the text in that comic is actually taken from my loz analysis document's sksw zelda section! there's a bit more analysis there if you're interested, but tldr i think that sksw zelda is one of the more interesting and more tragic characters in the series. she begins her life on skyloft as a human girl and lives a relatively normal, conflict-free life up until sksw. she's the headmaster's daughter, she's got a good close friend in link, she's well-liked by her peers and community, etc. etc. the zelda we see at the beginning of sksw is a girl who is very sheltered. she's seen very little of the world and has virtually no experience with conflict outside of petty arguments between her peers. but she's also notably self-aware about this. she talks to link about wondering what's beyond skyloft, about this feeling she has that there's something important to her waiting on the surface. she knows that she's missing SOMETHING by living her sheltered life in skyloft, but, well... she's happy there. she's got the perfect life. she's all too willing to ignore that pull she feels towards the surface if it means preserving her life on skyloft with link. she's mostly content to live that happy lie forever.

obviously, she is not allowed to have that happy lie. she gets thrown down to the surface and she is told who she really is. the goddess hylia reborn in human form. she begins to remember pieces of a life that isn't hers, pieces of the person hylia once was. she learns about demise, about the goddess sword, all of it. and she realizes that everything in this world was set up, by hylia, by HER, so that link would be the one to fight demise in the end.

think about that. her childhood best friend, the boy she'd always felt drawn to, the boy she LOVED. now she knows that her whole life was a setup for this conflict. how does she know that their friendship wasn't a lie, too? how can she be sure that the part of her that is hylia, the same part that drew her towards the surface, wasn't ALSO drawing her towards link, making sure that when the time came he'd care for her enough to follow her? zelda spends so much time in sksw running away from link, and i'm almost certain this is why. once she knows she is hylia, she can no longer be certain that she really loves link or that link really loves her. it's equally, or perhaps even MORE likely that that part of her which was working to set everything in motion had been manipulating link her whole life, molding him into the hero that hylia knew she would need to defeat demise. she tries to get link to leave her alone, to go back to skyloft without her, because she understands that if he follows her for long enough he will be hylia's hero whether he wants it or not. she believes that he's only following her because HYLIA has convinced him to, that her only purpose as ZELDA in this story is to lead him like a lamb to slaughter. she believes the only way to save him is to convince him that he doesn't really love her.

but the thing is he DOES love her. it wasn't ever hylia's manipulation that convinced him to follow her to the surface. it was always his own choice. he wanted to save zelda more than anything in the world; ZELDA, not hylia. he was never fighting for the goddess. he was never hylia's hero. it was always for zelda. god maybe i should replay skyward sword

#and to answer your second question. i prefer botw but sometimes sksw hits different. in a like. babygirl you are soooo tragic kinda way #asks #zelda analysis

[gay-jesus-probably]

Ngl my best friend and I are doing a kind of rewrite of totk for fun and like. We had a more nuanced story in around thirty minutes, and I kind of want to work on it more. Here's the thing though, it's so easy to write this as a good story because it has so much potential, and it's like you said!! Taken at face value it's so boring!! I'm genuinely so frustrated with this!!

I know, right? Something I've noticed is that like literally anytime I mention the story being kinda shit, it takes like maybe a minute for people to look at the existing setup and think of something more interesting. Like, I briefly complained about the boring writing in a youtube comment, and I've seen three different people reply to that with more compelling takes on the story using very minor fixes. There's just so many bad decisions in the writing, I have no idea how the fuck Nintendo thought this was acceptable.

I mean goddamn, even putting aside all of the Everything with the imperialism in the memories, the memories existing at all is a horrible decision! They seriously made a role playing game where 95% of the story occurs in the past, where the only involvement the player has is our character being namedropped a few times. It worked in BOTW, because Link was there the whole fucking time, and also the memories WEREN'T the story - that was everything leading up to the actual plot kicking off! If a player just totally ignored the memories, the only real consequence was that you didn't really get to know Zelda! If you ignore the memories in TOTK, you are missing the entire fucking plot.

It's such an easy fix too, I mean ffs if the ancient past is where everything interesting is going to happen, just send Link and Zelda back in time together. Link can actually interact with the story and characters, he can develop his own beef with Ganondorf instead of them literally having nothing to do with each other beyond other people saying they should fight, and it'd fix the gaping plot hole of literally all the Sheikah tech being gone - none of it's been built yet. The story could take Link through working with the Sages, finding a way to heal the decayed Master Sword - fuck, he could even wield the ancient Master Sword in its place while he's in the past! They fight Ganon, seal him away, then for the grand finale Link and Zelda return to the modern day Hyrule shortly after they left, and discover it's basically an apocalypse kicking off, because why would Ganon bother to just wait for his enemies to get ready to stop him, he can just go apeshit the second he's free of the seal. This works in story, but also excuses the finale having some railroading - the chaos of the apocalypse stops Link from going off track, ensuring the devs don't need to put in the entire BOTW map just for that one finale sequence. Link retrieves the formerly decayed Master Sword from wherever he left it to heal for the last ten thousand years, and then him and Zelda go fuck up Ganon together, for real this time. Bam, problem solved. Link's in the actual plot, Zelda gets to actually exist for more of the story than just the ending cutscene, there's a reason for the map being completely different, and the Sheikah tech isn't just retconned into non-existence. Fuck, they could explain the runes being gone as just Zelda dropping the Sheikah Slate in the chaos before being yeeted into the past, or the slate being hit by Gloom and destroyed as well. Also, the expanded list of monsters and old monsters having different designs to include the new horns makes sense; they're ten thousand years in the past, of course things are different. Yeah it'd suck that we wouldn't really get to see the characters from BOTW, but... come on. They barely did anything with them anyways.

Alternatively, they could just do the story in the past with Zelda as the player character, if they're that hellbent on ensuring Link isn't allowed to do anything. It'd be a really cool twist! They wouldn't even need to change the gameplay that much, it's been years since the Calamity and Zelda's been travelling around with Link the whole time, it makes perfect sense that she would have learned how to fight over the years, and Link teaching her would give her a very similar fighting style.

It would have been so easy to give the game a more interesting story, it's just embarrassing that they fucked it up so badly.

#tears of the kingdom #not tagging as spoilers cause we're not talking about how the game actually went #i actually have two different re-writes for totk that im sort of planning lmaoo #one of them is just the game but digging into the fucked up implications of everything (its lowkey a salt fic i guess) #the other one is just an AU where Link falls instead of Zelda at the start #so i had to figure out how the story works without anyone time travelling (since link cant and zelda doesnt need to) #and from there it spiralled into a total overhaul of the plot and worldbuilding #and yes zelda is the protagonist of the AU while link is the one thats missing #spoiler alert link is in the depths getting absolutely destroyed by ganon. and not in the fun way #i probably wont write the first one tbh its too depressing to be fun #but the fallen link AU is very interesting and will hopefully go somewhere

[lucky-clover-gazette]

“And that’s it,” Vio says, closing the journal. “For tonight, anyway. I think I’ve had just about enough.”

Shadow nods. “Sucks about the mirror, and what happened with Midna. They seemed to really get along. Do you think they ever saw each other again?”

“Probably not,” Vio admits. “Not everyone is willing to perform dark rituals to recover a loved one from a different realm.”

Wanna tell us more about this passage? Maybe even TP in the context of it? Your thoughts on TP?

oh HELL yes i do!!

okay so botw is technically my favorite zelda game because it's my favorite game ever, BUT twilight princess is a really close second. i love twilight princess so much it's unreal. i actually read the tp manga long before picking up four swords! and it is NOT lost on me that himekawa made midlink kiss on the mouth and paired off ilia with shad so she'd be out of the picture as a love interest. they like their ships and i like that for them :) and re-reading the tp manga, there are quite a few minor parallels between their vio&shadow and their midlink, just in terms of how himekawa does an antagonistically flirty dynamic.

the excerpt you sent is from a piece that originally was a lot more about the parallels between vio&shadow and link&midna. i shelved the draft for months and then kinda stripped the majority of that stuff away in favor of fluff. but i do believe i was trying to expand on the ways that vio, as the hero, was meant to have a tragic ending separated from someone he loves, just as tp link is separated from midna due to circumstance. and in the manga, he literally is separated from shadow--like, they have a tragic ending. but in the fic, and the greater fanon of four swords enjoyers, that tends not to be true. v&s constantly live in defiance of everything when i write them--god, fate, the narrative itself.

tp link is a lot more conventionally heroic than vio, but he doesn't choose for midna to break the mirror. she's the one who makes that decision, and i'm still kind of confused as to why? both given the setup of the story and her characterization? idk, it's just really hard to sell me on a resolution where characters willingly give up their attachments out of obligation and it's portrayed by the narrative as good. twilight princess works because it is framed as decidedly bittersweet, maybe even just sad. four swords, however, is in this weird in-between space where it's saying the ending is good, but i don't really buy it? hence the obsession and so so so much fanfic.

in the original fic, vio reads a bunch of emo journal entries by link post-canon asking some of those questions himself. he is very sad about losing midna. this makes vio think about his happy life with shadow, and how hard they fought for it.

i then had shadow be like, "but you don't know, maybe he did find her," and vio kinda just chooses to believe it. shadow has a moment to himself and reveals to the reader that he doesn't really think that's the case. i then started on the ending section, but ended up dropping it, bc it was getting a little too thematically muddy and i wanted to just do soup fluff:

#thank you for asking and indulging this! #my writing #four swords #vidow

[metfell]

ok putting all my tears of the kingdom spoilers below the cut while i talk about everything i like and the stuff i dont like too:

okay oh my god first and foremost the story is fucking incredible. they took the critique of botw's story feeling lackluster because it all happened before the game, and threw you right into it. seeing the upheaval happen, knowing you were there at the start of it, seeing the effects it had on the cities around the region its all amazing its so impactful. combining that with the way the music changes from the stuff in botw, you really feel the weight of the damage done to everything. like the zora domain is a perfect example. the way the music sounds sick combined with the constantly raining sludge and seeing the people sick or cleaning it up is a great touch compared to in botw where even though its eternally raining, people just still kind of.... ignore it? at least you really dont see the effects as much as you do in this game.

the ending as well is incredible. getting to fight ganondorf feels so satisfying with everything youve been through in both botw and totk its in my opinion a perfect ending for that story. and its so... epic. as in like breathtaking and awe-striking. i sobbed my little eyes out during so much of this game. going in blind was amazing and slowly uncovering what happened to zelda, and then realizing what she did to herself is heartbreaking. i love the geoglyphs i think theyre one of my favorite aspects of the game and im glad i didnt spoil myself about the story so i could piece it together myself.

however, in regards to the story, i wish that the bosses felt a little more set up. i wish there were carvings or mentions of the bosses somewhere in the world. they mention the temples obviously, but i just wish they didnt feel so sudden? like theyre good i enjoyed the designs and the fights- though i feel like the goron one is the weakest- but i just wish there was a bit more setup. like maybe while youre going through the temples, you hear them roar or something. because in the temples its not ganondorf trying to stop you, its the constructs. and theyre not even corrupted, their job is just to attack unauthorized enemies. so i guess i wish that the bosses and the dungeon felt more connected.

outside of the dungeons though the environmental traversing is INCREDIBLE. i really enjoy the new abilities link gets, and i like how the game encourages you to play around with the zonai devices and objects lying around the landscape. i personally dont use them that much because i just prefer walking around at my own pace, but the airships you can make are SO cool. which is why i loved the big volcano dragon fight!!! its a fighter jet you get to pilot around and fire yunobo at huge hydra heads thats sick as hell!!!!

honestly the approaching of the temples was more fun than the temples themselves. experiencing the climb to the stormwind ark for the first time with the trampolines was my favorite part of the entire game. nothing in the overworld compares.

and the way the game handles npc's is a miracle honestly. when i saw that the champion's spirits were changed to be summons that follow you instead i was so worried they were going to be clunky and always in the way. but they manage to actually hold their own in fights and arent annoying? its literally a miracle.

ranking the sage's powers i have to put tulin at the top of the list. the gliding boost ability is such a necessity and i really think its the most helpful. i personally haven't gotten riju's ability in my own game, but seeing that its like a controllable urbosa's fury is really interesting im putting it as number 2! then ill put mineru's construct solely for its ability to help you not get hurt by gloom in the depths and that it can be really customizable for whatever area youre in. then ill put yunobo's because its good for mining. and then sadly i have to put sidon's ability at the bottom. i just would use a shield. it's just a worse daruk's protection. which is frustrating because i was so excited to see sidon and i enjoyed the water temple decently enough! it just doesnt have much practical use for me besides offering me sidon eye candy while i run around hyrule.

continuing with bit's im not a fan of, i don't really enjoy the weapon mechanics of the game. like i get it? they want you to use your fuse abilities to make new personalized strong weapons. but i wish there was a way to repair the decayed weapons at some point. the way to find undecayed weapons is to break a decayed one, and then it will spawn in the depths. so you break a decayed traveler's sword, and a shiny fixed one will start spawning on the weapons pillars down in the depths. which makes gathering weapons frustrating. i feel like having a quest of trying to remove gloom from the weapons, and maybe you work with robbie or something? i dont know its just a thought. maybe it costs money and materials, maybe you need 15 sundelions for one process i dont know. but the fact that so many enemies spawn with shitty broken swords makes collecting weapons a lot harder.

another thing im not a fan of is the removal of the divine beasts. where did they go??? why are all of the shrines and guardians gone?? theres no mention of them anywhere it just feels like none of it even happened!! the divine beasts are HUGE i just feel like they should have stayed on the overworld and maybe you dont even have to be able to enter them just... put them back man!! i only have seen like... one mention of the calamity in this game, and thats really frustrating considering its only been a few years since it happened!!! was it just a gravity falls Never Mind All That vow the entire kingdom took????? i would love to almost get shot by a guardian again like show me decayed ones out in hyrule field or something!!

also i just. i miss revali's gale. i wish tulin's gust ability could also propel you upwards. i know the sage's wills upgrades their summons, but it only seems to increase their attack power in combat, and i wish it would give them a secret second ability. or maybe sidon gets an upgrade that lets him create his own mini waterfall to swim up!! i know we have rockets and balloons but i really do wish we had a quick way to launch into the air.

but otherwise ive had a really fun time. i like seeing the npc's growing up, and all of their dialogue is awesome. its a much better set of cutscenes compared to botw, which i enjoyed but dont actively seek out when playing it again.

so uh yeah great game made me cry really hard

#text #totk spoilers

[hyah-lian]

flash thought here (also yes i am not capitalizing hyrule when referencing the land, but am for Hyrule the Link to make it a little clearer)

i see the headcanon a lot that Hyrule can’t read, or has very low literacy because of the state of his era and his circumstance of always on the run etc

I think Wild probably would too- either not read or be low literacy. Because of the 100 years passing (written word can change a lot so maybe it just changed so much from what he learned?), the whole pretty much dying thing and all the injuries and trauma from that, the memory erasure, etc

but also- like. most of the stuff in Wild’s hyrule, outside the castle and a few instances like books actually IN schools or like Purah’s n Robbie’s places or roadsigns (but thats also like for the player tbh but also its a flash idea headcanon so shush /lh), most of the written materials around are also VERY heavily illustrated. 

I think during the calamity and through the time passing, a lot of writing was lost, obviously, and people were spread out and cut off and its likely not everyone had a really good grasp on writing/reading/teaching because like, honestly, not everyone does period. Add on a heap of the world ending and chaos and seclusion and I think it makes it hard to have a standardized level of education.

SO, I think, especially after Link’s adventure in BOTW, that lots of drawings and illustrations are used to start open communication between pockets of people again and to rebuild the language and connect all the different dialects and other ways it evolved over the years in each little area, and to make things more accessible for everyone (i also hc it that botw hyrule is VERY focused on accessibility because damn baby; 100 years of tragedy, and good people with good hearts, and because i want to)

i think ‘Rulie and Wild would really enjoy being in Wild’s hyrule because it makes them feel more included in things that maybe sometimes goes over their heads because of differences in language across time, and the level they know from their experiences. And also I think they like to learn together and make their own copies of what the other Links read off for them that includes a lot more of the illustrations and setup from Wild’s hyrule.

this brought to you by something i did in stardew valley reminded me of the posters in breath of the wild that you can learn recipes off of, and how visual the game is. This is also a general BOTW headcanon thing too.

#loz #linked universe #not necessarily JUST linked universe but i am using those names to identify the links #botw

[drsteggy]

Do you have tips for where to start for making a costume, and/ or where to start to get more comfortable possibly being in photos?

Hello, boy do I have thoughts on both of these.

On starting a costume- first off, you do not NEED to make your own costume to cosplay. It’s ok to buy some of it or all of it. The only time you NEED to have made your costume is if you’re competing.

I started by making props, which were things I was very comfortable with. The reason I started sewing was I could not find a tunic that fit me right- most of what I found was based on a large T shirt and that’s not what a tunic is…so it would hit my hips badly and end up much shorter than I wanted. I’m one of these people who wants to try to get it as close to my vision of “correct” as possible, and I suspect my version of BOTW Link will forever be sort of a work in progress forever, but I’m ok with this.

My first sewing project was Link’s undershirt. I based it off a pajama top I loved. I’m pretty sure I just googled instructions on how to reverse engineer a T shirt and went from there. I sewed it by hand and it’s served well for the past 2 years. A T shirt type thing really isn’t hard! It doesn’t need a lot of expensive stuff. You can take your time on it and see if you like sewing.

I later did the blue tunic, based, in part, on a sundress I own. Both of these were learning experiences for me on how to put things together. There are TONS of free resources and sewing demonstrations on YouTube, so it’s really easy if you’re stuck to go learn how to do it online.

I did buy a sewing machine at the end of last year as I decided I did want to do more of my own stuff- I’m a competitive cuss at the end of the day. It made the process much, much faster, and my results are better, too. I’m planning on version 2 of my Champions tunic this weekend.

Cosplay is really fun and I’ve had a whole thing exploring who I am even after I was pretty sure I already knew that. So no matter what level you’re doing it at, I totally recommend it.

On to photos…I self shoot a lot, but I’ve also gone and done some shoots. Photo shoots are also fun if you have a photographer you trust and are willing to be open to trying stuff. If you’re not comfortable with that yet, I recommend the art of the selfie.

Hear me out.

I got into cosplay in the fall of 2019 and I planned so many cons for 2020! We all know how that went. So I suddenly had this brand new hobby and no way to express it AND being an essential worker with a job that suddenly tripled in its insanity, very much needed an escape. Cosplayers turned to tiktok and instagram and I found myself suddenly having to learn both platforms.

I had help in the form of a discord full of much younger Zelda cosplayers who were willing to teach me stuff. But I still had to make stuff I was comfortable showing off.

So I took selfies. Thousands of them, most deleted immediately as I hated them. I did not like myself on camera for a variety of reasons but I kept taking them and sometimes they came out good. At this point, I’m pretty comfortable in front of MY camera. I have learned what angle and lighting look good. I have become that person on the book of faces taking a selfie in front of anything interesting I find.

But man, that took time and a lot of internal cringing.

It helps to approach it as play- I had to play with lighting and backgrounds. I started with an old bedsheet as my backdrop and a $20 ring light on a tripod I already owned. My setup still isn’t very complex- I still rely on that ring light a lot, but I have a couple of other lights on an Amazon wish list as I’d like to continue playing once winter is back. I have a couple professional backdrops I bought from a place called Kate Backdrop- they have a bajillion styles and many lend themselves to Zelda stuff and they look really convincing in pictures. They are reasonably priced for the size I use and there are sales where you can save more.

I’d like to learn how to edit my images next- right now I’m just doing the auto color correct on my phone. I use my phone as my camera and until very recently I was shooting on an iPhone 8. If you have a phone with a portrait mode, that’s a quick and easy way to make your photos look really good.

But yeah….it’s really just about practicing. Set up your phone and either use the timer or get a little remote trigger and just shoot a bunch. Learn what looks cool with your props. Be silly. It’s supposed to be fun. Have fun.

I was utterly horrified the first time someone else took photos of me and put them online (they asked first). They tried to pose me and I was just super self conscious and felt awkward and oh yeah you can see it. But now I have a go to pose I strike when someone asks at a con. It could be better. But acting in character is a skill, too, and skills can be learned and honed. You just gotta do it.

I’m more than happy to answer any more specific questions if I didn’t quite answer the way you were asking. I love cosplay and I’ve grown to enjoy taking photos to the point I’ll strike out into a local park in full gear and go ham with my phone.

#ask me things #answered asks #cosplay #anon ask #my midlife crisis is more fun than yours

[galahadenough]

I’ve been in the camp of wanting the next Zelda game to be more linear and less open world, but that’s not absolutely true. The problem is the us-vs-them mentality that is so pervasive everywhere, because my answer isn’t so cut and dry. It’s more an analysis of the most recent games, and a look at what could be pulled from the older games to improve the next one.

Botw and totk both had plots, but the setup detracts from that a little. They aren’t really linear (outside of technicalities) due to the ability to play in any order. And that worked wonderfully for the games. I wouldn’t change it, but I also hope that it changes going forward.

I love having so much to do, and to choose to do or not, the freedom is fantastically done and I wouldn’t want the newest games to be different. But it ended up leaving me underwhelmed by a lot of the plot because of how spaced out it was. That is kind of on me. I could have finished the game quicker and gone back for side quests. But I’m not sure I’d do that because the game would feel finished. If I got to do it over again, I think I’d focus more on the main plot to have a more cohesive story feel, but I’d be a bit sad on missing out on so much.

(It would be so cool if some of the side quests in botw/totk could be unlocked after you defeat the game. It would give you the ability to keep playing after winning without feeling like going back. And it could be like rebuilding Hyrule.)

By building the story in such a way that it doesn’t require a certain order it gives the player a lot of freedom at the cost of losing drive and story beats. There is a story to be found but it isn’t telling a story.

My favorite story beat is in Skyward Sword. Link is continually just a little too slow, a little too late, and it builds up to the final battle with Ghirahim and being told he’s far too quick. That felt damn good, especially with Ghirahim as a recurrent villain and driving force throughout the game. It pulls you towards the end, giving you regular reminders of what you’re racing towards in-story and growing your personal out-of-story ire towards an infuriating villain.

And looking back at Majora’s Mask, that game best resembles the newer ones with the multitude of side quests. But the time loop provided the story beats and drive. Every cycle had the beginning, middle, and end. And you could choose what to do on every cycle, but the timer and the moon are a constant reminder of your deadlines and end goals. Even if you get distracted, you’d abruptly get an unwanted close up of the moon, far closer than you’d anticipated.

So I’d I had to choose one, I’d probably choose the more linear route. But I think my true choice would be a combination of the best parts of the two.

#And everything was so spread out #It made the world eventually feel a little empty #And this includes the puzzles #The divine beasts and totk areas were good but still felt small compared to the temples #The divine beasts and totk sage areas mirrored old temples a little bit but they were still much smaller in scale #loz #botw #totk #game mechanics #Majora’s mask #skyward sword #my post

[stars-in-a-jam-jar]

Don't have Tears of the Kingdom, don't know if I'll ever buy it. I know the intro/tutorial, have no idea what happens in the middle, and know the biggest ending twist— and it's so weird seeing people being all sparkly and excited about it when my enthusiasm for and interest in it kind of... evaporated? With the majority of the things I learned? And I never wanted that to happen, but it did anyway and now I just feel like a curmudgeonly contrarian fuck. Like I'm about to go into some Capital S Spoilers and general 'I hate this thing you probably like' so you've been warned.

I already don't like the basic setup; I hate it dearly. I hate that Link starts the intro walkaround with all his hearts and a full stamina wheel and then has that physically ripped out of him via magical infection onscreen only to get his arm amputated *and replaced* in a fade to black, like it's one thing to say when Link wakes up 'That infection would have spread to the rest of your body and you would have died so I had to just amputate the arm while you were unconscious, I'm sorry.' But replacing his arm with the arm of a dead man from an entirely different species is A WHOLE OTHER FUCKING SENTENCE????

I hate it. I hate it I hate it I hate it. I hate all of that badly. It doesn't matter why they made that decision from a gameplay perspective, It Literally Does Not Matter, I Still Hate It Knowing Full Well Why They Did It. I don't like it, Make A Different Excuse to take all the BotW buffs away. If you're chopping off his fucking arm, have a fucking cutscene or something where he says yes, I want you to replace the arm I lost. It Is Not That Fucking Hard.

I hate spending the entire first game building up Link's abilities and sense of self and connection to Hyrule and gearing up to rescue Zelda only for this game to open with her falling down a fucking hole and now she's in some indeterminate danger. Why does Almost Nobody recognize Link??? What was the point of the first game then? New players will NOT be confused by townsfolk from the first game addressing Link by name, I Promise. I'm like, fine with the ending twist being that Zelda was the mysterious extra dragon all along and pretty safe generally speaking floating around up there, that's neat I Guess, but I also hate everything else about the leadup to her disappearance so much that I can't actually think 'Wow, that's a good twist, I like that' without ALSO thinking 'I don't think it would be worth going through the rest of the game to get to that twist.'

Why is the Sheikah Slate gone? There is No Reason for it, and it's Just Annoying.

I hate the underground areas. I'm fine with spacious caves and tunnels in most contexts. I like bioluminesence and pretty glowy crystals. I hate these underground areas. I hate the new monsters in them. I hate like 90% of the crafting system, I think it's STUPID! The only part of it I like is the potential to make carts and carriages and shit!! I honestly. Kind of hate the sky islands, I don't find them interesting or valuable. Breath of the Wild had you climbing mountains and swimming through oceans and shit and if you wanna get up to a Sky Island you either teleport to a shrine or use that arm thing that I already hate to zap a rock and try not to fall off it as it floats you up there and I hate that!! I hate that the ground has a goddamn ceiling now!!!! I Hate That!!!!!!!

Of course I didn't want Tears of the Kingdom to just be Breath of the Wild: But Again, but none of it makes me happy and Breath of the Wild DOES. The only thing I've learned about TotK that actually makes me want to play the damn game is that you get Sidon and the others as spirit buddies. I've SEEN gameplay of Tears of the Kingdom, and I hate it. Knowing the parts of the game I think are neat and would want to engage with doesn't make the rest of the game feel worth it.

And I hate that. I hate that I hate it and that I don't think it's worth me buying it.

#botw #totk #totk spoilers #tears of the kingdom #jammering on

[mudkippey]

It's weird how Tears of the Kingdom leaves us with more questions than answers. I feel thematically it makes sense that Breath of the Wild would have a lot of mysteries, since for a lot of the game Link's past is a mystery. But ToTK? Even though it finally explained who the Zonai are, it left us with even more questions! (And it's kind of odd so much focus is on the Zonai, considering they were only mentioned by name in Making of a Champion as far as I know).

-What happened to the Zonai? Ganondorf mentions Rauru and Mineru are the only ones left, so where are the others? Did they die out? Go somewhere else? Why aren't we told? This feels like something that shouldn't be a mystery. Rauru knows, Ganondorf probably knows, Mineru knows, Zelda probably asked and thus knows, why do none of the memories mention this? Seeing how excited Zelda was in the opening over finding those murals, I feel her memories would contain more about her discovering this kind of stuff.

-Speaking of memories, the dragons. We know how they're made now, so what was their reasoning? This is probably setup for DLC. Or maybe it's just something for us to wonder about.

-The Zonai ruins from BoTW. Namely, they look DIFFERENT from the ones we see in ToTK. What's up with the ones we find in the Faron region? Were there a bunch of Zonai who really liked the jungle? But if Mineru and Rauru are the only Zonai left...what happened to them? The Typhlo ruins quest gives some answers, but Faron is still up in the air.

-The calamity 10,000 years ago. What's the deal with that hero? Where did the Sheikah get their technology? Did they use the Zonai's technological knowledge? Again, it's odd that something from BoTW is still so unexplored. Instead, we're introduced to an even older war. Which makes sense for introducing the source of the calamity (Ganondorf) but this big event is never explored. We're thrown a bone when it comes to the hero (I'm not going to spoil it but if you know you know) and honestly...that leaves even more questions. Maybe it's laying foundation for DLC?

-What's the deal with Gerudo politics during Ganondorf's reign? We see him leading them, but the lightning sage has allied with Rauru. Was this a one-off, or were a bunch of Gerudo allying with Rauru? Ganondorf is also referred to as a hero to his people so...what led her/them to do that? When we're told "the last free Gerudo village has fallen" once Ganondorf goes demon mode, does that mean last Gerudo settlement PERIOD or the last one not under his rule? This game lifted a lot from OoT, and in that game the Gerudo largely escaped his wrath (aside from Nabooru, because she defied him).

-What happens to the Sheikah technology from BoTW? Someone on YouTube (the pinnacle of credibility) said there was dialogue mentioning it was disassembled so it couldn't be compromised again but...why? As far as Hyrule knew, Ganon was dead. Why did the Sheikah, who were so curious about this technology, not keep the shrines and figure out how to use their teleportation ability? The Shrines were never compromised, why disassemble them? I get we need room for the new Zonai shrines but it's odd there's not a good explanation for the absence of all Sheikah technology.

I wish the overworld had more of those murals we saw at the start of the game. It would make re-exploring the overworld from BoTW more enjoyable I think. Let us stumble upon an ancient Sheikah lab where we see they were working with Zonai technology to make what we saw in BoTW. Give us more insight on the first calamity. Have old ruins in Gerudo desert that give insight on life under Ganondorf before he was utterly lost in the sauce, or show us what happened to his followers after he was. Have more Zonai murals that show what happened to them and give us more clues on the dragons.

Archeology and studying the past is definitely a Thing in ToTK, and using murals to find out more about the past is introduced in the beginning. Why not continue that trend and make it part of the overworld, let us analyze them and draw our own conclusions like Zelda did at the start!

#loz #totk spoilers #just 2 be safe so nobody yells at meeee :) #also im zonked (Kahlua my Beloved) so if some of this shit is answered already. Sorry!

[roxasthatisastick]

4 5 and 6 for the fic writers asks? ^^

Thanks for asking!! 4. How many WIPs do you have right now? Man, a lot? Probably upward of 8 or 9... 5. What’s a fic idea you’ve had that you will never write?

Mm... Oh come to think, I thought about writing a KH fic with Airy (Bravely Default) and Athena (FFXIV) and well. The setup to even get to that Epic Team-up alone would take so long I've had to give up on it. But a group of Final Fantasy villains to parallel the Disney villain group in KH1 is a really fun idea... 6. Are there any fics from others you reread all the time?

Well, you didn't specify fandoms so... a random three. I have to put Drich's Again on this list. Its probably one of my favorite time loop fics I've ever read, and if you like BOTW, you'll probably like this.

Spreading the fandom spread, Inheritors of Flame by Kyogre is some of the best Canon Divergent AU I've read. Its a VRMMO AU, but one that stays true to the source material in a way I've rarely seen.

I know this spreads the net even further, but Systems, Update by Vathara is great worldbuilding fic, that adds a delicious extra layer to the events of canon. I know its a fic for an anime very few people have watched, but it was good enough that I watched the anime week to week after that.

Finally, the Artificial Aegis Project by @rarmaster is very very good. Really just an amazing exploration of trauma and friendship in high stress environments. It was hard deciding on what part of this fic series to choose because nearly every segment is lodged in my brain somewhere.

#mint answers #i read a LOT of fic. choosing for this was so hard

[bluesclves]

I'm working my way through all the Legend of Zelda games I can get my hands on. Oddly enough, it's Skyward Sword that got me invested in the rest of the series, haha. I played BotW and loved it, tried to play Link's Awakening and got frustrated so I quit, then I played Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity and had fun just demolishing the enemies that used to kick my ass in botw, but still I wasn't like, invested in the series. Pretty much I just liked the botw stuff.

Then Skyward Sword HD came out and I went "sure why not?" Because I remember the game grumps hating it but I liked Sonic and the Black Knight for wii, and the switch has way better motion controls, so I figured I'd give it a go. (Plus I really wanted the themed joy-cons bc they're so pretty and it felt silly to get the joy-cons without having the actual game they're attached to.)

Anyways, I loved it. I don't see why people complain so much about the motion controls even on switch? I thought they were fine and I actually loved how engaging it made the combat, plus there's just an indescribable sort of joy involved in using the motion controls to draw the master sword and hold it over your head, okay? It's just fun.

Anyways, that's the first I guess 'standard' LoZ game I've played to completion. I got frustrated a few times with the puzzles, but I was invested enough to keep going until I figured it out. The final fight against Demise-Ganon had me cursing at my screen but when I finally beat him it was so satisfying, totally worth it imo.

And now that I have the story of the last Link (so far) and the first Link in the timeline, I'm curious enough about the space in between to take another shot at the other LoZ games I've given up on before. I just finished Ocarina of Time 3D, which was a lot easier than I remember now that I'm actually familiar with how a Zelda game is structured (basically find temple, solve puzzles, get new item, boss fight featuring new item, find the next temple-- ad nauseum).

I'm going into Hyrule Warriors: Definitive edition now (Warriors Link is so pretty haha, I see why people call him 'pretty boy' in LU fics/fanart lol). This is another game I tried before but I just wasn't invested enough in the characters to get into it? It also seemed too easy at the time, so I'm playing it on the higher difficulty, but I also know that if it's anything like Age of Calamity, it gives us a lot more story and interesting missions.

I have A Link Between Worlds to play next, assuming I can't get ahold of Majora's Mask for 3DS. Then I'll take another shot at Link's Awakening, I guess.

Any other suggestions for what I can play? I have a Switch and a 3DS, and my brother has a Wii but we don't have a Wii U.

Also, what I'm realizing about Legend of Zelda games, is that most of them are kinda like Fanfiction. They don't really do a good job of introducing their central Characters because they expect us to already recognize them. That's what's different about BotW and Skyward Sword; they do a really good job of setup, because for both of them, the hero is just as knowledgeless as the player. SS!Link knows nothing about great evil demons or the triforce, he's just a sleepyhead skyboy. They don't even have a kingdom yet, they just have a floating island with a school and some big-ass birds.

BotW does a GREAT job of introducing the world of Hyrule and everything in it because Link literally has no memories at the start of it. We learn everything that's going on as he does. And if you're interested in learning more, you can seek out his forgotten memories as an optional side quest. You don't have to, but you can if you're curious.

Comparatively, Age of Calamity relies heavily on you having played BotW, and the dramatic irony they can create from the player knowing one future as they help divert it from that path.

And Ocarina of Time doesn't really explain much about their characters. The Great Deku Tree's death is heartbreaking to me now, knowing that SS!Link planted him, and knowing the tree from BotW. But in OoT, it just kinda... happens? And didn't mean much of anything to me the first time I played the game. You know the Deku tree is supposed to be important, but not why. You see Zelda a grand total of one time before she runs away from the castle with Impa, and it's clearly supposed to be a dramatic scene, but we don't know her at all. Then Sheik shows up when you're an adult, shows up to teach you songs and then just leaves, and it's kinda clunky and doesn't really help us form an attachment to the character at all. Really, the only character besides link that is recurring enough and actually has speaking lines with personality is like... Navi, and maybe Malon, if you seek her out for Epona. Everyone else shows up like two or three times at most, and either has an instant crush on Link, or is just grateful for his help.

I enjoyed the game, playing it now, but I definitely had to care about the characters first-- I wouldn't have been able to get into this game if I wasn't already invested in Link's journey and kicking Ganon's ass.

So like, it suffers from fanfiction-syndrome, I think.

Anyways, this post is all over the place. Hope that made sense?

#legend of zelda #link #linked universe #hyrule warriors #age of calamity #ocarina of time #breath of the wild #link's awakening

[prof-peach]

If you could cross over two of your favorite games, which would you choose? Please explain, why that crossover would be a good match.

Oh you’re going to regret asking this one, I’m bout to GET SERIOUS.

So Pokemon, obvs, I love the whole world it’s built in, but the games imo are REALLY boring, I haven’t enjoyed one a lot since gale of darkness, the main ones just are a little too linear obvious plots, pretty standard setups for story and style. Speaking of style, the games lack personality, the models aren’t animated well, moves have no dynamic energy or visual difference at times, and the turn based battle style just feels kind of, I don’t know, old? Slow? Just doesn’t suit what I enjoy personally, gives me a FInal Fantasy vibe and I just cannot stand the speed at which things happen in those games, plus not into 3rd person ‘let’s build a team of people’ much, but that’s a problem for another time. With this all in mind, the game I wish would happen is like gen20 Pokemon, far future sadly, I doubt I’d see it in my lifetime but god I’d be happy if I did!

Ok so take the newest Zelda graphics, the visual treat that was BOTW, open world, puzzles, not JUST combat, you got side missions, hunt the chickens, find missing pets, parcels, items, whatever. Love it! The horse taming?! Amazing you funky little game. Now take the bad guys and beasts from that. And put Pokemon in instead. Give them the diversity, the life and believable natures that BOTW gave the animals, I followed a frog in BOTW for 15 minutes, and it was a great experience, it felt like it was believable. Above world spawning, ACTUAL difficult gameplay, rare spawn rates, make dragons hard to get again, cmon, it’s too easy now, make it so we need a certain set of Pokemon for certain tasks. Water types big enough to carry you will be able to get you to new areas, rock types that can help you climb mountains faster, or break through blocking boulders. Actual towns with more than 4 houses in them, shops, barns, farms, homes. Like little link with the heat, maybe ice types would struggle in volcano areas, or bug Pokemon not be so comfortable in gale force winds. Give the weather more of an effect on your partners. Mounts, don’t even get me started that Pokemon Let’s go had you able to ride any of the larger species, but swsh did not???? Bitch please, give me my rideable Pokemon. The wild area too was far too closed, limited, online was laggy and a mess, camping is limited, let me do more with my team. Pokemon for me is all about the actual creatures, how they live with humans, and the many wonderful things they’re capable of. Yes of course it’s cool they can fight, but like what else you know?

I’d love a game that lets me buy a plot of land, maybe plant things, custom build things. I’m a sucker for the fallout4 settlement builds when they’re modded to hell and back, they’re fun! It can be a really calm and creative process. If I could do that and skip the main campaign and all the battles for a bit? Amazing, it sound perfect for me. I am that distracted hoe collecting flowers while the kingdom burns in the background. Side quests are everything to me. Let me give homeless people enough money to get them in a home? Let me adopt Pokemon that are stray around the town? Plz oh plz bring me a Pokemon game that allows me to work WITH my team to do more than KO other species. I want to save and buy a plow for my buddy gogoat, and grow amazing foods to sell to get currency to spend in decorations, to spoil my team. Give me actual game consequence, if I ignore that sick and injured Pokemon I find in the wild, later maybe it’s family don’t want to help me out with a different problem, too stricken from grief. I am all about the average bits, the old women who need help, the lost pets board in town, the general day to day stuff. Let me get cosmetic items for the Pokemon I keep, cute outfits, special gemstone items, let me actually live with them, or even feel remotely like they’re realistic.

Ok so in game, if it’s looking like BOTW it’s pretty beautiful but also stylised, I’d have it so you can send out a maximum of 3 Pokemon from your 6, using bumpers and such to throw them out. If you hit the trigger you switch from controlling the human trainer, to the Pokemon you’ve targeted with a standard lock on targeting system. You then can be the leader, but be the Pokemon. You could technically defeat the game without a human if you wanted, which incorporates the mystery dungeon games I think, and caters to that crowd. I’d love to see the use of attacks out of battle, things like using water gun to grow plants, using ember to start a campfire faster and stave off the cold. There’s no consequence to Pokemon anymore, and I think that’s where it’s lost me. I have to admit I miss the days of a poisoned pokemon fainting if you don’t heal them soon enough, I miss gym battles that were actually tough, damn, try picking charmander in red and beating brock without grinding in viridian forest first, it’s not easy. And I loved that. Yes it’s a child’s game, it will never be difficult again, but god it’d be nice to have a bit of a challenge, or maybe a difficulty setting, so some could play it with hostility turned off, great for kids, or you can be n adult like I know so many Pokemon fans are, and play it on expert mode and ACTUALLY have to work hard to beat the game. Alternate skill trees anyone? Train gun a fire type to ACUTALLy combat water moves?? Please! Cmon! It frustrated me that every challenger has pretty much a systematic set of moves to use to win. Grass opponent? Fire attack spam until you win. It’s dull, so at least with very difficult tricks to either find or learn in game would make it more achievable if you can send that fire type in and I don’t know, train them so much the heat evaporates the water mid-battle and you suddenly have a shot at winning. Pokemon has taught me that if you work hard enough you can achieve something, but the games just have such strict ways to win. Feels wrong.

In terms of battling, let us BE the Pokemon, let us learn to dodge, train our speed, train our defence, make a team of truly tough Pokemon instead of just, average? Some species have a cap on their skills, a squirtle has lower stat points than a Charizard, but you can’t ever change that? Let me choose the Pokemon I believe in, and let me work with them until they’re just as good, if not better than the game tanks. This would also make online battles more interesting. Everyone picks the top trio. Fairy, dragon, legendaries. And yknow what? It’s boring. That one IRL fight with the monster Pacharisu that won in the world tournament with follow me and the situs Berry? Unbelievable, I love that little rat so much because of this, so let us all have a chance to build a team that’s strategically viable, strong, and potentially a winner formula, even if they aren’t fully evolved, or the biggest Pokemon in the world. Yeah maybe you have to grind way harder with your unevolved Pokemon, but you get to the end game and win, because you put love and time into species that you enjoy, not just good fighters.

Unfortunately I am beholdent to Todd-idiot-Howard, and I love the Eldrescrolls and fallout games (before they got dumb, not that I don’t play the new ones. 76 I’m looking at you, you big asshole game.) honestly I hate online games, so none of that junk, just a good old fashioned open world sandbox game is plenty. Games for me are an escape from others, not an invitation to socialise. To each their own of course, and I do play online games sometimes, just pretty short lived ones, over watch and rdr2 for example. Would they be sometimes better on private servers? Yes of course, fallout76? Want to play with others? No. I do not. Please leave me alone. And if you buy a private server you’re feeding the monster that is Todd Howard, the man the myth the asshole, then we’ll get more bad games like 76. I just so desperately want the Pokemon company to see what a beautiful potential game they’ve got on their hands, that could be suitable for far greater audiences, but instead they’ve focused on the kids. It’s fine, it’s functional, but it’s lost to the fans from day 1, that are all 20+ years old now and want something meatier to play, something far more broad and inclusive. I also hate that there’s no wheelchair option in any Pokemon game. Like cmon, it’s not hard to include that.

In short, BOTW + Pokemon, with a sprinkle of open world sandbox to it, less fighting, more fun. Or, at least both options. Sure, go fight everything, great, but I want to farm carrots over here with 6sunflora, plz let me have some peace.

Edit: I forgot about harvest moon, chuck some of that in there too.

SECOND EDIT: someone in the comments mentioned to put this in Unova? Plz love yourselves, this game would be ALL MAPS. Stuff one singular location, this is the ideal game, put every map in it, join them, put islands in, make them more explorable, more detailed!

#pokemon #not peach #OOC

[junietuesday]

my top 10 botw ships bc i might as well jump on the bandwagon on @botwstoriesandsuch this is hilarious

10) urbosa/zelda’s mom. hate that they fucking buried our gays but theyre so soft and it adds so much to the story

9) robbie/purah. i can see it. chaotic scientist bisexuals. but what im seeing here as an alloaro is that theyre friends with benefits who also use each other to get out of boring parties so they can get back to their ancient tech

8) zelink. i love their dynamic in general which is why this is ranked so low, honestly i prefer them as chaotic bffs but they do make a good romance....two people connected across time and through fate to always be there for each other....i can see the appeal even if the whole “lover bonded by soul” is the opposite of my thing

7) paya/zelda. i like the themes of duty and tradition vs the new and different, what with paya being raised to be the leader of the sheikah and zelda’s whole entire thing

6) miphlink. like with zelink, i love their dynamic, link having a childhood best friends is just so sweet and again the themes of duty to the country vs people you care abt, but i enjoy these two as mlm/wlw solidarity not so much as romance

5) revamiph. honestly hwaoc made me ship it. the gentle healer w the prickly fighter. red and blue bisexuals. short people solidarity. the way they bridge cultures, social class, so many things to be together. theres something here

4) sidlink. both of them trying to move on from their past but feeling guilty about leaving the people from before behind, but Also carving a path toward the future with these new people they care about. both learning to open up to each other, sidon who refuses to show anything but optimism and link who refuses to show anything but strength. also the height difference is funny

3) zelpha. princesses in love! the contrast between the princess who is struggling with her power and her relationship w her father and is doubted by the people, but who despite it all tries to stand up for herself wherever she can and do the thing she truly loves vs the princess who’s mastered her power and has a good relationship w her family and is adored by her people, but can’t gain the confidence to just confess and be open with the person she likes and do anything purely for herself! it’s so so delicious and i am a simple lesbian.....

2) eggbot/sheikah slate. i can see a rivals to lovers dynamic here with how the two are both pieces of ancient tech that zelda obsesses over in turn, but then they grow to respect each other as technology with different functions that work in tandem. but also they do have potential for a hard and fast romance, with how eggbot literally awakens to the sheikah slate’s chime in that introductory scene. like they were created to work together. there’s also a lot of potential for worldbuilding with these two and what’s better than that. really you can make this ship be anything, with eggbot’s lightheartedness there’s humor and banter, but with its time travel abilities there could be angst about honesty and communication, it’s such a versatile ship. lastly i mean theyre nonbinary icons

1) revalink. i am a sucker for repressed gays figuring out their shit together. with how both of them are valued only for their fighting ability and nothing else, but with link it was thrust upon him with no choice and with revali he saw it as the only way for people to respect him. revali’s bitterness against link for being chosen by the master sword while revali had to work so hard for his status honestly feels so justified, but then you think about it from link’s perspective and how he never chose any of this and now people are depending on one child to do the heavy lifting of saving the world, how he felt so pressured by everyone that he literally wouldn’t speak - contrasting with revali’s verbosity, because well-read people are always respected. just. the two learning to share their emotions with each other and lower their masks to gain a mutual respect for each other’s abilities but also really caring for each other despite those abilities because that’s not what makes you a worthy person. it’s really touching and with the whole canon setup of “revali is dead and link is rescuing his soul” there are so many opportunities for angst i don’t even have time to detail, but revali’s snark and pretty much any personality you can give link, whether snarking right back or letting revali lose his cool by just not responding, plays off of it for hilarious banter.

#june speaks #loz #long post #well THAT was certainly an essay

[a-bit-too-much-of-a-zelda-fan]

@noblelightfighter asked: "How did you come up with the town scenarios? Like Wild trying to bargain and Sky being one of the links who was eager to try bomb-chu bowling?"

I’m really glad you asked this! I love talking about my thought process and inspirations when it comes to my writing, especially with Oops! All Links. There are a lot of sequences in the Selggog arc, so I may as well go through them chapter by chapter. More below the cut!

I'll start off by saying that around the time I wrote “Musings and Memories,” I read James Baldwin's short story “Sonny’s Blue’s.” Baldwin does a really good job keeping dialogue-heavy scenes interesting by describing the characters' poses and mundane actions. I thought, "damn, I want to do that too." So if you noticed another layer of detail in my writing at that point, that was why.

Chapter 15: Inn or Out... Maybe Just Inn.

Hyrule is by far the hardest Link to write for. He has hardly any source material, so all I really have to go off of is Jojo’s comic and other fan content. That's why I accidentally ignored him for the first 14 chapters. So I decided to give him much more of a spotlight in this arc, and one of the few concrete things that we know about him is that he has had to deal with vendors with wildly different prices. I figure, yeah, he probably got good at haggling.

I put Sky, Wild, and Hyrule together because they all have different experiences with vendors in their own games. I decided that I could add Baldwin-esque detail by describing the minutia of them undressing and eating supper. Damn, did I consult the original LU character concepts a ton for this segment. I also used this scene to add my headcanon/self-projection of Sky being vegetarian.

The Links also went through what could be a traumatic experience in the burning town. I had already written some fallout of Time using Darmani's Mask, where the others are mad at him, Wild flips shit, and Time describes how painful it is to use the masks. But Time only wore the mask to save Hyrule. Wouldn't Hyrule feel guilty about that? And who better to soothe that guilt than Wild, who must have felt incredible survivor guilt after the Calamity?

Chapter 16: Panacea

Scene 1: I wasn't sure why I made Twilight wake in a cold sweat, but it could be because of recalling his past experience in "Stars and Stories." Aside from giving Twi and Wars some 1-on-1 dialogue, this scene lets Twi have some pleasant memories of home after the awful ones in "Fire." It also shows his soft side when he lets Time oversleep.

Scene 2: This is mostly just setup for the rest of the arc, but eating breakfast and getting dressed is another Baldwin opportunity. The group also gets some downtime to decompress and act off of each other.

The title and Hyrule's line "And enjoying breakfast together in a warm and cozy inn is probably the panacea for that poison” is a reference to the Flobots song "Panacea for the Poison."

Chapters 17 & 18: To Sell a Butterfly (Necklace); A Sailor and a Ranch Hand Walk into a Store.

Bro, I love writing Twi and Wind together. All the Links consider each other sort of brothers, Twi acts like a big brother to his friends in Ordon, and Wind is the youngest Link. Perfect. These chapters let their relationship shine and give Wind a chance to use his own experience with treasure tellers for what I think were great character moments. Madame Viliafore wasn't really inspired by anything, she just kinda came into existence.

Twilight's line “Uh, I’m pretty sure most shops won’t buy off strangers. They’re trying to sell their junk, not buy yours. Think how fast they’d go bankrupt.” is a reference to the Snowdin shopkeeper in Undertale.

This is probably pretty obvious but the titles are references to To Kill a Mockingbird and that one joke (you know the one).

Chapter 19: Swords, Shields, Arrows

Wild is a knight and knows exactly what he is doing when it comes to weapons. The pose he ends his sword test with is a reference to the BotW Memory "Shelter from the Storm." He tries to haggle with the shop owner precisely because he just saw Hyrule do it, and they talked about it the previous night. He fails miserably because he has absolutely no idea how to do it. I also give Four and Wild some character interaction that stresses how much Wild's past messed with his head.

There's no particular reason the shopkeeper said they were scaring his customers when there weren't any customers in the shop, I just thought it would be funny.

Chapter 20: Mind the Tea

Hyrule got some comfort from Wild and Sky, but I felt he really needed to hear it from Time. Besides wrapping up all the plot threads from the previous chapters, I got to sprinkle in a bit more Time angst and humorously conclude the wallet side plot. I just thought it would be funny to make the events of two whole chapters entirely unnecessary.

This chapter and the opening to the next are inspired by the time I went to a British tearoom in New York City called Tea and Sympathy. It's a bit pricy but if you're ever in New York, you should check it out.

Rolling with the British theme, the title is a reference to the warning all over the London Underground saying "Mind the Gap."

Chapter 21: Me and the Boys

The Links needed some fun after everything, so I figured, what minigame from one of the Zelda games could all of them enjoy? Time said it himself, they all like explosions. Sky is the most enthusiastic to play (besides Wind) because he's generally one of the more positive Links, and one of his own minigames was that circus-themed diving game. I figured that this would remind him of that.

The girl at the counter is indeed the younger sister of the Bombchu girl in Ocarina of Time. The "heroic sideburns" line is a reference to Tri Force Heroes, which otherwise doesn't really come up in LU.

In my opinion, this is my funniest chapter by far. I really laid into the comedy here, because I knew that after this chapter, I was going into an arc centered around intense combat. I absolutely love Twilight's increasing concern over the Cucco, and Sky's line about animal welfare laws is a reference to the "Wait. That's illegal" meme from Red vs Blue.

My favorite jokes I've ever written are in this chapter:

“Games?” Hyrule replied. “You mean like chess?” Wind gaped at his friend in disbelief. “No, games are fun.”

And this entire bit here

The girl giggled from behind the counter. Legend shot daggers at her. She sobered up. Warriors snatched up a bombchu in one hand and patted Legend on the shoulder with the other. “Please, I’ll show you how it’s done,” he said with a wink to the shopkeeper. Warriors’ bombchu was as good as dead on arrival; it was blocked by the very first barrier. His shoulders slumped. “I don’t remember him asking for the quickest way to lose,” Wild teased. “Shut it, you don’t remember a lot of things,” Warriors shot back. “I—… okay, that’s fair.”

To finish up, I'll explain where this town's came from. Back in middle school, I ran a Minecraft server for my friends and me. We built a town and my friend decided to name it Selggog. Where did he get the name? We had just watched the "Lab Safety Song" in our science class, and it mentioned safety goggles. He wrote down "goggles" backward and, what do you know, he got "Selggog."

#my own #I respond

[violet975]

Random thoughts.

So i replayed BOTW a while ago for the first time and decided to write down some of the random thoughts that i get while exploring Hyrule, here they are.

… A lot of these things gave me some fanfic ideas and I hope that they will do the same for someone more competent.

It's realty in character that the response to being asked why you took the man's torch is either to bludgeon things to death with it or to be a pyromaniac.

When the tower pedestal shines, Link instinctively leans back for a second before diving right back in because curiosity kills the cat.

The message from the slate/tower is to watch out for falling rocks which either means that 

1: zelda is writing them (and has a fair bit of free reign still).

2: the ancient Sheikah could see the future.

3: Ai to the likes of Fi.

Ganon kinda reawakens when the towers are up so maybe he was resting and building a body until he was interrupted here, which could be why his form later is such a hodgepodge of the Blights?.

Link is not too naive since he kinda clamps up in his answers to the totally unimportant old man.

Did Link briefly make eye-contact with the camera when he got the spirit orb!?

Link is a bit freaked out in his "How did you know!?" Response cas now he knows something major is up when the old man directly mentions the spirit orb.

Again, in character that you can choose to be an impatient brat with the "paraglider please?" Or inquisitive when Roam points out the slate.

Either run out of temper with the "that wasn't the deal!" Or be resigned with "so I need more now?" When the old fart sends you off to the other three shrines.

Ohh, another adrenaline junkie option with the "got it!" Over climbing the tower for a good view or a Deadpan "are you joking?".

"Or so i heard quite some time ago.. I do not know if it actually works as such" so they did not get teleporting to work before? or he just didn't learn how it was done.

So the monks, according to how the Triforce signs they held, apparently associate Power with Magnesis, Wisdom with bombs, Stability with stasis and Courage with cryonis?

The monks dissipate into green specks like Ganon’s soul does under the castle!

I'm not into men but damn if Link doesn't look good in the Warm Doublet.

Oh. My. God, he was King Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule!!!!!

Link is such a dumbass, you get to ask Kass "are you a ...bird?" As if the man isn't standing right in front of you. No shit Sherlock! What next, is that a recorder?.

OhhohoHO! You either say "no(, i have not heard of them)" or "Ancient songs?" As if you do not initially realize why they are thought to be ancient which either is old memories warring with the now world or Link not realizing what impact The Calamity had on culture.

Another flat-faced sarcastic remark everyone!

When Manny mentions that his job is checking for beauties/sus people you can either be a dumb dunce and ask about the said beauties or a little menace with "sounds though".

Manny is an Incel, talks a big game and puts himself on top of a pedestal alongside being demanding and a creep.

Does Hateno not have a goddess shrine? Just the ~Evil~ one?

There is a pair of rusty knights sword and shield by the leftmost part of the walkway of Fort Hateno. Some knight probably died laying there, watching out over the field of guardians having been/being purged by Zelda.

A traveler (Chelessa) is interested in history and wants to question Impa about it, and is on her way to do so in fact. . Describes her personality as very pleasant, that must be wrong.

The Yiga know exactly how Links first waking moments played out so either they have extensive knowledge about his character and the setup of the Shrine Of Resurrection or Ganon was watching in on Zelda's call and relayed it to a minion in the clan.

"Hero boy" - derogatory.

Arrow in the eye of the bridge at the entrance of Kakariko, the Yiga are petty and I love it.

Piano's (the painter) hair bun thing that is styled like a pencil has paint on the tip... this man painted with his hair.

So the great fairy Cotera makes it sound like she will enchant your gear because you rejuvenated her, not because you bring the materials to do the enchanting.

The levels of enchantment seemingly depends on physical closeness to the Fairy (blow< indirect kiss< kiss < sex)

She can not enchant beyond Lv 1 without her sister's help, so they share power?

Paya specifies that they have watched over the Orb since the grandmother of the grandmother of Impa, that's 9 whole generations of long lived Sheikah! roughly 1000 years of recorded history!

Again with Link being a dense Shonen protagonist with "where is it?" Or a sly bastard with "really, though?"... maybe so that she would want to prove it ;) 

…”I'll answer you some day, just not today!”

Either Paya is just not ready for that or she is so nervous that she did not think about the fact that her own grandmother was in the room when she said it!

“Served the royal family in secret” so it's not common knowledge that the royals have a village of Magic ninjas!? No wonder it took a damn demon to topple it instead of rebellion or infighting... probably has been like this since the old old king banished 'em.

"The royal family was destroyed, and the members of our tribe scattered."- okay so it was probably some Sheikah that either thought the royal family was completely extinct and either fled or, according to this next bit- "Sadly, there were some who swore allegiance to Ganon at that time. They joined together as the Yiga Clan, seeking out all who opposed Ganon... cutting them down, one after another." 

So from that we get to know that not all Sheikah deserters became enemies (unless the Sheikah dislike defectors enough to hunt them down) and others who either joined an existing opposing group or simply up and created the Yiga clan that then aligned itself with Ganon... probably under either the belief that Hylia's line was extinct and that it was join or die or because they wished to spite the goddess and her followers.

I actually like this way more because it makes no sense that the Yiga could survive before the Calamity when the Royals would have an entire damn country and anbu black-ops to hunt them down with.

"Master link, now that you are awake, you are surely the most formidable opponent standing against them!" Either hero worship or the Sheikah are freshly out on capable warriors with Ninja magic tricks, probably the latter which would explain why the world isn't infested with Lynels or why hynoxes haven't just trampled every settlement.

"No doubt they will come for you, employing whatever underhanded methods they can device" 

oh come on! Do not tell me that i'm stuck with the goodie two shoe ninja clan!? Underhandedness is your bread and butter! No wonder you served the royals in secret because you and them by proxy would have been a laughingstock otherwise!!!

"The great fairy Cotera... few remain who know that this village was built under her watchful eye." So the village is fairy new and the Yiga came about before Kakariko or it is old and so well protected that they can't get in... at least not easily.

"The mysterious power of Cotera is that of sacred protection..." so the Great fairies are linked to either Hylia or the gods, good to know.

So it’s not that Cotera “-would be happy to help” but, instead “i can't think of any reason why she wouldn't be happy to help you”. so either she only directly helps men or the earlier "you can put your trust in the great fairy" means that she judges more favorably for the chosen hero.

"I heard that the weather is going to be beautifully tomorrow... to bad you won't be alive to enjoy it"

So they have weather accurate~ich prediction? through magic or old time methods?

Again: Hero boy - derogatory... It's a common nickname for Link within the Yiga.

The lush green shrine could tell that a buck was on it, so the platforms are most definitely scanners.

A travelers sword by a campfire at the foot of mount Lanayru, so someone either took a swim and died to the Lizardfo, dramatically quit or got killed in their sleep.

Love the effect when you have metal weapons on the ground and swing a ThunderBlade!

You automatically reflect the Octorock's rocks, goes faster if you do it manually.

There is a hollowed out part of a hill/mountain with a lot of fic potential to the North-West of the Sword by the campfire.

Located where the lines meet if you draw a line to the right from Rabia plain and up from Trotter's Downfall.

Koko of Kakariko has been deceived by my cunning and slight-of-hand. 

Yes, Sagessa (woman by the lake of the Dueling peaks stable), there is, in fact, something "quite romantic" in Link's "endeavor" to save Zelda, thank you for noticing!

The chests inside the shrines can only (non-violently) be opened by use of the Sheikah slate so why not steal a few? prefect safe-keeping for more stuff to keep in Links house.

Dunce moment everyone! 

The Yiga traveler tries to seduce Link and you either go with "OK..." so he either has no damn idea about what is going on or is just not good with women? 

Orrrrr you go with a straight "I refuse!" cas you see through their ruse and want to rub their face in the dirt!

According to Mina the Hylian, taking out two Bokoblins is considered as great martial caliber which both she and her traveling companion could not do while decently armed.

Best way to deal with a guardian scout when you have weak weapons: hit with electricity, switch weapon, hit 2-5 times, switch to electric, repeat.

When you first enter the area around Hyrule Castle, smoke Ganon throws a fit until Zelda slaps him away. 

This either means that Zelda canonically gets a larger workload from there on and out or that the both of them push harder against each other every time you get close.

According to Zelda's diary, Link was assigned as her guard after the champions had been appointed.

How Link was focused on her yet did not voice his thoughts apparently "makes my imagination run wild!". Either romantic or dense.

Link admits to staying quiet because of the pressure of being the boy chosen by the sword. 

King Rhoam mentions that he decided to honor THE royal family's traditions by naming his daughter Zelda, and that he is "not a man accustomed to frivolous musings". 

Basically confirming that he is not the parent of royal blood.

They probably knew about The Calamity for a good while cas the page after zelda's naming speaks of the fortune teller, probs 3-8 years since Zelda was described to already have vast interest in the relics.

Pikango gets up at 10 past 5, I spent the night watching him and Beetle sleep.

According to all known laws of aerodynamics, Rito should not be able to fly, is Revali's gale then just an absurdly strong variation of some kind of sky Arcanum that all Rito possess? Do all the races possess one as Well?

Slimes ate the Bokoblins in the tree base at the center of the west Hyrule fields.

Savelle is a helpful guy without a pension for violence.

Munk Shae Loya is just flexing on all the other Munks, those old farts need to sit down while he's been squatting on one leg the last 10'000 years.

Chork of the Tabantha Bridge Stable is drunk.

Toren is either naive or a simp for the Faireys.

If you have the Hylian hood equipped with no weapon while riding at max speed then your cape will flap.

"Sweet boy..." "...I see now that my first impression of you was correct. You most definitely are pleasant to look at." 

So link has some kind of presence/soul-thingy that appears pleasant to mystical creatures? Might be the spirit of the hero or this link in particular.

The Fairy Kaysar makes Link blush! No player input needed! We’ve found one of his types!... either that or he's just shy.

The fairies almost never use normal materials to enchant, it's always either monster parts that don't dissipate or things that grow in magical arias.

The Sheikah towers are sturdy as all hell, the Tabantha tower did not even get a scratch from a giant fucking pillar falling on it.

Okay, am I just crazy or is a Lizardfo and a Moblin holding a class for 5 bokoblins just to the left of the Tabanta fairy fountain!?

Lester, the wise curry rice guy at Rito Stable, describes Link as sunny boy, another point to the soul/aura theory thingy.

Phontos laughs to hide the pain.

According to the story that Kass sings. 

Calamity Ganon was the result of sealing the enemy at its source.

It fought not only the spawn of the Goddess and the bearer of the Spirit Of The Hero but also the army of Guardians and the Champions that piloted the Divine Beasts for quite some time, as implied in the "and the guardians protected them throughout every hour".

So what i get from this is that the attack 10 000 years ago was the first sighting of what we know as calamity Ganon. 

It was also far stronger than the one that attacked 100 years ago which implies that that one was either a rush job or that Ganon bounds had been tightened, both of which would drive him to seek out other methods like corrupting the Guardians.

...And the Guardians are apparently powered by the ancient blue energy which was, time-line wise, first shown when the Golden Goddesses created the world.

No wonder that Ganon was capable of doing this since he most likely is running on fumes, spite and the power of the Triforce which likely is made of/channels said energy.

According to the rumor mill, you need the blood of the Hero in your veins to wield the Master Sword, if this is accurate then that means that Fi is sentimental or that Link has magic blood.

Wildberrys are fucking massive.

Genli (the salmon child) is a cunt, one kid was crying about someone Vah Medoh killed and then Genli is all like "no don't stop it, if you do then i have to go to class again!", She would fit right in with today's youth.

Monk Akh Va'quot has the best position so far, he is just done with your shit.

"You adventurers are Crazy" -> "you're right"

You get nothing if you melt all the ice by the Tabantha tower! You lose! Good day sir!

Monk Daka Tuss got bored during his self-inflicted quarantine and started stacking his arm bands.

Tula (the bathing Zora) said "wow either you are a Hylian or hideously deformed"

Phura has vandalized and mounted one of the spirit frog statues above her door.

Okay but the fucking noice that comes out of Bolson when you buy everything!! It's as if you just walked up and twisted his nuts with the power fit to shield block a Lynel’s charge.

Is the flower by Link's bed a Korok version of a Silent Princess?

The monsters of Hyrule are show to have interest in consumption based on three accounts. 

1: the Bocoblins and the Moblins by Hateno bay steal cattle. 

2: Hynoxes carry around warriors foodstuffs. 

3: Moblins (or at least the ones by the camp near the Serenne stable/forgotten temple) have a resting animation where they dig through the dirt and stuff something down their goblet.

...not to mention that nearly every camp has a bit of meat roasting by the fire.

Koyin has joined the fan-club!

God, the Naydra snowfield is fucking loaded in chill-shromes!

Stasis is perfect for looking for ingredients in forests, just open it, look around and bam! No more hidey hoe.

Why no shiny text for hylia's statue!?

I really do not like that they changed Naydra's colors when the malice was removed, they were so cool and then bam! White! White is not the color for ice and cold!

When praying by the spring of wisdom you are facing Hyrule castle, the same with courage and power if my memory serves me right.

...The master Torch

The Katona Aug shrine is just fucking mini-golf, how is that meant to prepare the hero?! Imagine how that Monk goes to the afterlife and has to look his fellows straight in the eye and admit that he was so lazy that not only did he make the hero play golf, not only was he so lazy that he made the Hero play mini-golf, but that he was so lazy that he did not even make a course! It is literally just a straight line!

Robie wants to see Links scars to verify that he is who he says that he is, Robie was likely one of the ninja that took Link to the shrine of resurrection.

Oh and Robin has two interesting sketches in his lab, the first is a detailed graph of a Sheikah tower so those were likely known about long before Link activated one (the one closest to Robin would be the one covered in malice and guardians so he could not have gotten enough detail from that one).

And the other is a sketch of what I believe is either a tier 2 or tier 3 guardian scout. Now, how can Robin know how that looks if only Link can/could enter shrines?

The Sheikah shrine that has the Barbarian helm is located at the end of the Sinai maze, did they just plop the shrine down there and steal the treasure of the ruin to later present to the hero?

There is one usable room in the citadel.

There is no compendium slot for the malice eyes that litter Naydra, Hyrule Castle and the Divine Beasts.

You can change the element of already elemental slime, not just the neutral kind.

Those head-spitting fuckers inside the divine beasts! They are partially reanimating mobs! So it's not that the Blood Moon is the time where Ganon is at his strongest, it's just where he chooses to revive everything.

The edge of duality can also be found in the shrine at the top of the dueling peaks.

#botw #lore #fanfic ideas #the legend of zelda #breath of the wild

[deiliamedlini]

HOW WE FEELIN ABOUT THE DIRECT

OH, I’M FEELING IT!

FIRST OFF, I’M HERE FOR MARIO GOLF, BUT THAT’S NOT WHY WE’RE HERE! 

Okay, I’m not surprised in the slightest about the AoC DLC. That game had the perfect setup for DLC and if Nintendo didn’t take advantage of that then they’d be FOOLS! But they’re not. From what we saw, I’m guessing we’re getting Robbie and Purah first!? I’m PUMPED! If they don’t just blow everything up, I’ll be upset! But I’m ready! BRING IT! 

NOW SKYWARD SWORD?!?!?! YASSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!! They are top 3 of my favorite Zelink’s, and that game as a whole (except Fi. Please, dear Nintendo Gods, please fix Fi and getting the ‘You found 5 Rupees” (and all other items) notification every time I turn the game back on!) is so good and underrated because of its motion controls hindering everything AND THEY’RE GOING AWAY! I’M SO EXCITED FOR THAT! I’ll TRY the motion controls, but I AM READY FOR THEM TO GET OUTTA HERE!! 

AND THAT BOTW 2 TEASE WAS CRUEL BUT ALSO HILARIOUS! HE POPS UP AND IS LIKE JK I’M NOT HERE FOR THAT! I loved it in a painful way. I am okay with no BOTW2 news. I didn’t expect any, so I wasn’t crushed. 

ON THE OTHER HAND THOUGH, the Mario 35th spoiled me, and I was a little disappointed that we only got the Skyward port. I wanted more. I really wanted some old games ported Link’s Awakening style, like the Oracle games, but beggars can’t be choosers, so I AM VERY HAPPY WITH THE SKYWARD PORT!

This was probably way more than you asked for, so TL;DR I AM SO FEELIN IT AND ALREADY PRE-ORDERED BOTH SS AND THE AOC DLC and I could talk about it all day hahahaha!!!! 

#asks