carrotsnake

[carrotsnake]

important bird business for important little birds

[carrotsnake]

so I plan on writing Kohga for fic purposes eventually and I REALLY want to make sure I get him right. do you know of any common pitfalls people have when characterizing him?

Oh hey, flattered you'd ask me! <3 The thing about Master Kohga is that a lot of stuff about him is very your-mileage-may-vary because a lot is left up to interpretation about his origins, backstory, etc. and the way the Clan operates and things like that. So I'll try to stick to things we see in canon and away from my and others' headcanons.

The other thing about Master Kohga is that he's kiiiind of a tightrope walk of a character to write, imo.

For example, there's a fine line with him between how theatrical and silly he can be, and how serious of a threat he and the Clan pose. So on the one hand, I think characterizing him as a complete dunce and clown who's totally reliant on his underlings (Sooga, someone's very serious and competent OC, etc.) as Thinking Brain Lackeys, is a common trap. I feel like whether one headcanons the guy as 10,000 years old and the only Yiga Master ever or the latest in a long line of them or something in-between, one has to think of him as clever enough to keep an entire group of people together and operational. TotK suggests he was able to figure out how to use Zonai tech without a magic Zonai arm, and under his leadership the Clan has spread throughout the Depths. In AoC he successfully infiltrates Gerudo Town posing as Urbosa and nearly kills Zelda. So he ought to be able to carry out an interrogation or come up with a good plan in fics, I think!

He's also a very powerful guy who can hold his own in a fight with practically anybody but Link (and maybe the Champions but I think he's on a more even footing with them or stronger--this is one of those ymmv things though). He has a dang face laser in AoC and in all three games is shown to have various magical abilities that not even other Yiga possess. He has a demon carver in AoC and Zonai tech weapons in TotK and giant spike balls in all his games. So again, writing him as a weakling reliant on others to protect him is a miss when it comes to canon.

However, on the other hand it's easy especially when one really likes Kohga, to fall off the tightrope onto the other side of the pit by making him out to be a total badass who's the best at everything and always right. Canonically, he's very theatrical, and he has so many comedic moments that I think it's important to let him be silly sometimes in fanwork too. A corny banana pun. An over-the-top line delivery ('thestupendouschiefoftheyigaclanMasterKohga! IIIIiis gonna KILL YOU ALL! To DEAAthhhh!!'). Getting distracted and humming to himself. Faceplanting with perfect comedic timing. Failing and blaming the failure on someone else/the situation. Defeating himself by getting carried away with explosives/spike ball size. All things that happen in canon. He uses the word 'thingamajig' in AoC and stomps his feet like a dork in TotK. So fanworks where Kohga is never even a little bit cringe also kinda get him wrong IMO.

(Also that thingamajig thing is a small segue to say that giving Kohga informal-sounding dialogue fits with canon. However he's also capable of issuing a genuinely ominous villain monologue, like he does before his final battle in TotK. He's a character who's funny but also a threat. That's the tightrope!!)

Next I wanna say there's also a fine line between cowardice and pragmatism, when characterizing Kohga. He does run away when things aren't going his way in his first three TotK battles, and he does peace out in AoC while saying 'Yiga, assemble! Meexcludedofcourse.' He yells for Sooga and others to protect him. There's also a DLC mission in AoC where he pulls the Yiga back when too many monsters show up on the battlefield, saying 'Well, that's that. We'll try again another time.' So he does have a self-preservation instinct and will bail when the going gets too tough at least some of the time. But nevertheless I think writing him as a total coward isn't quite right (and I have seen that a fair few times, folks just having him always hide behind Sooga or abandon his lackeys etc.). Because he does gamely face Link down in the first place, multiple times in all three games. Also, in the Yiga Clan Retreats AoC DLC mission he's genuinely upset that his comrades are thinking only of his safety and not their own, and because they're all seriously injured he's kinda the one protecting them by ordering them to stay close and 'protect him.' So it's more accurate to write him as having a bit of a cowardly streak, but not when it really matters.

One other small thing I wanna mention is that we see in AoC that Kohga can be kinda brusque to his underlings sometimes. He yells at Sooga for being late and calls him a bum in one mission. So putting that offhanded rudeness into him fits. He shouldn't always be sweet and understanding to others, especially when he'd logically be frustrated or someone does something stupid or harmful. But Yiga you run into in BotW and TotK also speak highly of him, say he has 'a smile like a sunbeam,' etc. He does seem to be very good at keeping the Clan's morale high. And like I said in the last paragraph he does care about his people not dying; in that Retreat mission he tells multiple people to quit talking about sacrificing themselves! So making him completely callous or never nice to anybody doesn't fit.

FINALLY, because I'm rambling, another pitfall I've seen sometimes is people getting Kohga's motivations a little sideways and forgetting what the Clan is about. Now this is definitely ymmv with regard to how much a given fan thinks the Clan worships/reveres Calamity Ganon or Kohga, and I'm not gonna get into that 'cause tbh most all of that topic involves headcanons. But we see in AoC that Kohga's primary concern, as it turns out, is the preservation of the Clan, with the goal of revenge and destruction of the Hylian Royal Family as the second thing. His willingness to turn back on the Clan's allegiance to/alignment with Calamity Ganon in that game when the Harbinger and Astor start killing Yiga is proof of that. So again, writing Kohga as considering his people disposable or recklessly sending them off to get killed by good guys or monsters as an end-justifies-the-means thing (or harebrained stupid unthinking scheme) for achieving a Calamity-Ganon-or-Ganondorf-related goal? That's just...yeah IMO that's just plain wrong. Kohga cares about the Clan.

BUT! Revenge on the Royal Family and hatred for its members and Link runs DEEP, and is the Clan's prime motive and goal beyond surviving and thriving for themselves. Kohga has a very big drive for that and especially in TotK speaks in quite definite terms about wanting to assist in Hyrule's destruction. So on the other hand, if one wants to write Kohga as allying with the 'good guys,' it's important to have a very good reason for him to do so. It took an immense betrayal by Ganon and Astor involving a swathe of murders to make him do it in AoC. So I doubt Kohga's gonna flip sides genuinely in any timeline, meaning with no plan for a double-cross or at least thought of backstabbing, at the drop of a hat. (And even in AoC timeline he speaks of not being completely comfortable with it.) In a temporary truce, I think he ought to be grumbling and resentful of it.

I went on and on but I hope this was even sorta what you were asking! ^-^; I had fun talking about Best Guy so thanks for the opportunity to do so!

[carrotsnake]

Rare life is strange W

the reveal was so goofy. the mystery had so much potential (I thought Rachel was also a time traveller, and she got lost in an alternate timeline using her focus powers recklessly). what we got was average criminal minds episode.

They put her in the cuck chair dawg.

I get what the critics have been saying for 12 years. These choices really mean nothing, no matter what your final choice is :/

Larry David hosting Chloe's funeral is the only highlight of this ending.

lets see how this goes

[carrotsnake]

life is strange spoilers below

ch 2 and 3. I'm glad I saved Kate but I didn't snoop around enough. One thing I like about this game is it's easier to tell how actions will butterfly effect unlike supermassive where it's more up to chance.

At the time I worried adding myself to the vortex list would implicate me when/if they were investigated by police🤔but now I think it would've allowed me to investigate in there. The alternate timeline filled with turbo angst felt like a detour with the sole purpose of winning over anyone who really doesn't like Chloe (me) and I'm afraid it didn't work.

lets see how this goes

[carrotsnake]

So, about those extra little goodies I mentioned

A painted bust card of our lad, Elias~

[carrotsnake]

he has in fact not seen everything

[carrotsnake]

link: no one knows who i am or what i did for hyrule. i feel so invisible.

yiga clan: hey. don’t cry. 100 haters hunting you for sport ok?

[carrotsnake]

lets see how this goes

[carrotsnake]

Three young barn owls standing in the stone quatrefoil of Christ Church, Fulmodeston.

[carrotsnake]

I've been toiling away at top speed to catch up on all the work I missed and all the pages I need to get done, but today's warmup ended up being revisiting this old piece done for @painted-bees ! I've always liked it too much to let it get so visibly old that I see nothing but flaws instead of the piece itself, so! Have a lovely werewolf and a lovely friend.

[carrotsnake]

Solivaga Tarot - ✦ STRENGTH ✦ After a lot of thought, there was no better card that most represents our noble Reaper.

[carrotsnake]

To speak

[carrotsnake]

Shall we get started? Now I have all I need...to become the king of all worlds!

yipee finally finished this i feel like i got a big weight off my shoulders, screw these guys i freaking hate them

[carrotsnake]

remember when a news outlet tried to pin the blame on a woman ship captain, who was nowhere near the incident?

her name is marwa elselehdar, egypt's first female ship captain and she didn't deserve any of that crap. i'd like to equally remember everything she's done to fight for women to enter these roles when there's so much hostility and lies being lobbed at her from every angle.

(if the driver WAS a woman, they would use it against the very idea of any woman being able to enter this field again. yet a grown ass man uses a vessel to draw a penis and everybody giggles and moves on, no one attaches it to a man's ability to do his job...)

a collection of my favorite tweets regarding the Ever Given in the Suez Canal

[carrotsnake]

NECROBANE

Cover art I did for 'Necrobane' written by Daniel M. Ford, and published by Tor Books. This is the second book in the swords and sorcery series following Aelis De Lenti. She's journeying deep into the snowy wilderness with Maurenia, the mercenary she's fallen for, and Tun her half-orc friend, to find an immense necromantic power to stop an undead army, and prevent a war. Tun is a returning character. A fur trader, naturalist, and close friend of Aelis. I again had to interpret what he was going to look like based on my reading of the text. Admittedly, I didn't get to read this one because of the schedule, but he is described in the first book, so I had it. Tun is a Nordic word and given he comes from the snowy mountains of the North and has braided hair I read him as a viking orc, which sounded cool to me and hopefully it is to you too. Thanks to AD Esther Kim!

[carrotsnake]

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