#THAT'S a reason to come back. botw I think I need another 5 years to forget everything about it before I can come back

[looniez]

What do you think Link and Zelda did togheter during the time betqeen botw and totk

I'VE THOUGHT VERY HARD ABOUT THIS

this wound up being on the longer side so i'm putting it all under the cut!

a few years have passed between BOTW and TOTK. they don't give us an exact amount of time, but based on context clues it's safe to assume that anywhere between 5-7 years have passed. personally, i think it's likely been 5 years. that's a considerable chunk of time.

i am very firmly in the camp that link and zelda, by the time TOTK rolls around, are a couple. either that, or they've at least vocalized their feelings for each other but have yet to label anything. the baseline is that they very obviously love each other.

post BOTW (but before the epilogue), i think that link brings zelda back to hateno immediately after freeing her. it's important to him that she has a safe place to recuperate and heal and knows that his home is the perfect place to take her.

he makes sure she eats and has plenty to drink. he makes sure she's doing okay. he offers her his bed (more like insists) and keeps a careful eye on her. zelda would feel guilty and maybe feel like she's intruding or being a burden, but link wouldn't hear it and would shut it down quickly.

link sleeps on the floor in the nook beneath the stairs for the first few nights because he wants her to have space and privacy. he usually winds up upstairs to wake her from bad dreams anyway. zelda doesn't sleep well (neither does he) and eventually, link starts sleeping either next to or at the foot of the bed to be close by if she needs him (he needs her just as much). sometimes, he holds her hand and sits with her until she falls back asleep. those nights, he keeps an eye on her. they get closer as the weeks go by and fall back into old patterns from 100 years ago. link remembers more.

when they set out to investigate the divine beasts, it feels so similar to their time traveling together from before. everything is different, but it's like nothing has changed in a way. after, they return to hateno. it's home for them both now without it needing to be verbally agreed upon.

she tells him that he's no longer obligated to follow her anymore and that he's free. zelda feels guilty. link tells her that he's not staying by her side out of an obligation, or because of some century-old duty. he wants to. he chooses her. he would follow her to the ends of the earth.

zelda builds the school. link stays by her side like glue. they fall into a routine, build a sense of normalcy, and live a life with each other as if they are each other's center of gravity.

eventually, they start sharing the bed. it was bound to happen sooner or later. link wound up beside her most nights anyway (this was zelda's exact reasoning. she insisted it was ridiculous for him to continue sleeping on the floor). they sleep much better beside each other.

they keep up the work of trying to rebuild hyrule. they stick by each other's sides through it all.

i really do think that at some point in between BOTW and TOTK, they wind up together. it just feels right to me. even before confirming it, i think that they both understand that their relationship isn't that of just friends, but they might still feel hesitant to cross that line for fear of ruining what they've so carefully built together. the mutual pining is UNREAL!

eventually, it comes out one way or another. they kiss.

when the gloom starts to appear around the kingdom and they head off to investigate under the castle, they are doing so the same way they do everything else: together.

[faroreswinds]

Would the totk story come across better if Link was more expressive? I think the reason he isn't is because he has always been (at least partially) a player-insert, so you're supposed to fill in part of his personality yourself. I agree that it would be better if he had his own personality though - hell, he sort of does already, considering he has a lot of sassy dialogue options. But the lack of character animation and voice acting on him was certainly a Choice, and it certainly wouldn't have hurt to have him react a bit more to that final dragon tear.

It would have helped a lot to be sure, but it is not the only fix Totk needs.

It needed to not have a memory system. It needed to avoid constant repeat of story information. It needed more present-story. It needed to not treat its audience like they are 5.

And while Link has always been a player-insert, and I don't mind this, he has also always been decently expressive (for the 3D games at least). OoT Link expresses fear, distain, curiosity, grief, and respect across his two games. TP Link expresses joy, sorrow, anger, and shock in his games. SS Link literally cries when Zelda seals herself in a crystal, smiles with understanding at Groose's fear of the Surface, and so on. And WW Link has a buffet of emotions and reactions.

BotW Link expresses.... pain and shock, I guess. Not exactly a wide range of emotions there.

Like, let's compare some scenes between OoT and Totk. In OoT, when Link leaves his home for the first time, Saria confronts him to say good-bye. While we cannot see his face, we do see him take a step back and stare at her for a moment, before turning and running away from her. That is all that was needed to show us that saying good-bye was hard for him. He was leaving the one person in his life that truly mattered to him, and into an unknown future and world.

In totk, Link learns that Zelda has turned herself into a dragon. And his response was... to stare blankly into the sky as she passed by.

Wow. So.... emotional....

:/

I think another problem with Totk Link is that he doesn't really have much going in his life besides Zelda.

Like, in WW, TP, OoT, and SS, Link was part of a community. He had a family or friends in his town he was part of. Maybe he was a student, or a farm hand, but he had people in his life besides Zelda.

BotW/Totk Link? Well, we barely know his life before being Zelda's knight. His two other important relationships (Mipha and Daruk) are with dead people. What community was he a part of? We don't really know. Did he have other friends? Was he a city kid or a country kid? Did he live with his father or not?

No, the only important relationship this Link has is with Zelda, and his entire life seems to revolve around her. It makes him feel like he's not really a permanent part of this world.

Yes yes, he is supposedly best friends with Sidon,but it kinda feels like it is one sided. Sidon says Link is his best friend but we never see Link, like.... look super happy to see Sidon again or anything. No big hug or a fist bump.

And his house from Botw is now Zelda's house. And consider Bolson doesn't seem to know Link, I almost wonder if canonically, that was never Link's house to begin with. Meaning... Link doesn't even have a house?! It made sense in BotW, he was sleeping for 100 years, but here?! Wtf?

I really hope they make the next Link not only more expressive, but not make him an accessory to Zelda. In fact, I want the next Zelda to play more of a minor role. Give us another Twilight Princess scenario, where the main princess is someone else.

[tnc-n3cl]

Lifts Hyrule Castle into the air on a pillar of gloom! @critical-birb wishes for the Great King of Evil to be revealed! So be it!

Ahem... First let me start by explaining...

The Process!

So back in 2021 I finally broke down and bought a Nintendo Switch, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. After playing these two games back to back (BotW then AoC) I got the idea "What if the champions were possessed and Link could free them?" (Actually, I got the idea at work, the day I played the "Air and Lightning" mission in AoC...)

Now one reason for this is that I tricked myself into thinking that the Champions would be Skyrim style followers in BotW (based on a tip screen saying something about using the whistle function to call horse or other companion to you, and an out of context screenshot of the "Revali's Flap" memory I had seen back when the game came out in 2017 that turned out to have the exact opposite meaning I thought it did.) And another was that I wanted to visit realms outside of Hyrule, but those dreams were dashed when I saw the early trailers of the then unnamed sequel and read that the devs wanted another adventure in this version of Hyrule.

So in May of 2021, I started working on what would become The Realm Walker, starting with this artwork of a character's spear.

In working on TRW, I incorporated the LoZ ideas from an old Final Fantasy/Legend of Zelda crossover idea I had. (Namely that a new villain banishes the Hero of Twilight (Twilight Princess Link) to the Twilight Realm and eventually has a kid with Midna and tries and fails to get back to his Hyrule.) (There were also some ideas revolving around BotW headcanons and things that TotK sorta-kinda ended up doing.) This is where the name The Realm Walker comes from.

SO... I tried to get as much writing done before the then "Sequel to Breath of the Wild" release to avoid having to redo things. That kind of failed, BUT I had an out. Ildia (Hero of Twilight and Midna's daughter) would just hit snooze on old Mummydorf's alarm clock by putting on her Goron Mask and tossing a Powder Keg into whatever cave/tunnel Link and Zelda used to get to him. That way I could just skip TotK's events entirely, incorporate any cool materials and powers, and have old Ganny come back for the final arc of TRW.

The brain weasels said "NO!" And one must always obey the brain weasels.... Eventually I came up with a way to incorporate elements of TotK's story without having to rewrite anything! (Although these changes DO effect things I haven't written yet.)

In TRW, I have a loosely defined event known as "The First Calamity", Ganon appears time and time again throughout Hyrule's history, either as a Gerudo man or as a blue pig-guy. However this time, he appears as an eldritch abomination which is later called "Calamity Ganon". Hyrule's forces are on the brink of defeat when armies from three neighboring nations (Holoryna, Yosun, and Xilipi (Sy-lie-pi)) arrive to lend their aid.

This gives Link and Zelda the opening they need to seal away Calamity Ganon at the cost of their lives. The nations of the world band together to ensure such a tragedy never happens again, resulting in the creation of the Divine Beasts, Tower Network, and Guardians. And well, we all know how that went... (Actually quite well until the King of Hyrule went an buried all the Sheikah Tech...)

[Bonus: Here's an absolutely huge map! Note that 100 years before the events of BotW in this AU Yosun broke up into 5 nations that eventually formed an alliance.]

So what is the "Big Damn Ganon Reveal"? Well, at this point in my fic, Link will have Rauru's arm (and his secret stone, but that's a whole 'nother thing). Rauru's spirit sticks around and chats with Link from time to time. At this point in the story a Major Earth-shattering RevelationTM has happened and Link wants answers from Rauru.

I merged elements of TotK's Imprisoning War with my First Calamity, so Rauru was King of Hyrule when this all went down. When they blast away all the Malice making up Calamity Ganon, Ganondorf is revealed (in Demon King form). This is quite the shock, cause as far as they know Ganondorf went on some kinda journey an unspecified amount of time ago, leaving the Ancient Lightning Sage in charge in his stead. {A monster shows up in the Gerudo Desert, Gerudo can't control it, Sonia & Rauru help defeat it as per what the Eighth Heroine quests in TotK suggest, relations between Hyrule and the Gerudo improve, yadda yadda...}

Major Stuff happens, this is when Link and Zelda die. (I haven't decided if First Calamity Zelda is Rauru and Sonia's kid or maybe she had a kid from a previous marriage and that's Zelda yet.) Ganondorf summons a Helmaroc King and flies to where BotW castle will be built to have the big fight where he's sealed. Rauru gives chase (maybe gives the Sages their stones that I'm going to give a better name than "secret stone", also gotta come up with another title cause I've got other Sages, it's complicated...), big ol fight. Originally I had Sonia die here, but now I'm thinking maybe she survives and runs Hyrule after Rauru sacrifices himself (maybe remarries and has another daughter that's BotW Zelda's ancestor?). [The big question will be if Zelda can interact with Zonai tech due to Zonai blood or just because she has divine powers...] (Also there's more Zonai, but they run off to avoid angry villagers with pitchforks and torches cause they can't explain how the hell Ganondorf ended up with a "secret stone")

So I guess it's less "Big Damn Ganon Reveal" and more "The Truth of the First Calamity." The actual file is just notes and ideas I jotted down real quick before forgetting them. There's only like a couple dialog suggestions, the rest is just stuff happening and questions to myself. I haven't even finished writing all the BotW events I want to do so it'll be a while before I get to this. But I WILL get to it!

And that's about all I can say now without spoiling too much... Thanks for your curiosity!

WIP Game (send me an ask or reblog the original post!)

[fizztapp]

My final Smash Pass DLC predictions are Bandana Dee and Dixie Kong (with a vague prediction of a Mario Character if Dee doesn't make it) and if you would allow me to be insane for a second I will explain to you why

Before we start there is a rumor that would be relevant to some of these points. The rumor is that Steve was supposed to be the final fighter of pass 1 but got shuffled to pass 2 because he needed more time in the oven. If that's true, then when compared to pass 1, pass 2 has been very dialed back so far. Being solely Nintendo IPs, & Sephiroth who's a 3rd party w/ a series in smash already. 

/

/

Here we go!

____________________

1: It is Our Turn

Waddle Dee and Dixie would be as disappointing of an announcement to JRPG fans as Byleth and Pyra were to mascot platformer fans. A bit arbitrary but it lines up! For some reason this point is what really opened my mind to the possibility that these two have a chance LOL.

____________________

2: Advertisement 

It's reasonable to assume we will get a new mainline Kirby game in the next year or so (maybe even at this E3) due to Star Allies being 3 years old at this point. And we know for certain a new DK game is coming, likely to show up at this E3 or in a later direct down the line (it mostly depends on if they want to make BOTW 2 their main showcase/holiday release or not).

Even if these two aren't at E3, they would still be filling the same "advertisement character" role that people accused Min Min/Byleth/Pyra to be.

____________________

3: Anniversary

Nintendo never cares much about anniversaries when it comes to stuff like this, BUT... Imagine we get a Mario character, as a delayed-due-to-covid Mario 35th slot. And THEN Dixie as the Donkey Kong 40th celebration. I know people wince at the thought of another Mario character as DLC, but you know how Nintendo is. Telling Sakurai to add one last Mario character during the year where they promoted/celebrated the hell out of Mario would track.

IF THAT WAS THE CASE THOUGH, I imagine they would have shuffled characters around to at least let this new Mario character take Pyra/Mythra’s spot, so it would still be released during the “Mario 35th” time period. 

(also Bandana Dee wouldn’t get added in this scenario)

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4: Nintendo’s Donkey Kong Epiphany

Nintendo has been going crazy about Donkey Kong and have a LOT planned for the series coming up, as K. Rool winning the ballot really opened up their eyes to how much fans love the DKC RARE games. So while I don't think we NEED Dixie (We already got K. Rool and Banjo, which is insane), I could see Nintendo, or even Miyamoto, giving Sakurai a lil nudge. (Also Miyamoto’s favorite Kong is Cranky... so maybe we’ll get a Cranky drop tomorrow? LOL)

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5: Japan Loves Waddle Dee

Waddle Dee is HUGELY popular in Japan. Hal markets Waddle dee almost as much as Kirby!! And people love it!!! and I get it!!!! I don’t think westerners realize this.

____________________

6: Smash Ballot

Dee and Dixie are both characters which we can assume did well in the character ballot, & are two big Nintendo characters that really feel missing from the roster.

In a big character poll that people always reference to, all of the top 10 characters have gotten in besides THE TWO KIRBY CHARACTERS: Bandana Dee & Magolor. Which I feel indicates that Nintendo would look at Kirby when thinking about new Nintendo characters to add to a 2nd Pass. Again, NO OTHER SERIES had 2 characters in the top 10 besides Kirby. 

Hell, the only other series that have multiple characters on this chart are DONKEY KONG and arguably Mario. And while I mention Dixie, I will point out that out that if we exclude all of the old smash characters from the poll, Dixie is 11th most wanted. Still pretty popular! Nothing to sneeze at (is that the saying?).

____________________

7: Final Characters

Smash character announcements always end on a whimper rather than a roar, and while Dixie/Waddle Dee would be a roar for me personally, I'm aware that people want to see big 3rd parties like Crash and Doom, not Nintendo side characters.

Like I said, it would be another Byleth or Inciniroar to cap off the reveals.

BUT, if the rumor stated at the top of this post is true, and Steve was the final character of Pass 1, that would have been a HUGE final character. But in the end, Nintendo and Smash still have a history of putting underwhelming reveals near the end.

____________________

9: GIRL

Dixie being a girl character might give her a better chance. This is a more speculative point (well, all of these are speculative LOL), but this pass has been giving us more girls to help even the roster more, so who knows! They might be looking for girls since the base roster and the first pass are largely male dominated. 

Min Min, Alex, Pyra/Myth. Girl Byleth if you count Byleth in pass 2.

Also this gives Toad/Captain Toad a foothold too? Toadette alt!

/

/

____________________

In conclusion they are funny and I like them

[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.

[freckledskittles]

104th SSBU Mains

In the midst of playing Super Smash Bros Ultimate and the trailer for the second half of SNK’s third season, this heap of crap came out of nowhere and now it’s the only thing I can think about

I don’t know a lot about some of these series so please excuse me for any mistakes or inaccuracies!

x-x-x

Eren: Roy. He got into Fire Emblem when he first played SSB:Melee, and he fell in love with that red-haired boy. When he plays Ultimate, Eren is less likely to stick to one character (his argument is that “everyone is good and I love all of them DON’T MAKE ME CHOOSE”), but when he has to, he knows his boy Roy is there for him. Alternatives are Ryu, Mega Man, and Zelda, which, in his mind, if you’re going to play anyone, they’re the best options.

Fun fact: half of the reason he plays Ryu is to bug Armin to be Ken since “they’re best friends and we’re best friends and you look like Ken.” Same for Simon and Richter.

Mikasa: Young Link. LOZ is her favorite video game series by far (Majora’s Mask is her favorite hmu about Mikasa headcanons I love her) and when she heard he was coming back to Smash, she was sold on him before the game was out. She likes any Link, but Young Link has a charm and holds a lot of nostalgia for her. And she likes how he's the only one of the Link trio to have fire arrows. Alternatives are Yoshi (somewhat for the IRS meme but mostly for her fave green dinosaur), Mewtwo for the Pokemon representation, and Samus. Nothing beats an “I’m strong” catchphrase than the first female video game protag.

Armin: Mega Man. Of the video game series he’s gotten into, Legend of Zelda and Mega Man are the ones he’s most loyal too. For Ultimate, he’s more into the mini easter eggs that Mega Man’s moves give to other characters in the franchise than winning the game, and will probably play the single player modes the most, but he doesn’t mind fighting his friends. Alternatives include Pit, Pikachu and Falco; he doesn’t know much about Falco or Pit, except what he’s heard from everyone else, but it’s better than giving into Eren’s whim to play as Simon or Ken.

Jean: Ike. He grew up on that good old GameCube system, so of course he’d go to Ike, whose first game was for GC. He won’t admit it out loud, because he’s a Cool Guy™, but RPGs are near and dear to this boy’s heart. And what better way to share that love than with a blue-haired boy with a big ass sword? Also, he’s pretty good at Smash? So whatever smack talk he has is actually backed by some type of skill and experience. Alternative mains are Zelda, Young Link, and Pichu, all which took a very deep study of each character to develop. It was a serious decision.

Marco: Link. Like Armin, he has limited experience in videogame knowledge, and he’s just here to play with some characters and sass his friends. Link is the one he knows best, and the BOTW design is really pleasing to him. He’s really not here to win or show off how good he is cough cough Erejean. He just wants to have fun! And will do so in ways that make everyone regret handing him the controller, but he doesn’t know that. (Ridley just came out how the hell has he already mastered him?) Alternatives are Ness for the baseball references, Kirby for the deceit, and Marth for a cute blue-haired boy.

Fun fact: it’s a running joke among the 104th nerds that Ness’s design was inspired by Marco, and just to play into the joke, Marco has learned how to imitate Ness’s voice perfectly. For shits and giggles, he’ll spam the “okay” taunt if he’s doing better.

Sasha: Kirby. A classic, in her opinion, and the most versatile character since he can get the move of any player he inhales. There’s nothing more terrifying than a smiling pink glob hitting you with a hammer and nothing will change her mind. She put in so many hours to Kirby’s GBA and DS games when she was a kid that she can’t not play as him. Alternatives are Toon Link and Luigi for the GameCube nods, and Daisy. She makes up for losses by whispering “hi I’m Daisy” under her breath. It has a 95% chance of making them laugh.

Fun fact: the 104th buds have enforced a ban on Sasha’s Luigi when they’re playing together. He is too strong for mortal minds to comprehend.

Connie: Diddy Kong. The peanut gun really sold it for him, and he loves that Donkey Kong being the big goof that he is has a tiny sidekick like Diddy. He’s not here to win or compete seriously—he just wants to have fun. And that fun requires shooting peanuts and slapping opponents with his tail, but he’s not keeping track. Alternatives are Snake for laughs, Villager for the Look Of Death from that one skin (you know which one), and Peach. If he and Sasha are on a team, it’s a nightmare of hip bumps and golf clubs. If they’re facing off, No One Is Safe.

Reiner: Samus. As a kid, his mom wanted him to get into video games that were “safe for the kids” and so there was a bit of a limit to what he could play. But Metroid was something she okayed, and the series now has a special place in his heart. Samus is amazing to him? A bounty hunter in space who fights a giant dinosaur and is also a woman? He’s proud of that. Alternatives include Donkey Kong (more to play with Connie than anything else, really), Mario, and Olimar. Pikmin was another series he was able to play; if he had to choose, the white Pikmin are his favorite.

Bertholdt: Olimar. Sorta like Reiner, his video game knowledge is limited, but more by choice than anything. His knowledge stems from friends and his brothers playing DS games. (Their favorite is Spirit Tracks hmu about Bert headcanons I love him.) He chose Olimar, who he recognizes thanks to Reiner, but also because he looks like he is waaay out of his element. Which is how Bert feels 98% of the time. Alternatives are Marth, Shulk, and Pit; he didn’t choose them until he played at least some of their main games. (Which he did end up doing and enjoyed them all.)

Annie: Incineroar. She’s a Pokemon girl when no one’s watching, and that asshole cat pulling a clothesline on stage is exactly why she’s playing the game. She didn’t choose Litten when she played Sun/Moon (Rowlet is her dear round boy), but by god if she’s not going to take her chance. She was skeptical of Incineroar at his release but once she played him, she was a fan. The stone-like facade she wears playing him doesn’t help either—it’s win or death. Alternatives are King K. Rool, Zelda, and Ridley. She makes heavy characters look easy and the 104th does not appreciate it.

Ymir: Little Mac. A 5′7″ boxer from the Bronx is squaring up to fight a fire-breathing dragon, an anthropomorphic hedgehog, and a pink blob that wants to put her to sleep. It doesn’t matter—he’s here to beat everyone up and he won’t stop until he wins. She may be biased (modern au headcanon that she’s from the Bronx what up) which some will allege is her reason for picking Little Mac, but that’s just slander to her. Alternatives include Mega Man (after so many years of not having that iconic blue boy), Chrom (“that’s an ugly ass tattoo put some sleeves on”), and Sheik.

Fun fact: it takes every bit of her lesbian heart to not choose the girls because the 104th knows her attraction to long blonde hair and is waiting for her to do it. And sometimes, you need Peach to shut them up.

Historia: Marth. He’s a royal blue boy! Look at how pretty! Soft headcanon that Historia likes fighting games and RPGs because hello punching bad guys and using sword to battle evil? Yes please she wants that. She’ll distract everyone with praises of her character and “how beautiful” they are while attacking the 104th with every chance she gets. She’s here to win, and when she will, she just smiles and says “don’t worry we’re all winners.” But everyone knows who the One True Winner is. Alternatives are Ryu, Zero Suit Samus, and Pichu. When she chooses Pichu, the 104th buds know the game is over.

[ozzdog12]

2017- Top 7 (And 1)

Well as another year closes, so does another fantastic year in gaming. In fact, this could be one of the best in history!! You may say, Why only a Top 7 and there are two reasons. 1: Everyone does a Top 10 or Top 20, but nobody does just 7. It also makes the list more prestigious 2: I’m lazy. 

But I do give my biggest disappointment

Well lets get on with it. 

Biggest Disappointment: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)

Now I know you’re shocked and you’re saying things like “ This list is shit! BotW is the GOTY!” or “WHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTT how?!?!” Let me explain. I don’t have the nostalgia for Nintendo that a majority of people have, so I can give a pretty non-biased opinion when it comes to Nintendo games. BotW is a decent game, but its not without its faults. Actually it’s a really bad Zelda game and an even worse ‘Open-World’ game. It’s an open world game made by people who haven’t played one in a decade. However, most alarming is the story, or lack thereof. I know part of the charm in Zelda games is creating your own adventure, but I found almost zero motivation, especially in the early hours to even progress forward. BotW is vastly different from previous Zelda games and takes a lot of risks. Some paid and most didn't. The game is gorgeous for a launch game and being able to play it both on my tv and ‘on the go’ is also a huge plus. The biggest complaint though is the controls are complete ass ( NOTE: I did not play it with a Pro controller, but I understand its much better) I get that with the way the controller is designed you're limited to certain buttons, but some of the controls are so counter-intuitive, that I constantly found myself looking or thinking about which button did what rather than naturally doing it ( I’ve been playing videogames for 25 years, so its not a user error, its a design error). All in all, its a Fine game and a lot of people love it, but its not the best game of the year.. it’s not even the best game on the system….

Number 7: Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (PS4)

Hellblade could be on this list for its impeccable sound design alone. Seriously, play this game in the dark with a good headset. While there is combat, the game is not predicated on heavy combat, its more about the deeply personal story told with a Norse mythology backdrop.The puzzles are simple, but unique. The game also looks incredible.The voice acting is superb. In a gaming environment littered with so many open-world games, a well-designed, linear story-driven game is great palette cleanser. Seriously, check this game out. 

Number 6: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (Xbox One)

This is in no way a political post, but in the current state of the United States, a game about killing Nazis is so refreshing. It also helps that its actually a really great game. While I do think The New Order is a more meaty, complete story and game, The New Colossus has more jaw dropping “HOLY SHIT!” & “WTF!” moments than any game I’ve played in the last 7-8 years.The game knows what it is and it excels greatly. The game takes some really creative plot twists. BJ isn’t just some standard FPS goon that murders Nazis ( well HE is that too, but you learn more about his past and find a very human side to him). Its also go violent and so satisfying taking an ax to the face of a Nazi. MY biggest gripe is right when the game really starts hitting its stride, it just sort’ve ends. You can go back and revisit previous locations to take of Ubercommanders, but unless you just want more of the same, there is no real incentive to so. I’m really looking forward a 3rd(4th?) chapter in this Wolfenstein story.

Number 5: Super Mario Odyssey (Switch)

I’m not the biggest Mario fan and like I said above, I don’t have the nostalgia for Nintendo. As a person, who thinks Mario 64 is way over-rated and is a sub-par game, but loves Mario Galaxy, my biggest concern going in was that this was going to be more like 64. To my surprise, after getting used to the sensitivity of the controls, I found my self REALLY enjoying the game and constantly looking for moons to collect, even when I had enough to move on to the next world.The game is set up in a way to encourage you to revisit worlds even after you’ve beaten the game. I found it to be relatively short for a Mario game, but honestly there is enough there even if you don’t want to 100% the game. Cappy is a new and fresh introduction to Mario that the franchise really needed. 

Number 4: Prey (XBONE) 

Man I have to admit something about Prey. I played the demo and didn’t like it. Finally played the full game and for the first 2 hours thought it was kinda dull, but I knew there was something there and I kept on playing and boy am I glad I did. Prey is THE BEST game seemingly nobody played. I fault a lot of that to the failure to market it correctly. Prey is such a unique experience and a game that is so different from anything our there, it has to be played to fully comprehend it. In terms of gameplay, it doesn’t reinvent the wheel but it’s one of those games that when I wasn’t playing, it’s all I thought about. When I was playing, I just wanted to explore every nook and corner within Talos 1. It also has one of the most unique endings/twist to a game I've experienced in a long time. I don’t want to dwell on too much because I’ll ramble into spoiler territory but do yourself a favor and PLAY this game!

Number 3: Injustice 2 (PS4) 

As a massive DC fan and a massive Mortal Kombat, I was hotly anticipating I2, I was a little concerned with the gear system prior to release fearing it would cause imbalance (especially online) but it didn’t for the most part. In a gaming world, where loot boxes are all the rage, I think NRS handled it fairly well. At the end of the day, I wish it was all just cosmetic because i rarely looked at the stat boost and just went with what i liked cosmetically. The story picks up following the events of the first game. Its also very odd to me that NRS can make a better, more compelling story than Warner Bros can with their movies…but I digress. There are plethora of new and returning characters and all are different enough to fit your fighting preference. Some characters i would’ve preferred over others, but all in all, I think its a very impressive roster. With different towers/multiverses rotating in various intervals, its a significant upgrade to the S.T.A.R labs challenges from the previous game. I put in over 100 hours and thats even before all the DLC characters are out.  

Number 2: Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (PS4)

Being that Uncharted is one of my favorite gaming franchises, this should be no surprise. Goodbye Nathan Drake, Hello supporting cast! With Nathan Drakes adventures ‘completed”, I am all for more Uncharted with side stories for supporting cast. (Young Sully next please). Chloe (being absent from Uncharted 4) and Nadine (being a villain in Uncharted 4) is an interesting tag team set up. Personalities clash and deception and lying is ever present as you’d expect. As per the status quo from Naughty Dog, the game is graphically top notch and the mo-cap and voice acting is superb. There are several nods to previous games and even an appearance by a certain character. The game is shorter than previous Uncharted games and its honestly the perfect length for this style of story an price tag. More Uncharted is always a good thing!

Honorable Mentions: Pyre(PC), & Metroid: Samus Returns(3DS) 

Number 1: Horizon Zero Dawn(PS4)

Man, what can I say about HZD that hasn’t been covered before. From the first trailer I saw, I had an expectation of what I wanted from this game and its surpassed it ten fold. An achievement in and of itself these days. There are a lot of great open -world games out there, but one of the biggest issues with all this open-world-ness is that story gets dumbed down or sacrificed ( see Breath of the Wild). Horizon Zero Dawn has a really great story that keeps you going adn trying to figure out “What is Zero Dawn?” Trying to uncover all the little secrets is so much fun, the collectibles make you explore this gigantic world. The (post-apocalyptic) )world never feels empty or barren ( unless that was the intention)  Even the side quests feel meaningful for the most part. There is a lot going on in this game, but its all organized and presented together well. My one gripe is that the game doesn't do a great job of telling you the differences and benefits to certain ammo types, you’re basically left to figure it out on your own. Fighting robot dinosaurs never gets old and with the addition of The Frozen Wilds, you get 3 new creatures and they are brutal as ever. Every fight with a Thunderjaw or a group of Scorchers feels meaningful and satisfying even when you hit level 60. While I don’t think its fair to compare Breath of the Wild and Horizon Zero Dawn, they are often compared ad nauseum. I will say that in my opinion HZD did almost everything better than BotW in the things they both tried to accomplish. Horizon Zero Dawn is not only my favorite game on 2017, its made its way into my Top 5 favorite games of All-Time!

[odogaronfang]

For the Botw thing, (I don’t have the game with me rn and I’m too lazy to look up the map) but I remember finding a random hot springs in the middle of a colder climate. It’s kinda near the upper left hand side of the map. I was trying to get to the shrine up there and I found it so I think it’s a good setting for something. I remember being hecka confused about it then I tried to drown some boxes because “WHY THE HECK ARE THERE BOXES UP HERE???!!! WHO ELSE EVEN COMES UP HERE??!!”

[[i’ve actually been wanting to write something for botw au involving one of the hot springs… yall read my mind sometimes i swear]]

[[hi! it got to 2000 words again. 2150.]]

The general consensus among them is that Red is, for lack of a better term, insane.

“We’ve been walking,” Blue says (or chatters, more accurately), “For two days now. Two days.”

“In the snow,” Green adds, helpfully, as if they could forget about it when they’re walking in knee-deep drifts.

Shadow, cheater that he is, has been using magic to float, and has also been subject to multiple rounds of snowballs, to keep things fair.

“I am still not quite sure what we are looking for out here.” Vio treads as lightly as he can, but even then he occasionally misses a step, sinks through the sleet and ends up with a soaked snow boot. “And I am not certain that it is wise to continue.”

Zelda nods her agreement from behind her five layers. “Really, Red, it’s too cold out here.”

Red laughs at that. “Zelda, c’mon, we used to live here!”

“It’s been years,” She says, “And I never liked the cold besides. That’s why we moved.”

“I’ve been offering you guys the fire rod we have.”

“It’s too hot,” Blue complains. She remembers all too well the burn she’d gotten the first time she’d handled one.

“Oh, the fire rod’s too hot, but the snow’s too cold. Pick one to complain about!”

“May I ask, again,” Vio cuts in, before someone can start an argument, “Where exactly we are headed?”

“It’s a surprise! I’ve told you that!”

“And how close’re we to this ‘surprise’?” Shadow asks. “I’m not even touching the snow and it’s miserable.”

“Close!”

“You’ve been saying that for five hours now.”

“I know, but I mean it this time! It’s just around back of this peak.”

And it is- but it’s also down a steeper drop of the mountain, one that they very carefully have to navigate. Red and Zelda are fish to water, make it down no problem, and Shadow cheats and just floats; the others are not so fortunate. Vio goes first, if only because he believes himself to be more sure-footed, chips away footholds in the frost with the toe of his boots and helps to guide the others down. Blue makes it okay, if a little shaken from a slip she’d had halfway down. Green falls.

It isn’t too far, and he lands in a snowdrift and hardly suffers more than a bruise, but it scares him, scares all of them more than they’d care to admit, and leaves Green shivering violently.

“It’s just around here,” Red says, more urgently, and keeps close to Green, offers the heat of the fire rod. He leads them through a break in the rock shelf into what seems an open-topped cavern, snow drifting in from above to melt on the bubbling surface of the water. “This way, c’mon!”

He skirts the pool until they make it to the back of the cavern; just an open end, they think, until Red starts walking through the water towards the wall. They look at him as though he’s crazy- he looks at them as though they’re ridiculous- and after a moment they follow.

Red sloshes through the water in front of them, guides them under a low rock and through what seems almost a tunnel, into a dead end.

The difference in temperature is immediately noticeable.

It was cold and dry outside, the steam freezing midair, but in the little cave it’s humid and comfortable and warm.

“I’d forgotten about this place,” Zelda says, peels off a scarf and a coat and sets them on a rock against the far wall, the one dry place in the secret spring.

Blue inspects the water, mistrusts the color of it. It’s a strange shade of teal, cloudy, almost opaque, and nothing like the deep blue of the oceans back at home. “What is it?”

“A hot spring.” She’s down to two layers, a record low since they’d passed Rito Village. “Geothermal activity heats the groundwater and sends it bubbling up in places like these.”

“There’s a couple,” Red adds, stripped down to his pants, and sits in the water like he’s in a hot tub. “This one’s Goflam, and there’s Sturnida and Sherfin too, I think.”

Green is fully clothed and sunk into the water up to his neck. “I like this place best. Out of everywhere.”

Blue pushes aside her skepticism, and also pushes aside Zelda to get a space in the deeper water, adds her outerwear to the growing pile and settles in. “None of these down by Lurelin,” She admits, “But we didn’t need ‘em, ‘cause the temperature never got down to negative a billion.”

“Oh, don’t be dramatic,” Red says with a roll of his eyes, and responds to her splashing in kind.

“He has a point,” Vio agrees, from his perch on the rock, “It cannot possibly be below a million.”

Shadow just shrugs. “Dunno what you’re talking about. I’ve been perfectly warm and dry the whole time.”

Vio shoves him into the water at everyone’s request, and offers his most innocent smile when Shadow glares at him from behind his soaked hair.

“Why aren’t you in,” He asks, with a certain acidity to the question, and a tone that suggests that he will be very soon, and not of his own volition.

“I would prefer not to get too wet. That is certain hypothermia.”

“We’ll dry up before we leave the springs! We can set a fire on the shore right outside here, it’s still kinda warm and it’s dry enough to catch a spark, and we can even have a hot meal before we leave!”

He’d like to be skeptical, but the promise of a hot meal is enough to satisfy him. “I am holding you to that,” He warns him, takes off what he’s willing to and finds a spot between Blue and Red.

“It’ll be the first in days.”

“Weeks, it feels like.”

“Think we could keep it hot for the trip back? Not that I’ll have to be cold or anything.”

“Perhaps if we wrap it well it may preserve heat for a day, but likely no more.”

“We could always stop for another fire.”

“Is hot food all any of you are thinking about?”

“Yes,” They all say, or some variation of it, and Red has to laugh.

“It’s a good thing none of you live in Hebra.”

“I did,” Zelda reminds him. “You’re a freak of nature. No one likes the climate here.”

“I do!”

“You also claim to enjoy Eldin Canyon’s climate.”

“I do!”

“Freak of nature,” Zelda says, as though proving a point, and makes an exaggerated gesture towards her brother.

There are murmurs of assent among them, and every single one of them gets mercilessly soaked by Red before they go.

When they do, it’s reluctantly, back outside in very little clothing to make their much anticipated hot meal, and there’s never been a fire started quicker.

Vio has the good sense to set it under an overhang, so no snow dampens the wood or their clothes, and they throw everything they have together into a potluck that could admittedly taste better (but the fact that it’s hot excuses the flavor, for the time being).

“We should rest here for the night,” Blue suggests, mostly because she has no intention of putting the fire out anytime soon.

Red is halfway to the fire with a flask of water, which she has half a mind to “accidentally” “spill” before it gets to where it’s going. “I thought you guys wanted to start back for the stable.”

“I think we want the fire,” Blue insists, and takes a defensive stance in front of the logs.

“Are you guys sure?”

He’s overruled in a 5-1 vote, so he shrugs and sets the water to boil and lays in the snow, completely comfortable.

“Red, that’s not healthy, get on a blanket at least.”

Stubbornly he settles into the drift, and bats away his sister’s hands.

“Red, you’re going to freeze.”

“It’ll be warm here in a minute.”

“Your clothes are going to get soaked again.”

“The fire’s right there.”

Zelda sighs, turns to Blue. “Blue, please tell him he’s going to freeze.”

“Red, you’re going to freeze.”

“I’m fine!”

“Can you at least get a blanket? At least that?”

“Oh, fine.” He reaches towards Vio, refuses to move. “Vio, could you get me my bedroll?”

He does, and drapes it over Red, hiding him from sight, and passes a cup of hot milk under for him.

“Red-”

“He is not here at the moment,” Vio says.

“You’re siding with him?”

“Snow makes a sufficient insulator if you are not exposed to wind. There is a fire five feet away, regardless. He is in no danger of hypothermia.”

Red shouts “Ha!”, muffled as it is by the bedroll, and pushes out an empty cup from under it. A minute later he pushes it down, exposes the top half of his face. “Can’t breathe with this on me,” He says, by way of explanation, and folds his arms behind his head. “But Vio knows.”

Zelda turns an accusing look on Vio. “You said he was in no danger.”

“I said he was in no danger of hypothermia. Freezing and suffocating are two very different things.”

“You did bury me in snow once,” Red points out, and grins at her. “When I was like, four. You said I was annoying you so you covered me up and walked off.”

“You weren’t supposed to stay in there!”

“Well, I didn’t know that, I just figured you’d come back when I was allowed to get out! The only reason I dug myself out was ‘cause I got hungry. Maybe if I hadn’t I woulda frozen to death.”

“Zelda,” Green says in a mock-gasp. “Did you really?”

“What a mean sister, leaving her poor baby brother to freeze out in the snow.” Blue scoots over to affectionately ruffle Red’s hair. “I can’t believe you.”

“‘M’not a baby,” Red complains, but Blue shushes him, patting his cheek very obnoxiously.

“This poor tiny infant boy, abandoned,” She says, ignores Red’s swatting. “Red, just a small little teeny tiny- Vio, help me out.”

“Minuscule?”

“-Minuscule baby infant-”

“Okay, Blue, we get it!”

“-All alone out in the cold bitter wild, waiting for his neglectful sister to come back for him-”

“It wasn’t like that,” Zelda argues, but she’s laughing.

“She let me try shield surfing when I was only five,” He adds, “Just sat me on it and shoved me down a hill. I was lucky I didn’t break my neck.”

“You’re just trying to get me in trouble, huh?”

“And this other time she had me build a fire all by myself, and I was, like, practically straight out of the womb-”

“You were six.”

“Only six years to my name, starting fires! And she gave me a knife to hunt with like a year later!”

“I am sorry to have to say this, but I will have to take custody of him,” Vio says, deadpan, “Clearly you are an unfit guardian for this child.”

“I’m not a child!”

“I will have to find him a foster that knows how to appropriately care for him.”

“I’ll take him,” Shadow says, and is immediately and unanimously vetoed.

“Red’s my new son,” Blue announces, pulls him up from his snow bed and cradles him dramatically against her chest, pins his arms when he tries to push away, laughing. “Everyone, Red’s my new son. And Vio can be godfather.”

“What am I?” Green asks.

“You’re the weird uncle.”

“So I’m your brother now?”

“…I take that back, weird cousin.”

“As my first decree as mother-”

“I do not think mothers issues decrees.”

“I decree that Red needs to clean his room.”

“I don’t have a room here!”

“Vio, he’s being defiant.”

“Teen angst,” Shadow suggests.

“Listen to your mother,” Vio chastises, “Tyrant though she is, you have no choice.”

“You guys are dumb,” Red snorts, shoves at Blue until she lets go and wraps himself in the bedroll. “I’m not a child. Green’s the youngest here, actually!”

“What, am I on the adoption block now?”

“I’ll be your mother too, but only ‘cause then I get to boss you around.”

“No way am I letting you do that.”

“Your children are out of line,” Shadow complains, in the best old-village-mother voice he can do. “Back in my day we sewed their mouths shut ‘til they were eighteen! Parents today, Hylia!”

“You can go to bed early, mister.”

“Blue, you’re taking this too far.”

“Do I hear back-talk?”

“For the love of Hylia-”

“That’s it, young man, you’re grounded.”

Green looks to Vio for something, but all he gets is a wry smirk and a shrug.

[blessuswithblogs]

Top Ten Videocons of Twenty Seventeen, More or Less

2017 has, by all accounts, been a fantastic year for Video Games. Unfortunately for me, it has been a not so fantastic year in Having Money. So while in a perfect world my now annual game of the year list would have been a terribly contested and dramatic affair of cutting games I thought were good but just didn't make it, in actuality, I had to scramble and cheat a little to just find 10 games to slot in and talk about. I did at least manage to find them. Mostly.

10. Destiny 2

Destiny is a franchise with a troubled history, which feels weird to say about something that came out in late 2014. Nevertheless, Destiny 2's shooty looty gameplay loop finds its way on to my list. The story is tepid and the characters, with a few exceptions, are scarcely worthy of memory, but the visuals are good and the core mechanics of shooting and using abilities are a solid foundation to build upon in the inevitable flurry of DLC packages and expacs. It's all quite reminiscent of Borderlands, except without the unmistakable caustic ooze of Randy Pitchford's involvement. That in and of itself is praiseworthy.

9. Gravity Rush 2/Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

Okay so I maybe didn't actually play this one myself. I usually try to exclude stuff that I watched and enjoyed but in this case I was sitting on the couch with other people playing it so that's basically the same thing as playing it myself right? I think I held the controller for a little bit. Anyway this game is super weird and charming and a little nauseating in parts because you sort of go flying off into the stratosphere randomly? But the aesthetic and Mood the game goes for is very unique and fun, it even has its own cute little made up language I mistook for French at first until I heard some Japanese and Spanish sounding words in there as well. The main characters Kat and Raven are dating I think? They're happy and alive girlfriends. Raven is a little broody I guess but they're definitely not the Sad, Dead Lesbians I have grown to detest. Raven is not Velvet. Just reminding myself. Tropical Freeze is just really good and while it maybe came out like years ago I only got to play it very recently on my friend's Wii U. The music is super good fuck you Jeff Gerstmann I will fucking fight you and your shitty opinions about video games you god damned grumpy old man.

8. The Surge

My Thoughts on the Surge are well documented on this very website. It's flawed and frustrating in a lot of ways, nonsensical in others, and the story never quite commits to its original conceit which is a real shame. All that said, I respect the game for what it was unabashedly trying to do: be Dark Souls but with cyborg powerloaders and robots. Like, you gotta live your bliss, right? Lords of the Fallen was utterly miserable and the improvements that The Surge demonstrates gives me cause for optimism in future games from the developer. Anything that gives me cause for optimism in 2017 has to be worth something. That said, the inevitable The Surge 2 is probably going to be kind of by the numbers and unnecessary but that's just how you make games in the 21st century.

7. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

To begin with, BotW would be much higher on this list if I had not only come into owning it and a Switch yesterday. It is by all counts extremely good, an open world game that's actually pleasant and charming and has meritorious mechanics outside of Todd Howard style "you can go fuck that mountain" nonsense. I mean don't get me wrong you can fuck plenty of mountains in this game. Link is fucking Spider-man in this game, the only surfaces he can't mysteriously latch on to are inside the puzzle shrines so you can't just cheese them. Weapon degradation is maybe a little excessive? I feel sort of like Bayonetta in the first cutscene where she keeps yelling "Guns!" when she runs out of ammo except I'm yelling "shitty wooden sticks!" when the one I'm using breaks into a million tiny pieces. I understand the reasoning behind it, I do. It establishes a certain rhythm to the game of exploring, fighting, stocking up on shitty wooden sticks, and repeating. When you find like, an actual sword or spear it feels like an occasion to celebrate, and the whole thing demands that you use a variety of different weapons and weapon-like objects. I'm not nearly far in enough to give an honest, comprehensive picture of the game. I just really like what I've played so far so I'm just compromising by putting BotW relatively low on the list.

6. Cuphead

It's Cuphead! Everybody knows Cuphead by now. It's gorgeous, the soundtrack is great if somewhat lacking in variety, King Dice is really cool but has extremely unfortunate racial undertones, the game is pretty hard (not that hard?) and Cala Maria is a babe. It's a singular game that is extremely worthwhile and hopefully paves the way for future games in a similar style of aping specific styles and eras of animation. I really want a game that goes hard on the 1950s Looney Tunes aesthetic where you just drop anvils on people forever. Cuphead isn't perfect, as a lot of the game's difficulty and length comes from bad checkpointing. It's a necessary evil, because if the game did not blatantly disrespect your time in a lot of the later fights, the game would be like, two hours long. I'm not a proponent of the "git gud" philosophy but I can't help but feel like I really want to say that to the various bad-at-games journos who got bent out of shape about Cuphead being hard. This is your damn job. You can suck it up for one game, especially when it's really very good and unique like Cuphead. Also my mom came in while I was playing it and thought I was watching a popeye cartoon so that was kind of cute I guess.

5. Civilization 6 (CHEATING AGAIN)

YEAH I KNOW THIS GAME CAME OUT LAST YEAR AND IM A HUGE IDIOT FUCKER but hear me out Civ6 is really fucking good because of the fact that Wonders take up physical space on the map and districting does the same thing. Like just this single mechanical change basically doubles the amount of thought and planning you need to put into playing the game even on low difficulties to optimize your output and production. Like it's a civilization game so there's not really anything too groundbreaking here but I fucking adore this game. Really looking forward to Rise and Fall, which will be early 2018. With the initial release being late 2016 I feel like this is like, an honorary 2017 game. Don't @ me.

4. Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight is another game I wrote about previously on the blog, but unlike The Surge I had basically nothing but good things to say about it. Hollow Knight has gorgeous hand drawn graphics and environments not entirely unlike Cuphead, but obviously goes for a much more reserved mood. Hollow Knight is a rock solid Metroidvania game with strong aesthetic and musical chops to back it up, as well as some Dark Souls-esque flourishes to give the game a bit of bite and a haunting narrative arc. A fantastic indie game and I can't wait to see what Team Cherry does next. I need to get around to doing the Halloween DLC, come to think of it. Did you know Zote actually has as many precepts as he says he does? I listened to them all. Some of them aren't too bad.

3. Nioh

Geralt the Witcher's moonlighting adventure as a samurai came out quite early in 2017, but remains one of the best games of the year due to its complex and rewarding combat system, beautiful Warring Kingdoms era Japanese architecture inspirations, fun mythological monster designs, and genuinely well done historical fiction backdrop. Coming into it, I fully expected "Dark Souls except the bosses are like Tengus and Nues and shit", but that description does the game a pretty big disservice. It's much more than that, both from a narrative standpoint, which is a fantastically tinged retelling of the Warring Kingdoms period, and from a gameplay one. The combat in Nioh is much more technical than in Dark Souls, with more pretensions of a combo based character action game than the deliberate, heavily customizable experience of the Souls games. Nioh is still quite hard and has the whole death-recovery mechanic, but it makes sense diegetically due to Guardian Spirit system and remains distinct. There are times when it tries to have the best of both worlds and just kind of ends up feeling like it doesn't do a good job at either, but for the most part, Nioh is tremendously fun, and at times infuriatingly difficult, especially in some of the post game optional battles that pit you against multiple bosses at once. Also, finding Kodamas is extremely rewarding because they are so damn cute. I love them. Find them at all costs.

2. Nier: Automata

Nier: Automata, Yoko Taro's latest brainchild, is, well, what it is. It's a hauntingly weird story about what it means to be human, and if that definition is really even adequate. It's a game with a lot to say, which is why I regard it so highly. The core gameplay is fun and serviceable, which is much more than I can say for its predecessor, the first Nier, which was memorable and affecting but played kind of like butts. 2B's android adventures are much more fluid and stylish, and you have a surprising amount of customization options available (though some arguably make the game a little too easy at points, like regenerating health) and there's enough variety in the little Machine Life form enemies (and the big ones, too) that fighting never felt like a chore to me. Of course, others have disagreed, but I think that the tedium really only sets in when you play as 9S, who has a much reduced arsenal of fighting moves in favor of his hacking skills. I liked the little shmup minigames that hacking entailed, so even 9S's story never felt too dull in the actual mechanical execution of it. People tend to have a misunderstanding of how the game works, that you need to complete it 4 times to get the whole experience, but that's not actually true. The 4 endings separate the game into acts more than anything. While 9S's story has a lot of overlap with 2B's story, endings C and D are just entirely new content where you play as A2, who has some tricks of her own distinct from 2B and 9S. It's not perfect, but it's not like you have to play the same game 4 times. It's a very story focused game, so much so that I would say experiencing the narrative is the main draw, but it has the decency to also be varied and fun to play. I love the parts where you get in the transforming flying robot and shoot the dudes. Especially the big dude. You know the one.

1. Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood

The latest Final Fantasy XIV expansion, Stormblood, is super good. I wrote a bit about it earlier, and how it has improved upon Heavensward in almost all respects. Stormblood is a superlative MMO expac, with well designed and amazingly presented raids, dungeons, and trials. It's full of "holy shit that's dope" moments, like when you get into a blade struggle against the primal Susano's gigantic Ame-no-Murakumo in an active time event or storm the fortress city of Ala Mhigo. Ultimately, though, what really makes me evaluate Stormblood as my game of the year is how surprisingly thoughtful it is. FFXIV has, since the relaunch of 2.0, been a game that has not shied away from complexity in its narrative conflicts. The juxtaposition of the mythically strong Warrior of Light and the surprisingly mundane issues even she cannot seem to fix has always been the game's most interesting element to me, and as you spearhead revolutions against the Garlean Empire in two different countries, you learn a lot about how imperial colonialism has made things too complicated to be fixed simply driving out the oppressors. You do, eventually, of course, but the story is quick to remind you that this is only the beginning, and a lot of key issues remain unsolved, both in the newly liberated provinces and back at home. Also the Dark Knight questline from 60-70 is basically the best the game has to offer. It feels to me like that Dark Knight is the unofficial Job of Stormblood, despite the promo material and opening movie having you believe it to be about Monks. Monks, as usual, are boring. The themes explored in the Dark Knight questline, about regret, about shades of gray, about self-destruction, all align perfectly with some of the subtler narrative arcs of the main story. It's just really good and I love it. I still really want to write a piece about it on its own. I probably will soon. But for now, I name Stormblood my game of the year, for reminding us that we are still heroes. That we are still good people.

[semi-imaginary-place]

fe3h blogging 5 because I’ve been posting on discord and I can’t remember what number I was on oct-feb???

So I'm doing another no recruit run and realizing how much planning I need Me: why do I do this to myself  Specifically its SS usuing none of the black eaglea So Byleths going to be soloing until I can recruit all the church staff... or flayn comes along... 

Lambert and the death knight have the same voice actor. Lambert=death knight. Mystery solved

Loog was only able to gain faerghus independence because the emoire was already weakened from its failed invasion of dagda

Also its part if the seiros canon that a great evil darkness came out of the north. That couldn't posaibly feed into racism

The greatest sin this game has commited was giving gilbert a redemption arc

if only the devs weren’t cowards...

Why does dorothea even have A supports with guys? Her head is filled with only girls. has she ever shown interest in a guy?? Beyond a I want to be financially secure and tolerate your presence. everyone else is bi/pan[ Except caspar Hes just an idiot 

I'm gonna post hot takes for the sexuality of each character and yall cant stop me

Edelgard: lesbian Hubert: Edelgard Ferdinand: pansexual Linhardt: grey spec pan but prefers men+ Caspar: too stupid to evaluate Bernadetta: "I want friends" Dorothea: big lesbian Petra: pansexual

Dimitri: confused and repressed Dedue: gay Felix: swords redheads Ashe: pansexual Sylvain: pansexual prefers women Mercedes: pansexual prefers women Annete: lesbian Ingrid: pansexual prefers men

Claude: Demi pansexual/romantic++ Lorenz: ~~noble obligations~~ pansexual and repressed Raphael: grey ace/aro+++ Ignatz: pansexual prefers women Lysithea: pansexual++++ Marianne: pansexual Hilda: pansexual but usually dates guys Leonie: grey ace

+Linhardt feels romantic/sexual attraction but not strongly. He feels romantic love but he doesn't get crushes. ++Claude is the type to fall in love slowly after an emotional connection has already been formed and then get a crush after they've been going steady for 10 years. +++Raphael feels romantic/sexual attraction but not strongly and usually prefers queer platonic relationships ++++more to do with the individual than gender, but girls are cute

Game crashed and I lost like 4 hours of progress TT^TT

I'm on SS (which is the only route I haven't played) and hnnnnng I miss claude its been like 3 months since I played VW. Also I need to write down a time line some time but the stuff the agarthans have been pulling feeds the world builder in me. especially hyrm

as nice as the idea of all the lords getting along and talking things out is, it wouldn’t work out in canon, Edelgard has tunnel vision. Dimitri is irrational and would rather listen to his hallucinations that evidence. And no one trust Claude enough to believe him

Hilarious really how Edelgard will call for Hubert to carry you despite her massive strength and how hubert looks like a gentle wind will blow him over

Macuil/Indech:  Shun society. Run off into the wilds. Have vaugue legends be told of you. Be a crpytid

linhardt is such an unrepentant bastard

I had a dream where I could make male units pegasus knights. And then I woke up to cruel reality

Alois is growing on me. At first I was like uuuggg another bumbling idiot. But you know what? Fuck Seteth for not giving Alois more vacation time to see his family

Cavalry units be like: crushes a watermelon with their thighs

Some of the knights were bullying Alois. Who was it. I will bring them untold pain.

Reason #??? to punch Gilbert: he saw this poor child struggling to control his strength and went this boy doesn't need to learn how to control his strength, what he needs is more strength training.  I mean absent emotionally distant and all over shitty father to annette is reason number 1. But dimitri is reason number 2.  Oh let's make this kid lift rocks and run around the moutains at night in full armor in winter. Instead of being able to pick something up without breaking it and you know be able to perform basic daily tasks.  Let's make a human shaped weapon instead of a functional person.  Gilbert single handedly ruined AM for me because he just wouldn't stop messing up everyone else's lives

Each character's recruit requirements are what they admire/respect in a person

I forgot hubert becomes unavailable in month 2. and now I'm stuck with his stupis razor

Hot take. BotW Link and part 2 Ingrid have the same haircut

I'm on my last route (SS) but i hate rhea so much...

why do you think maurice/the beast's crest was used to make aymr?

Also all the nameless backgound characters have brown hair but of the main cast, its only dorothea and claude

Annette’s handwriting: Neat and cute.  Linhardt writes in cursive because he cant be bothered to lift his pen Sylvain has nice handwriting. Ingrid's is very functional, felix's is half way to chicken scratch lots of sharp angles. Dimitri cries on the inside at the thought of picking up a pen. as a kid Dimitri has terrible handwriting and breaks a pen every 5 min. He practiced so hard. Most of what people think is his handwriting is Dedue's (neat and pretty) because dedue writes most of his letters for him

me playing azure moon: I want out. get me off this death train

Finally getting alois's support and wow he's like a human shaped puppy in the sahpe of a middle aged man.  Always falling over himself. Ridiculously happy. 100% all the time. Running and barking everywhere

Fact of the day: dorothea hates eating fish

Alright. Seteth and Flayn's descriptions of her mom are very different.  Where is the truth???  Seteth was like shes demure, quiet, pious, and honest. And Flayn's says she's like Judith

game is forcing me to flirt with Alois? Can I not please!

I keep saying it but Lorenz grows on you like a fungus. He has excellent supports

 i want to weave gold thread into claudes hair

Under rated character development: Dorothea. Every one of her lines in part 2 makes me want to cry.  "every rose has its thorns" -> "only thorns left on this rose" Her character development is that she just gets worn down by the war and I want to bundle her up in a blanket and give her a cup of warm milk.  Dorothea is so full of love. So she feels the sorrows of the war so intensely.

FE3H needs better dads. I mean even jeralt and seteth aren’t great dads. They're just not down right horrible.  Jeralt is emotionally distant with an alcohol problem that byleth had to clean up after him. But there are worse dads Alois seems decent but he needs to spend more time at home. Seteth should have given Alois more vacation time.  They aren't terrible dads. But they aren't getting medals either.  Love their kids but have flaws of their own.

ANNETTE DESERVED BETTER THAN GILBERT Burn him at the stake No wait. He’d want that

My loathing for gilbert is beyond description.  He hurts everyone around him, then doesn't listen to what they have to say, and then keeps continuing his existence as a sad sack of shit.  1. Emotionally distant, strict, and often absent father. Clearly cared about his work for than family.  2. He then straight up leaves with out a note or telling his family anything.  3 knows that annette is looking for him and avoids her.  4. Annette just wants her dad back. That's what would make her happy but he denies her that because he's a selfish bastard.  5. Then he goes on and on about his man-pain while not helping anyone. he self flagellates and blames himself a lot but he never tries to change and so he stays there, is this cycle of self pity.  "Ohhh I have sinned and can not be forgiven" .and I'm like why not do right by the people you hurt? And he's like "no no I have sinned. I cannot see them" or some other bullshit.  He also gets some bullshit redemption arc that I want to scrub clean from my memory because he doesn't deserve it.  Annette's support is all about oh i forgive you. And it puts all the emotional labor on annette and just makes me real angry. And i am going to stop thinking about that disgrace of a human now.

Seteth is controlling. Wont let flayn have friends. Boys arent qllowed to talk to her.  She can't go out. He has to know where she is 24/7. Seteth really is suffocating Flayn. Early in the game Flayn compares herself to a hot house flower, confined to a green house, doomed to die outside it. It bring up the question which is better, to live a long life in constant fear and isolation (remember flayn is very much a people person), or to live a short fulfilling life. The answer of course is that it should be flayns choice. But Seteth denies her autonomy. Flayn is not quite an adult, but even discounting the decades* that she has lived, even a teenager should have some say in the direction of their life. Time and time again Flayn expresses her will and Seteth ignores her. She is allowed little existence outside of him.  Its also hilarious how bad their cover story is.  Its true they love each other but Seteth causes Flayn a fair bit of suffering. Its played for comedy sometimes. And Flayn to some degree tolerates it because she understands that he does it for her sake, and she understands the real danger she is in. They just disagree with what is an acceptable degree of risk. Seteth tolerates no risk which at that point can't be called living. Flayn accepts the danger and believes it is worthwhile to enjoy life and help people despite it. the counselor box also reveals that seteth has been stalking her and think her talking to dudes is bad despite that having nothing to do with the danger of the agarthans.

A fun thing to think about is if Flayn was born of 2 nabeteans, she's a human halfie, or someother sothis bullshit.  I reviewed the sea nd sky paralogue recently looking for answers and there were some hints? Maybe? nothing definative. all we know for sure is that flayn’s mom died in the nemesis war.  Also I have a hypothesis that flayn was in a regenerative coma for most of the 1000 years so she's been active less than 200 years which is why Seteth treats here like a waylaid toddler.

the flayn seteth c support is great Seteth.exe crashes and then reboots right in front of our very eyes

Catherine has such big wlw energy. I didn't quite realize it until I got her supports but hooboy.  Saw a lady so pretty she forgot she almost died pfft.  And this is just with rhea.  The catherine-shamir supports themselves are gold.

Catherine: ever see a woman so beautiful you forget you almost died and decide to devote your whole life to her?

Catherine->Shamir: i get worried when you go out on missions on your own. I'm not there to protect you. I'm scared of you leaving me behind. I never want to leave you side. Between my life and your life i'd choose your life me: ! Shamir: i don't know what the future holds, but let's get married me: !!!!!!!!!!!!

Also catherine/christoph was a thing in the past. Highschool sweethearts. Before she executed him for treason

Ahahahhha this is great! And by great I mean hilarious. Dimitri dies even more offscreen in SS than in VW.  Ghost dimitri in ss made me laugh but  do we ever get an explanation for ghost dimitri or it like the cf finale? Themetically significant. Sure lets go with that

I'm really starting to see where the parts of vw and ss were smushes together

Embarr has the best night life

Recruiting sylvain into the gd feels mean. I'm taking away the only one with 2 braincells to rub together

Under all the noble bullshit, Lorenz really is a great guy

Do you think every demonic beast looks unique and its only that the devs didnt want to make more models that they dobt look different in game?

Recruiting sylvain into the gd feels mean. I'm taking away the only one with 2 braincells to rub together in the blue lions

Sylvain is warm

I wish we got to explore derdriu

PETRA DESERVES BETTER WRITERS. and give her a fluffy coat. She's gotta be cold in garreg mach

Count Varley is at the top of the hit list

Add alois onto team i'm scared of ghosts (lysithea, ashe, annette)[5:44 PM] That's it. I'm kidnapping alois from the church's clutches and taking him home. The church doesn't deserve him. And he hates his job

W h y  i s  everyone from faergus so eager to give up their personhood

Does faerghus seem really backwater to anyone else? Faergus reminds me of like 900's europe while leicester and adrestia are more like 1600's europe.  they still have that germanic warrior culture thing going. This is deep in the dark ages. I will accept the later half of the dark ages though since its post introduction of christianity. Leicester and Adrestia feel more like 1600-1700s They feel not quite french revolution, but getting there.  Yeah like the old institutions (crown and church) are still there but the cracks are showing.  Also the clothes

I thinki talked about this before. But when I say dorothea deserves the world. DOROThEA DESERVES THE WORLD. she’s been through so much

I need to go compare this with the verdant wind scene, but I was under the impression that sothis was in a regenerative coma after the war with the agarthans. But nope according to ss she was straigt up dead huh

i know I'm suppose to be fighting but I spent the last 30min exploring shambhala again

Damn it Shamir! Why'd ya have ta crit. I was trying to get dialog!January 2, 2020

gatekeeper > you < gatekeeper's identical twin brother who's on the opposite side of the war Its a sandwich

Oh wow the church really was up to some bloodborne level stuff

I turned every single one of the black eagles into a brigand (except linhardt and hubert).  Brigand gang brigand gang

The devs knew Claude and Lindhardt would just be too powerful. They had to be separated. thats why they dont have a support chain.  Sylvain and Claude has more energy but Sylvain has the conscious that Lindhardt lacks.  I mean Lindhardt singlehandedly lock picks  the holy tomb and disables rhea's magic mechs all while complaining he's sleepy.  Sylvain can be bullied into doing things and I love him for it.  Ah. I want both support chains

After Jeralts death both Claude and Edelgard both tell you that the world will continue spinning regardless of what befalls you personally but they do so in rather different ways. Edelgard phrases it like pull yourself together or the world will leave you behind. Claude phrases it like personal tragedies are such a small thing in the face of the world. You may have suffered a loss but there is so much to the world beyond that. There are still worthwhile things in the world. Both of say the world doesnt stop for you but mean different things.  And both are trying to motivate you to pull yourself together.  Whereas dimitri is like: you want vengence? You should go for vengence. I'll help you rip them apart. I'll kill for you.

Edelgard is socially awkward and blunt. She's also very practical minded so she doesn't know how to won't say something comforting when she can say something useful.  She's trying in her own way  To motivate byleth to start picking up their life.  Edelgard doesn't get people. Social interaction is a total mystery to her. She's just too stubborn to realize it.  At a couple points you can tease her and she thinks you're threatening her. She's not good at the people thing.  While she can come off a little rough because she doesn't understand how other people work. Hubert understands other people rather well and is an asshole anyways. List of characters who have threatened byleth: dimitri, hubert, sylvain, jeritza, catherine

Was sothis one of the divine dragon tribe? a lot of the other divine dragons had green hair especially the ones worshiped as gods (duma, mila, naga, tiki). But not fae or nowi.  I always got that dragon stones were like a dragon's essence sealed away so that while in human form they could stave off dragon degeneration. But what are crest stones. Were they made by the agarthans (artificial dragon stones) or are crest stones a natural part  of the nabeteans and the agarthans just harvested them. Or... ARE THERE BOTH. But the pov characters cant tell the difference.  This one group has messed with how many nations now?? SS has an interesting tidbit that's  been stuck in my head:  In the final map of SS its revealed that all high ranking church officials recieve Seiros' blood and a crest stone shard. WHERE ARE THE SHARDS COMING FROM. DAMN YOU SETETH YOU CANT JUST SAY THINGS LIKE THAT AND LEAVE ME. because if they are seiros crest stone shards that neans crest stones are not an Agarthan invention. But that condridicts VW where rhea says creststones are made of nabateab hearts. tldr: I'm confused. where are those fragments coming from??? Wait. This is all assuming a nabetean needs their heart inside them to live. Given how violently rhea reacts to losing even 1 crest stone I don't think she used the ones of her brethern. Which logically leaves only one weird possible answer. That rhea took her own heart/crest stone and has been giving out fragments. I mean she probably retrives the fragments when the priest dies.... this also means that nabeteans can survive with their heart outside their body... like a litch.... which I mean given sothis isn't too suprising? ??

VW and SS have such wacky endings. Let's go fight the cyberpunk mole people now!. Zombie invasion?  : check Weird bloodborne stuff and then we fight rhea?: check

Yeah VW was my first route and whew that was a wild ride. AM is so tame is comparison. but SS and VW lack the setup to pull out twists like that.  If this was like Nier: Automata where you get endings sequentially, it might have worked. But on their own the last 2 maps don't have anything at stake

hmmm  switching the final battles of verdant wind and silver snow? What would make a better story and why?  rhea kinda works because SS is all about rhea and saving her from herself as well as a revival of the church. But Nemesis also brings closure to Rhea's arc. She's been stuck for the last 1000 years to to fight the man who killed her most important person for good is like also really good thematically. VW is all about something new. Doing away with old structures and what better than to kill the pope? But facing the 10 elites also works for VW because that's the begining of the crest/nobility system you are literally killing.  I just like recruiting everyone and then killing the 10 elites with their own weapons wielded by their descendants.  its symbolic

Byleth is an excellent brigard. Went beigand and then wyvrn and their strength was higher than dimitri's

Claude: Rule? Nah. Gonna go be a scholar in an isolated mountain range. Books

Sylvain is a himbo wannabe

I should recruit annette and let her kill gilbert...  The one thing I'm worried about is that it'll hurt her more than it'll hurt him ... can I get crusher in crimson flower? If I were to recruit everyone and then get them all killed, what route would that be best in? Guess I'll be doing a death pact AM run some time in the future

Also koei tecmo and intsys are cowards for gender locking classes.  From a gameplay perspecrive too some characters are locked out of their ideal classes (war master for catherine and gremory for lindhardt). And then there's the in lore significance. Let hubert ride a pegasus.

Dorothea spent the entirety of their paralogue hitting on Ingrid. And then the RING at the end??? and they can’t support. Also Ingrid should have gotten an A support with Mercedes. They get along so well

Edelgard got the best designs in the game but Dorothea got the next best

Its canon. Edelgard thinks Claude grew up to be hot. Edelgard acknowledging that Claude is hot but but that she’s going to kill him anyways is just so good ....aaaaand one again I'm a coward who couldn't bring themself to kill Claude. But the completionist in me really wants to. The scene after sparing cluade between him and edelgard has kept me up too many nights.  What are the emotions here? My first guess was loss, grief. Someone else has interpreted it as aggtession though. And maybe we are both over thinking this but to me Claude's lines here say "I have failed"

Dorothea deserves a dragon

Caspar is actually real good for bernadetta. Its like talking to a sack of potatoes and doing so forces her to communicate better, firmly express herself, etc. Caspar has such great supports with all the ladies really

I really am just linhardt. I too disregard authority and despise being woken up...

I feel like we should all appreciate dorothea more. Death to the haters

ingrid equipping the duscar cavalry battalion is like  "I can exploit their labor so it’s alright"

I found felix was my solace in AM just because everyone else goes full death cult. despite how much i wanted to punch him when he told ingrid to go get a husband.  Also I should note I'm not sure felix whole heartesly believed what he said to Ingrid. I got the impression he said the thing he knew would upset her the most.  Not necessarily what he believed. That said he may actually believe it too.  Ingrid and felix remind be of squabbling siblings just saya the worst stuff to each other.  Unless felix has actively confronted the notion of faerhgus patriarchy he probably has internalized some of the beliefs. We all do. Thats why theyre so hard to dig out

Since we talk a lot about dads. Let's talk margrave edmund. tldr: complicated and interesting relationship with marianne.  What we know: he adopted marianne some time after her parents died, before she enrolles into the officers academy. Marianne says he's usuing her as marriage bait to marry up and increase the standing of house edmund.  This tracks with what others say about edmund: he's politically ambitious. And he's good at it enough to have gotten house edmund a seat at the round table.  In pretty much all her endings, he tutors mariannne until she's a political savant.  He forbid her from leaving the monestary in part 1.  Now let's go in between the lines. In part 1 marianne seems nervous of margrave edmund, but she also seems nervous of everything is part 1. In part 2, along with being more comfortable with herself she seems more familiar with him.  After the end of part 1 she likely returned to house edmund despite the attack being the perfect cover to disappear.  We don't get get much on edmund's personality buy he comes across as ruthlessly practical. The sort that goes "I can and will use everything to get what I want".  He likely adopted marianne not out of charity or compassion but so the house could have a crested heir and so he could use her as a bargining chip to other houses. But he sees enough potential in her to train her to be the next head of house. I think what started out as "ah another piece i can use" transitioned into a more friendly relationship as marianne began to assert herself and margrave edmund came to acknowledge her as more than how she could benefit him. I don't think he ever got over the "how can i use this" mentality but I'd like to think that after some years they came to get along. Ah yes I meant to do a hyrm thing and put it off for months. The Agarthans had long been infiltrating the empire and slowly increasing their influence on the government. In an attempt to stop this emperor ionius ix attempted to gain more power for himself to counter them by centralizing the government and taking power away from the nobles. House Hyrm attempted to defect to the leicester alliance with the help of house ordelia. In retaliation the Agarthans under the guise of the empire killed the members of house hrym and took control of hrym and ordelia. Also in response to ionius' move, the top ministers of the empire backed by the Agarthans began the insurrection of the seven where all political power was taken from the emperor. The Agarthans than experimented on ordelia and the royal family to implant crests while usuing hrym as a base of operations. After Emile killed that scrumbag baron bartels as well as the rest of the bartels family. Edelgard thought he could be useful as a piece not already controled by the Agarthans, and with their helped fabricated him a new identity as jeritza von hrym since hrym was a puppet for the Agarthans. Lord Arundel (Thales) then ensured jeritza a spot at garreg mach so he could act as an inside agent.

Anyone know the significance of rhea's mech's names (wilhelm, iris, etc.). past friends?  lol would it be messed up or what if its powered by his corpse 

Jeritza really is an acquired taste... wow

... I wonder sometimes if I like making things hard for myself... like I'll make rules like 4+ units have to attack an enemy before I kill them... or certain units can't be next to each other or just other abitrary rules. Anyways I'm just complaining because I did all this on the final map while under leveled last night (?) and am now just going "...why" at myself

Also, I wish we got the option of keep class headgear.  Some of it looks really cool and some of the classes (bishop??) look incomplete with out it.  Let me have my little hats!  Like mortal savant gets an oni mask which looks rad. And warlocks get flowery witch hats! Just finished crimson flowers again with warlock and then gremory dorothea and was like hmmmm.... she needs flowers in her hair

Also if you look up dimitri's dancer skirt you'll see he's wearing black short shorts

Team heretic: edelgard, hubert, petra, claude, leonie, linhardt in the closet: lorenz

So for those of you that keep up with my rambling... remember how i said the funal cf cutscene makes no sense? Did sothis self terminate? If she dud than why arent there records of other crest stones disintigrating? Or is it a sothis specific thing? Its possible sothis’s consciousness is stored in her creststone/heart but then how can you still s support her in CF? i've been trying to logic and reason this for several months and i cant get it to all fit. But on a symbolic level its like the coming of a new age, sothis' hold on the world (and her influence on byleth) disappears. Live on without dieties (literally in byleth's case). The new age of humanity and all so byleth becomes a normal human, no god powers yada yada. I think claude is the only one that knows byleth has no heartbeat?? (Maybe? I cant remember) since claude reads jeralt's diary. Thematic significance > narrative consistency. There's also that rhea goes beserk in SS and not VW, when the same stuff happens to her in both. Which doesn't add up for me. And Nemesis ...is he still sitting there in the other routes... Where did he get an army anyways? I assumed the agarthans just had a whole army frozen...But then why didn't they use it earlier? And can you imagine just a whole city of cryo pods underground. Just there.

Anyways I'm off to kill all the blue luons and solo with dimitri on maddening!  Can I get gilbert killed in AM or is he too plot important. I've been playing on casual like a coward so far

Ah ashen wolves shadow cinders looks edgy. I wonder why they have 4 kids in a dungeon. Theres that npc that talk about hiw garreg mach needs the abyss to survive. I wonder why they keep this system

I dont keep up with english VAs but it'd be funny if yuri was voiced by yuri lowenthal

anyone with a crest has less of a chance of  demonic beasting than someone with no crest in lore. In gameplay you can use any crest weapon as long as you have any crest. You just wont get the added benefits of that specific crest

Yuri is very pretty and I’m weak for beautiful long haired men.  But i kinda wish the nintendo would let us have BEEF

If only i could have 300 save files...

Yuri really just is Leon with amnesia. Down to the red eyeliner...

Who let balthus into a highschool

I have that insistent desire to punch the writers for putting dorothea and mercedes through all that

Manuela. Has. So. Much. Love!  And her line about how [as teachers] we cant lose the students to violence or cowardice

The head of felix plopped onto a generic brawler body will always be funny to me

Yeah... sylvain really treats you different when male.  There was a reason were many reasons I really wanted to punch sylvain when I first started playing. namely the misogyny

male Byleth just looks really good as a swordsmaster

From a gameplay perspective I think divine pulse should have been removed for maddening.  From a story perspective they did a pretty good job integrating time mechanics as god powers

I wonder if Jeralt reminded Rhea of Wilhelm

i love giving bad advice for the advice box

why is tea time is the hardest part of the game

Seriously. How does garreg mach even work? Fail school and you get sent to the dungeons for life. What.

Sylvain would totally be one of those dudes with too much money dolling out patronages

Let hilda be warmaster

Hmmm edelgard... fatalism....

Please mod gilbert out of the game Lorenz has got a good heart. But the words that come out of his mouth sometimes...

Oh yeah you know that rainbow flash dream sequence right at the begining of the game? Is it me or did I see skyscrapers in it

The inside of byleth's head is a smash tournament

Seteth can die and I'll kill him.  (Ok ok I don't actually hate the guy. But I don't like him either. He's the type I'd tolerate working with but want nothing to do with outside of the professional setting)

Caspar and linhardt really are THAT comedy duo. I need a whole book dedicated to their paired endings

Sylvain's dick is still the funniest joke on the internet

The weirdest part of part 2 felix's hair isn't even the aggresive side sweep. That can be explained by having stiff straight hair. Its the limp pony tail. If your hair is that stiff, any ponytail that length is going to stick straight out like as anime character. I have this hair type. I've succeded in replicating the side sweep, the ponytail doesnt work

give mercedes a gun cowards

Marianne with a cute bob. Marianne with short hair. very home of phobe of intsys not to make marianne like an actual werewolf or something

devs should have let Bernie learn how to beat her dad to death with her bare fists

I've returned home to my boy. I love Claude!

Mortal savant ignatz. I mean strength in swords and budding talent in reason. Youre going to ba a magic samurai ignatz!

I had forgotten how much gd plays like a mystery game. Also, whatever I said earlier I take it back. Lysithea has a crush on Leonie

I keep trying to imagine an adrestia that isn't tropical (because why else would they wear heavy coats), and failing...

I really love raphael. He's so good

Claude's this interesting mix of cynical and idealistic yeah. He has a number of strong ideals and believes in the potential of humanity to do good, to grow and learn, to come together and built. But he also struggles because at the same time he also believes humans will usually choose the easier path of ignorance and hate. People are cruel and don't care.[5:30 AM]He's really cynical about what people are actually going to do

Sylvain's just layer upon layer of unhealthy coping mechanism

I don’t really like the ingrid/claude ship. ingrid tends to fixate on one shallow quality in a person and then ship them shit about it. and that’s the support. and the writers don’t have her ever acknowledging the rest of the character’s personality or admitting her first impression might have been incorrect.  that especially doesn't pair well with Claude who hides so much of himself. Out of all the characters Claude can A support Ingrid's the only one I where I went "whyyyyyyy"[10:02 AM]It really felt like the typical C-B support. Of i cant stand you because of 1, 2, and 3. To hey maybe you aren't so bad

i can't help but think the empire and alliance are incredibly stupid for making lorenz a cavalier. He's terrible at it.

Hold the phone. Was jeralt a soldier in the leicester independwnce war? (On thw faerhgus side).  But thats 300 years ago. All we know is that hexs older than 100.  The almyra unvasion is another option. Its also possible that jeraly wasnt involved in any war

So I'm trying to get rhea killed on the last chapter of part 1 for GD and wow its really hard to lose the fight this way. Enemies will avoid her like the plague. I cant believe I'm struggling to lose a fight Rhea is unkillable. I have taken no actions for 15 turns are she is still not dead Starting to think its impossible to lose by rhea death in this battle Turn 31. Its only raphael and hilda left Yeah as long as you have 1 unit to keep enemy infanty out of the pink squares this map is inpossible to lose on hard mode  60 turns. All of Rhea’s spell and weapon uses are gone and she still wont die. I give up

I've been thinking of hilda dimitri hypothetical supports recently and i think they"d be halfway between her lorenz+ferdinand supports and her marianne supports.[1:48 AM]Hilda is the QUEEN of suckering people and dimitri is the biggest sucker in the game[1:51 AM]But like marianne's clumsiness, dimitri can't do basic tasks well so hilda hoisting her chores on him is sure to backfire hilariously. He also has that kicked puppy pitifulness that part 1 marianne has so hilda will end up feeling  sorry watching him struggle and help out[1:52 AM]But these 2 are both deeply compassionate so they could actually get along.  You know... i can see ferdinand and claude hating each other's guts. But there's such potential for personal growth...

Why is it that the agarthans have the most named npcs out of any factionJump

If gilbert is what it means to be an "exceptional knight". Then i dont want it. I dont want knights and i especially dont want execptional knights

I like playing on hard because i never have to worry about winning a fight only about how many style points I can rack up.

Why does fodland new year start on month 3.  Look i get that the japanese adopted the chinese calendar system of new year in early spring before adopting the gregorian calendar so "new years" events ended up split between month 1 (new years celebration) and month 3/4 (start of school). But that makes no sense for fodlan. In universe it doesnxt make sense. Why not have month 1 start in spring or have the new year in winter. Ok let's be real. The real reason its like this is that due to globalization and post ww2 american influence not to mention european colonialism, the gregorian calander is the one the world runs on. So its for us players benefit that month 1 is in winter and month 6 is summer. But in universe it doesn't make sense! Not unless you start making really convoluted excusrs[4:00 AM](Sorry southern hemisphere   No representation for you today) This only works for chinese new years because its 2 different calender systems being used at the same time. Which doesn't make sense in fodlan because why would rhea allow a new calander system in given her isolationist policy. Or if its a remnant of an old calender system, there's no way it lasted 1000 years

If jeralt hadn't been killed by kronya, he would have been consumed by the hivemind in SS and you would have been forced to kill him

The devs really went out of their way to give jeritza a unique class huh. He's a dark knight+swords. You can say it. He's just a dark knight. Yet they really went and slapped death knight on him[2:49 PM]Also as a pc his crit rate in underwelming

The s suport cgs are more stylized and its a little jarring

Is it only me than. Who get ways too many support points thant hey know what to do with.

We need a cats remake but its called rats and is dimitri in every role

I want a lysithea hilda a support[5:48 PM]Hilda's the only ine lysithea likes from the start[5:48 PM]They have mutual respect for each other[5:48 PM](Also side note. Wow lysithea is mean to ignatz. Poor baby)

Reminder that its Marianne who title drops vw

Did I miss something? Felix becoming the top advisor for all of fodlan seems like a bad idea. The only thing that comes close to showing he's competant is his ingrid support where it shows he's decent at tactics. Reason number 76 for why I'm worried for fodlan post AM. Along with ... ya know .. the Agarthans still running around.

One part of vw i didn't like was when the merchants went woohoo no regulations and free trade yay!Jump

I'll be honest. 7 year old me would have swindled dimitri out of his good halloween candy

[whale-shark-queen]

I really don't mean to sound rude but... you really really got a lot more negative recently. I followed you cause you were so excited about all sorts of little things and nowadays I feel like there's lots of pent up anger in the things you post. I hope everything is going alright in your personal life. If possible, try to take a break from the things that are upsetting you and soend your energy on the things that make you feel good instead.

I refrained from answering this at first because I didn't feel I had to write an essay explaining anything but I also didn't want to come off as rude or unnecessarily angry.

I'm assuming this is about the gen 4 remakes thing I posted.

My life is in shambles, I am depressed and broke without a job because I had to give it up after my mum died so I am forced to waste my life looking after my siblings when I had only just managed to escape doing so with 0 prospects in my future. The only thing keeping me going when I feel I'm at my lowest is video games, and most especially Pokemon. You could say I need therapy. Which is true but also not possible for me. But that doesn't negate how I feel.

Pokemon is my life and is on my mind almost 24/7, whether it be music or thinking about my nuzlocke comic because I love it that much. I wasn't even that psyched for gen 4 remakes, but as Diamond was my first mainline game it does still hold a special place in my heart.

I didn't want to write an essay as to why I'm disappointed and being so negative. Why the fuck should I? Just because most people are content to accept Gamefreak/The Pokemon Company's corner-cutting crap (and yes I am still holding them responsible even if it is a different company developing the remakes, they are still ultimately the ones in charge) doesn't mean I am, and should be put down for it, but I feel I have to write one anyway. My disappointment as well as many others' is valid and we should not be treated simply as whiny nitpicky arseholes just because we have opened our eyes and expect higher quality content for the money they want from it, and the time they have had to improve the general quality of their stuff, especially when older products still hold up and look immensley better than the shit they presented as their two big games of the year that were revealed to celebrate the 25th anniversary.

I know graphics do not make a good game. That is 100% true. But if they're doing a 1:1 'remake' of the original then the graphics/art style are the only thing going for it. There's nothing else new to offer except maybe a few QOL changes and the ability to play it on the latest console. Big whoop. Why not just call it a remaster? It will also most likely be ridiculously overpriced for what it is. When people wished for reMAKES they hoped for...yknow. ORAS quality at the VERY LEAST, SWSH quality or, yknow, higher at most, and sure, not many people probably wanted to see Let's Go style either, but I consider that basically the same as ORAS style since it's still the appealing semi-chibi look, and I think now many people including myself would have VASTLY preferred seeing gen 4 in the Let's Go style - visuals-wise, not gameplay necessarily. You can't even use ~nostalgia~ or ~faithful recreation~ as an excuse because it worked fine well with Let's Go and ORAS, BDSP are just lazy rehashes they shifted off to another company and couldn't be bothered giving enough resources to to make it look DECENT or in line with other jrpgs from...yknow. Before Sinnoh was even a twinkle in the company's eye.

I refuse to entertain any sort of hope that the visuals will improve unless enough people kick up a fuss as they did Sonic's design for the Sonic movie, which won't happen because too many people are happy to lap this shit up. That is to say, as I have friends who are excited for some reason, I do not think people are stupid for being excited. If they are, good for them, I guess. I just feel bad for them, but most importantly to me is the quality of gen v remakes if/when they ever get around to them.

I do not want a 1:1 reMASTER of gen 5. I want to see what Unova could look like fully realised with next gen technology, with maybe a few new unique takes on character designs and a few other things to spice things up a bit, like they did with ORAS, yknow? Because to me it is very obvious BDSP is just lazy crap they haven't put an ounce of thought or love into, because why spend any more time or resources if people will be happy with anything they put out.

I can't even be too excited for Legends after the shitty quality of the trailer. Like okay, we finally get open world exploration and maybe(???) a more indepth look at the lore. Great! But there's no point if the open world is just barren, like the majority of BOTW. There's a reason why I love Skyrim still and can easily get lost in it for hours, and that's because it is chock full of stuff to do and explore. Big empty maps with just a few Pokemon standing around doing nothing completely ruins the point of why people want open world exploration. To explore! Find secrets! See Pokemon in the wild reacting to the environment around them and acting like they actually fucking live there, like in Monster Hunter! It is not a difficult concept! But I will wait until we get more footage to pass judgement on Legends because it is a cool idea. I just don't want to hype myself up for disappointment.

So there's your essay. Am I valid now? Am I ALLOWED to feel how I feel now? Can you see why it's quite a bit harder for me to simply 'step back and focus on things that make me feel good instead?' It's BECAUSE I enjoy Pokemon that I'm so upset. Am I allowed to now without being made to feel like an ungrateful brat?

I know you meant well anon. But it doesn't help.

[dandelliongirl]

It’s been

three weeks.

Wow I’ve been both busy and lazy.

So Eurovision, right? That’s where I left off. I had an amazing evening with two homemade pizzas all to myself and a bottle of disgusting non-alcoholic wine. I loved Portugal’s song and it was one of my favourites. Actually all of top 3 were according to my list so it was definitely a good result. Now I also have many new songs that I actively listen to.

I spent Mother’s day with mum and dad. We went to the cottage and I got to work on my landscape and macro photography. Mum and dad assembled the little pier/dock for the summer and I went around taking photos. We came back as it started getting cloudier. I started working on a post-BoTW fic. I have a lot of issues with the writing and story of that game, some of which obviously come from the genre and can’t really be fixed because the story is completely optional but I kind of want to put my spin on the story a little bit and take the headcanons from my head onto paper. I still haven’t finished my post-TP or SS fics either so we’ll see what happens with this one but it’s not like I publish my fics anymore so...

On Monday I worked on school stuff and ACNL. I also cleaned the house a bit. In the evening my guy took me to see Kimi no Na Wa. It wasn’t my favourite, mostly because I couldn’t relate to either of the protagonists on any level. I was impatient and couldn’t wait for the movie to end. It just wasn’t for me even though most people seem to love it and usually I’m all up for time travel stuff. Anyway after the movie my guy’s sister came over. We stayed up until 2am talking and watching stupid YouTube videos. I can’t believe she’s graduating high school in a week!

On Tuesday I walked my guy’s sister to uni entrance exams and went to do my office hours while she was taking the test. Then we walked back and spent a few hours hanging out at the apartment. Then she went to visit some family friends for a night. I went to a housing cooperative meeting and rushed off to ballet. The dance mat was completely ruined and wrinkly so we couldn’t do anything with our pointe shoes on so we scheduled some extra rehearsal time on stage for Wednesday morning.

We had to be on stage at 8:15am. Our dress rehearsal started at 8:30 and the show at 10. It was over in a flash but it was pretty tiring to do two pointe choreos almost back to back. We did our Coppélia variation and then me and my friend performed Pearls in the same outfits. After the show I came bcak to the apartment and worked on school stuff again. I revised for my methods exam and my guy played DAI. His sister came back over to spend the night with us.

My guy’s sister went to another exam on Thursday morning. I went to study Japanese with my friend and then we had lunch together. I had a sort of an exam and self-evaluation/peer evaluation class for Methods. I hated every second of it but at least it’s over now. We had to write an essay and then evaluate and grade ourselves. Then we graded ourselves for the rest of the course and then we took a break before evaluating course assignments in groups. Then we discussed the course and how to improve it in the future. It was a really tiring experience spending four hours in methods class.. After class me, my guy and his friend played some BoTW before I had to go to my last ballet class. We had our last rehearsal with lights and clothes and the camera crew checking angles and edits.

On Friday I had my last master’s thesis seminar. We went through the last seminar paper and then gave feedback on the course. Our teacher also told us about finishing the thesis itself and we discussed employment and future plans together. It was stressful and I think it has really hit home that in a year from now I have to have a plan of sorts. Right now I have three options: either to stay at the uni and get a PhD in history, study to become a dance teacher or get a degree in education management. If none of these work out for me or if I don’t feel like studying any more after finishing my MA thesis I need to start job hunting after Christmas. Super scary.. I have some serious soul searching to do over these next few months.. Anyway the rest of Friday was spent relaxing and mentally celebrating the end of the academic year. I also picked up a new internet modem from the post office and prepared everything for the weekend’s dance shows.

Saturday was a full day. I went to dress rehearsals at 11 and got out around 2pm. I had some lunch, took a shower and put on my hair and makeup for another dress rehearsal at 5:30pm and a show at 7:30pm. We did Pearls for the last time, and it went pretty well.♥ After the show I listened to a concert that was happening out on our street right opposite from my livingroom window. It was a warm and summer-y day and we had a city festival with lots of events and lots of people outside. I also Facetimed my parents.

On Sunday I had two shows; at 3pm and at 6pm. At 12 I went downtown to pick up a flower for our teacher on behalf of the whole group and I had to be on stage at 2:15pm for a last minute check. Mum and dad watched the 3pm show from their AirBnB apartment and I hear granny watched the show as well. ♥ Makes me happy. Both shows went pretty well, although there was some drama between them. My guy was out getting his car back up and running and him and I were supposed to go look for a new phone for me inbetween my shows. Well he was an hour late and I was super pissed off since I had hurried off stage, handed my responsibilities to my friend and skipped the end of the show where all dancers come on stage to receive applause. I ended up sitting outside for an hour and giving up. I was seething with rage and it really screwed with my performance. My friend ended up covering for me in the second show as well. My guy did drive me and my friend over to her place and we dropped her off at the bus station though.

So this Monday my guy and I went to get me a new phone. The Huawei Honor 8 lite was on sale for 199€ and since it was under the 200€ budget I had set for myself I had to get it. The entire day was spent on configuring everything and learning how to use it. So far it has been a very good phone but honestly my old one was so bad that you don’t need much for the new one to be an improvement. It’s dark blue though so I’m desperate for my case to arrive because I can’t find it. My old phone was bright pink with a bright blue case so it was easy to spot and this one is dark and flat and sneaky. I had a dance feedback discussion with my teacher at 5:15pm and I went off to another housing cooperative meeting that started at 6pm. This was a long and tedious one, and there was this one asshole who saw fit to nitpick over every single detail of the printed materials. I was out of there after 8pm-ish and went to pick up my friend from the park. She came over to test hairdos for a wedding she’s attending this weekend. We played ME2 while I did her hair.

On Tuesday morning we went shopping. It was a sunny day so I decided to screw thesis-writing since there’ll be lots of rainy days to waste on that stuff. It did give me anxiety to throw away my plans like that but at the same time it felt kind of nice to spend a sunny day with a friend. We spent a good hour or so at the park eating take-away salads and soaking in the sun and warmth.☼ We came back to the apartment, I dyed my friend’s hair and curled it for the official hairdo test. We ended up going for two simple waterfall braids combined in the back with corkscrew curls. In the evening my friend went for the movies and I got a really big anxiety attack from skipping my responsibilities and throwing away my plans on two consecutive weekdays. I did check my emails on Tuesday morning but I hadn’t even looked at my calendar and I realized how much stuff I had left to do. I had to do something to feel productive so I scrubbed our bathroom basically from floor to ceiling for no other reason than - well yes it was dirty but I felt like I needed to do some form of actual work.

On Wednesday I was really productive. I went to study Japanese with my friend at 9 and to a meeting at 11. Then I went to the office to delegate a bunch of my work to our intern. She is a real angel since I was just realizing how badly I was drowning in work. I’m spending two full workdays next week at an event so I won’t be at the office at all and she is a huge help in doing office stuff for me. ♥ It took me until 6pm before I was back at the apartment.

Mum and dad came back from Hungary late Tuesday/early Wednesday. Their flight was postponed because of a broken weather radar on the plane and a huge storm. The electricity was cut at the airport security and water flooded in through the ceiling. Apparently subways in the city were not operational either because of all the water. Anyway after Wednesday’s office day I biked over to spend the evening with mum. We went for a bit of a run in the warm sunny summer weather, did some Pilates workouts and went to the sauna. I’ve really taken to heart spending the few sunny and warm days outdoors and saving thesis writing for the inevitable rain and gloom. I wasn’t back at the apartment until 10pm -ish. Mum got me a super cute almost tie-dye -ish lace dress and I love it!

Today I caught up on my thesis writing for this week - finally. What a relief. It was also rainy and colder today so it was fitting. Around 1pm my friend came over and we played ACNL until around 6pm. She gave me three of my dream villagers as a late birthday gift. I got Chevre, Carmen and Annalisa. She also got us Felicity to share and a bunch of cards of her own that she can scan in using my NFC reader. Even my guy played ACNL with us and we went on a bunch of island tours together. ♥ ♥ ♥ I worked on Sonetia’s layout/landscaping and I’ve decided where I want to put Carmen’s house. I’m replacing Henry with Carmen, Lolly with Chevre and probably Pekoe or Melba with Annalisa. Then all I need is Merengue but she’s expensive and hard to find. Also Marshal but I already have a piece of land set out for Merengue, which is currently empty. I did some reconfiguring with my paths to get a little plantation going. I finished my illuminated tree project and next I’m either building the scarecrow or taking down the fence to get Carmen to move in. I’m also doing lots of gardening to get some more hybrid flowers to decorate town with.

My guy made some dinner and me and my friend baked chocolate brownies with mocha frosting. They didn’t turn out that great but at least the taste was on point. We played BoTW for a while and then she left. I’ve been typing this catchup blog post for at least an hour now.. I really hope I have more free evenings now so that I can blog more often. This is such a special time in my life and I don’t want to forget a single day... I find it super sad that even a week or two is enough for me to forget lots of details and events. I want to come back to this day, the 25th of May, Ascension day, in the future and remember that I had the best time playing ACNL with my friend.

So yup, spending tomorrow doing JLPT stuff and playing ACNL. Doing my friend’s hair for the wedding on Saturday morning but other than that it’s a free weekend. Finally! I need time off after the past few weeks.