#WHEN I PLAYED THE RACE GAMES IN BOTW I WAS LIKED

[impostorsshow]

i found this funny image anyway im gonna fucking cry

EPONAA PLEASE JUMP OVER THE FUCKING FENCEPOSTS

THERES SO MANY IMAGES OF YOU JUMPING OVER THE FUCKING FENCEPOSTS ONLINE WHY DO YOU COME TO A COMPLETE FUCKING STOP RIGHT AFTER I SPRINT IM GOING TO PUT YOUR CHILDREN IN A FUCKING BLENDER EPONA

[vairiance]

Absolutely hate how every time American dubs have to dub an ethnic nonwhite character, regardless of whether or not the actor they hire is white or not, they're always directed to just do either a) the most bland American normal speaking voice they could muster, or b) Fake British Accent.

Idk maybe it's just me but if the ancient ancestor warrior of the Gerudo pronounces her own tribes name the same way that my middle school substitute teacher who thought Mexico was in India would, it's kind of an immersion breaker.

[pa-pa-plasma]

it's 5am & i cant sleep cuz i keep thinking about him

[lesbianbishounen]

god i hate that i was right about this. the “its $70 dlc” people were right

god i need cool/interesting new areas in totk i hope theyre just avoiding visuals of most stuff in order to not spoil it bcus the sky islands rn just seem kinda. idk more of the same. yes the new fuse mechanics and stuff are cool but thats not what im interested in really

[rinstaro]

Tbh I don’t have an idea for this one kore, but smth horny asf with my bb time or even wild cause I’ve been having a bit of a rough time

hope ur well and thank you!!

-💫

of course, anything for you dear. this took so long!!!! sorry i’ve been so dead lately, life is tryna whoop my ass. i was playing botw and changed into the barbarian set and…… yeah. you know how it “bolsters links fighting spirit”? in my head it just makes him a lot more feral so it makes him horny too. i hope you like it! and i hope you feel better soon! i promise that these rough times will pass 🌟

cw: he’s a little mean, doggy, forest sex, reader is implied to be shorter than him, slight predator/prey dynamics, y’all are just messing around… or are you? reader has a vagina no pronouns, not proofread <3

minors do not interact.

you played with wild’s stuff all the time. he didn’t mind so long as you didn’t hurt yourself. his swords, his bows, and especially his armor. no matter how many rupees he’d spend buying you whatever clothes you wanted, you were always fascinated with his instead.

his knights armor was heavy and sturdy. his climbing gear showed off his toned arms. his sheikah armor had you drooling.

the only set you hadn’t seen on him was the barbarian armor. you always wondered about the set. the headpiece was just a little scary, so you asked him what the armor was for when it covered so… little.

“it makes me a little more…. it’s easier to fight.”

he left it at that, but it made you curious. so it made him stronger, but you wanted to see that firsthand. you asked him if he’d put it on for you to which he shied away. “i don’t think you’d like it…”

you rolled your eyes, begging him to do it, just once. he eventually caved. when he did, you immediately realized why he was hesitant to show you his armor.

he looked fucking divine.

the way it exposed the best parts of him had you salivating. you circled him, trailing your gaze up and down his body. the tattoos that manifest on his torso and legs... you wanted to taste them for yourself. “i cannot believe you hid this from me,” you mumbled. you wrapped your arms around him, tracing his skin with your fingertips. you could hear his breath hitch as you teased him relentlessly.

suddenly he grabbed your wrists, looking at you with a hardened gaze.

“i’m not sure if we should… do that right now.”

you could tell wild was holding himself back, so you decided to kick it up a notch. you dropped to your knees in front of him, batting your eyelashes when he hisses. your hands trailed down to his thighs, nails scratching the skin ever so slightly. “come on, you don’t wanna have fun? at least let me– oh!”

the grip on your wrists tightened, and you were locked in place. your heated gaze met his, and you shuddered. he looked like he was about to eat you alive. wild’s nostrils flared as he stared down at you, seemingly trying to keep himself together. he slowly leaned down, eyes never leaving yours.

“sure, let’s have some fun.”

that’s how you ended up deep in the forest, heart racing and wild hot on your trail. this was harder than you thought, but it was definitely exciting. the deal he made you was simple. just a quick game of hide and seek.

“you get five minutes. if you win, you get your way. if i win, i get mine.”

you took off as soon as he uttered the word ‘run’, excited giggles ringing in his ears as he watched you. he waited til you were out of sight, and even gave you an extra minute. after counting, he started walking at a leisurely place in the direction you took off in, grinning to himself.

sure, this was a little unfair. you didn’t stand a chance against him without the set, let alone with it. but you didn’t need to know that. you wanted to have some fun, so he’ll entertain you. wild wondered how long you’d last when he finally got you under him.

you stopped to catch your breath, hands on your knees as you panted. surely this was far enough. you'd been running at full speed for a while, and you were sure at least 2 minutes had passed. you had to have gotten pretty far.

only moments later did you hear a loud “thud” from behind you. you spun around to be met with trees and shrubs, the silence making you uneasy. your eyes scanned the area only to find nothing. probably just some animal, right? even if it was, you weren’t gonna take the chance. you slowly backed away in the opposite direction of the noise, keeping an eye out for any movement.

when you turned back to run, you were met with the hard surface of someone’s chest. you groaned, rubbing your nose before your eyes widened at the sight of your boyfriend.

“i win, right?”

you opened your mouth to protest, quickly being cut off by him gripping your chin. his hold was gentle but the look in his eyes was anything but. “l-link?” he wore a twisted little grin, as if he’d just caught his first meal in days.

“so we’re doing this my way. i’ll still give you one choice. do you want it here, or do you want me to chase you back home?” your knees buckled at his words, your mind reeling. you couldn’t even begin to speak, sputtering out nothing but nonsense. wild huffed, grabbing your wrists and pinning you face first to the nearest tree. he pinned your arms on the side of you and spoke, “don’t move.” you nodded hastily.

“you know you look really cute when you run? it was hard not to take you right there. the wait was worth it, though,” he grinned. his fingers traced your spine, his hunger only growing as he watched you shiver.

wild placed a hand over your eyes and started trailing love bites down your neck. you whined. the bites felt hard enough to leave marks, yet you could still tell he was holding back. you pushed your ass back against him, trying to rile him up.

your boyfriend growled, suddenly biting down harshly on your neck. you whimpered loudly as your arms twitched with the need to move, which didn't go unnoticed.

"look at you, still trying to be a good pet. ah, its a little late though. you've already pushed me to my limit," he snarled, landing a smack to your ass. he watched the flesh jiggle, humming contentedly. without warning, your bottoms were ripped from you and thrown to the ground. the roles were now swapped, wild on his knees before you- well, behind you.

you felt him part your folds with his thumbs, watching your sex drip with arousal. you squealed at your sudden nudity, arms reaching back to grab him. he quickly put a stop to that, grabbing both wrists in one hand. "on the tree. don't interrupt me."

you obeyed his orders, bringing your arms back to yourself and placing them on the tree. once he was satisfied with your position, he gave no warning before licking a long stripe up your cunt. you moaned shakily, the pleasure between your legs making you tremble. wild hummed, tongue swiping across your clit at a rapid pace.

he ate you like a man starved, your position not allowing you any room to squirm. you moaned his name over and over, and it only seemed to make him more ravenous. a mix of spit and slick dripped down his chin while his nails dug into your thighs. he'd been waiting for this for far too long. "l-link, im gonna- keep going, please!"

your boyfriend wasn't listening to your whines, tongue fucking you until your eyes crossed. he was doing this for him.

only a couple moments later did you gush all over his face, legs shaking in his grasp. wild didn't stop even when you whimpered for him to slow down. he made sure you were licked clean before pulling away from your cunt.

"b-babe what- oh!"

you weren't sure when he undid his belt, but you felt the head of his cock push against your folds.

"you always taste fucking amazing. be sure to give me another taste later," he whispered in your ear. his buttercup blonde hair tickled your shoulder as he leaned over you. "that wasn't loud enough for me, though. maybe i just need to be a little rougher, then you'll scream for me right?"

without another word, he pushed his cock into your cunt making your eyes roll back into your head. it took no time for you to adjust to his size, and he took no time in starting up a mean pace. the sound of his hips slamming into yours rang in your ears, every pleasurable thrusts making your head spin. one hand left your hips to grab your hair, tugging slightly. you winced, the pain sending heat right to your cunt.

"oh, you like that? squeezing me so hard— so cute, baby, thinking you could beat me," he groaned. you could only respond with loud moans, your brain turned to mush. "sound so pretty, gonna cum?" you nodded frantically in response, begging for him to keep going. he watched your cunt suck him in, your ass jiggling with every mean thrust.

"p-please, feels good!" your words slurred together, drool beginning to drip from your chin. it was too much and yet you wanted more. he was hitting your g spot with every thrust, his balls slapped against your clit, and you couldn't imagine a better way for this game of yours to end. you heard him snarl before he picked up his pace.

"f-fuck! 'm my god yes!" a few more thrusts and you were spasming in between him and the tree. wild stopped his movements, relishing in the feeling of your cunt squeezing around him. he chucked to himself as he watched you writhe. he suddenly frowned, realizing he hadn't been able to see your face when you came. oh, well. he'll just make you cum again.

wild pulled out, turning you around and staring you in the eyes. he then watched as your chest rose and fell, mouth hung open as you tried to catch your breath. the ferocity that was temporarily sated was now rising again.

you yelped in surprise when he lifted you up, wrapping your legs around his waist. your back rested against the tree as you furrowed your brows in confusion. "b-babe?"

"you're so gorgeous. how many times do you think i could fuck you til your legs gave out?" he questioned casually, a dark smile on his face. your legs clenched against him, hands coming to rest on his shoulders while he held you up by your thighs. you swallowed thickly, unable to answer. "hm? three? four? or more than that? well, i guess we'll see..."

wild never broke eye contact as he slipped his cock back into you, not even giving you a moment before fucking you at a savage pace. your back arched against the tree as you squirmed in his grasp. he pounded himself deeper into your cunt, his growls getting louder and your vision beginning to turn white. he was too much, fucking you so mercilessly and yet you couldn't bring yourself to want to stop. is this what he meant? he thought you wouldn't like this?

"l-link!"

"hm?" he answered, never faltering in his pace.

"harder!" your boyfriend's eyes widened slightly in surprise before he huffed in disbelief. you just continued to surprise him. he adjusted his grip on your thighs, leaning in so that you two were nose to nose.

"i've always wanted to see how much you could take."

[meruz]

hi meruz please tell me all your thoughts on outer wilds I am absolutely Living rn

HI oh my god i have so many thoughts. I think I'm gonna keep posting fanart so this definitely isnt gonna be my last word on the matter but wow what a game! um... idk if I wanna just type forever but I can give you at least a few key thoughts I had...

It took me a second to get into! I had been waiting for the switch port so I was really excited starting out but there were a couple early play sessions months apart where I was struggling with the controls and overwhelmed with the openness...I have a hard time with a lot of open worlds games because I just..dont have a lot of free time LOL. But I was complaining abt this to my brother and he was also having a hard time rly digging into the game so when he flew over to visit me a couple weeks ago I was like ok lets do this together (incentivizing gaming by making it social/co-operative). And we had a blast!!! it rly is the type of game you can play as co-op just by having someone else on the couch or on stream doin the thinking alongside you or bouncing theories off of. I do think he's a much better puzzle solver than me though lol (he works in research, so he's got that researcher brain), he made a lot of the leaps of logic way early while I was still turning things over in my head lmao.... AND he's better with the controls because he plays a lot of flight sims?! i think he got annoyed watching me bumble around anytime i had the controller. my sole contribution was doing the stealthy parts in the dlc because im stupid and consequentially lack fear.

I kind of grew up playing majoras mask and windwaker like that was the era of zelda games I was rly activated and engaged for as a kid and I didn't realize how much I was missing and craving that type of experience again LOL. I think especially with how I personally felt that tears of the kingdom was narratively and structurally a step down from botw... idk... i mean you can tell from interviews abt Outer Wilds that the devs clearly have a lot of affection for and thoughts abt the Zelda series as well and I think Outer Wilds was like such a good encapsulation of everything I loved abt those games and also everything I wish they would do lol!! IT ALSO kind of solved a lot of my pain points with open world games and did it in a way that was so elegant... like I think i initially recoiled at the openness but then when i started exploring and realized the scope and level of detail it rly clicked into place.. im just in awe.

umm i love every hearthian they were all so charming. it rly did feel like an older school of nintendo rpg where every npc has so much personality lol. i loved that every alien race in the game was some weird animal like the designs for all of them were rly good. i love that it was a "worn" universe and that everything looked old or used. I love astronomy and space and space concepts but I don't really like really lofty and impersonal/minimalist scifi so i feel like this was a great and accessible art direction for me personally. i especially thought the backpacking/outerdoorsy aesthetic was really inspired! I think "exploration" sometimes exists on a spectrum where one end of it can be really colonialist/militaristic LOL... UM which im not like. fully against i think it can be an interesting idea to dissect? but i feel like we see it a lot and it was neat to see this which felt like the complete opposite end of that spectrum. weirdly enough playing Outer Wilds made me immediately go and finally finish Firewatch right after but I felt a little spoiled I was like ehh..that was good but it wasn't Outer Wilds LOL.

i think a lot of the themes reminded me of lord of the rings/tolkien lore LOL IDK. I GUESS THIS IS LIKE BIG SPOILERS SO if you havent played dont read but like. the entire concept of being born at the end of a great and enormous world/age with a rich history and you only getting to see the end of it, living in the shadow of great civilization...keeping your humble home in your heart idk. but then also the new world being a song ... I'm a sucker. I love it.

yeah sorry only compliments. anyways yeah i want to do more fanart... soon!! hopefully!

[tally-ace]

So one of my all-time favorite ways to play through botw is without teleporting. I adore the additional challenge it brings and it adds a certain level of planning ahead and requires you to become familiar with the layout of the world and locations of things.

I've been upset to find out through testing that a TRUE teleport-less run of totk is impossible thanks to the tutorial island. So I have yet to try a "partial" one to see if it's still as fun as in botw.

(EDIT: I've heard conflicting things saying it's possible to get to the fourth tutorial shrine without teleporting? I haven't tried it myself but when I say true run I also mean without exploits. If you need to do some precise exploit of the game to make a run like that work, it isn't really that fun for me anymore. I'll attempt a teleport-less tutorial island one day so we'll see)

I have, however, found a fun way to play totk through accident on my second playthrough.

In botw, it is impossible to finish all 120 shrines without completing each of the four divine beasts. That's because there are exactly 4 shrines (1 in each region) that only become available after completing a shrine quest that does not unlock until after the respected divine beast is cleared.

(EDIT: Correction, there are exactly 2 shrines that are inaccessible without the completion of their respected divine beast. So all the shrines in the game can be completed with the minimum completion of 2 divine beasts. These shrines are the warbler's nest shrine in rito and the sand seal race shrine in gerudo. I mistakenly believed an npc for a shrine in goron did not spawn until after rudania and that the ceremonial trident did not spawn until after ruta (my searching skills are abyssmal and I missed both those things on my playthroughs prior to the beasts lol))

In totk, NONE of the shrines are dependent on the completion of a dungeon to access. All save for ONE SINGLE QUEST in Eldin that requires Yunobo's sage ability to access the shrine.

AND through the heart container granted after completing the tutorial, the heart containers granted after completion of the rito, gerudo, zora, and goron dungeons, and choosing the heart container granted by the bargainer statue beneath the great plateau... You can unlock the door to the underground dungeon without spending a single spirit orb.

Meaning that the only required story progression beats in totk to witness 80% of the (non-flashback) cutscenes with link as a silly little fucked up beast is getting the paraglider and getting up to the point in the goron story line to have Yunobo as a companion. Also meaning that every dungeon in totk can be completed without spending spirit orbs beyond the tutorial.

Playing through totk on a mission to get every shrine without upgrading health or stamina ONCE is more fun than I ever thought it would be. I had a BLAST. As someone who thinks the building mechanic is neat, but not really made for me, it made me interact with a mechanic that I never really enjoyed and find something to appreciate about it.

I also added the challenge of NOT upgrading my battery charge at all, which I would recommend if you're really wanting to make the game a bit harder.

AND it has the added bonus of Ancient Link staring into everyone's soul in every single cutscene.

So get out there and run around as a little beastie.

[ganondoodle]

not sure if i have talked about this before but i also really hate how gorons are treated in totk

they are one of my fav and i know they are unpopular and were always kinda slot into the "big fat stupid rock people" role, but i do think totk is one of or the worst case yet; all regions get some life threatening event (ignoring how stupid it is to put the issues you need to solve in the exact same spots as in botw with most changes being also reversible so the actual changes to the environment of the map are largely some small rocks sprinkled about) and they get .. drugs (haha)

like i dont wanna downplay anything but their problem being that they are obsessed with eating (>_>) some drugged rock that makes them mean and lazy (even if the reason is fine ... if i remember right and didnt make up that they had to dig elsewhere for food bc of death mountain losing its lava flow, the execution is my problem -like the vast majority of this game is a ok to great idea with passable to horrible execution of it) and arent even a danger to you (which i thought at first when you approach goronia the normal path and two gorons start to walk towards you if you come near saying creepy shit- i thought they are gonna attack me or lure me into a trap but again .. only to find them wanting me to pay to be let through (i think??) and all other drugged ones are largely just ... eating or lying around ........

like it would have been cool if that drugged rock stuff made them actually agressive, like the friendly easy going rock people being turned into something akin to a starved animal after eating poison bc they were at risk of starving sounds alot more .. impactful and scary (even if it would still be about food, which idk about you but the only kind of fatter npcs, even if non human, being made all about food is .. hm, aside from other possibly bad implications from this, but im trying to roll with the idea of it)

and then poor yuno being put in a stupid (stereotypical?) wrestler outfit and hes LITERALLY being mindcontrolled is so ...... ugh (again, idea is ok but- you get it) and then him being told by two CHILDREN that that obviously not zelda might not be zelda and it not only being the only time that idea is openly said until its "revealed" that hhhwhat?? it was a fake one?? in the mid battle of the "story" and he doesnt even believe it (both bc haha hes stupid and cant understand such a thing and also link not being able to tell anyone ... even his friends ....... ) is just so disrespectful, its ok not to be the smartest guy in the room (tho in totk pretty much anyone is made so much dumber for no reason...) but it being so clearly the gorons that get treated like this just annoys me so much, you know no one of the other races would be treated like that

(not to reach a little but it also plays into how koga is portrayed, like i love him to death and there are things that largely the gameplay only implies of him not being that incompetent, but hes clearly meant to be laughing material, the boss of the band of 'evil' assassins being lazy, incompetent and 'childish' is funny right?? and although i hc that the either super thin or super beefed up appearance of yiga members are just an appearance like their disguises of normal people to seem more unified and less indentifyable- that is still only a hc and then koga being the only character that is visibly fatter (aside from ... the gorons and .. king dorephan??) it puts a pebble more onto the pile of pebbles of little annoyances)

also yuno saying, post mid "story" battle, that no one actually knows anything about ganondorf aside from him being evil and it going complete ingored and never mentioned again feels like the type of thing a games does when they are critized for soemthing and instead of changing it they put a line in the game essentially saying "yeah we know but we are not gonna do aynthing about it lol" (like thinking of the line ashe from league of legends, whos design has been critized alot bc shes running around in a stupid tiny dress in the snow lands of their world, got when her dialog was updated that made her say sth like "yes im wearing a little dress in the forever winter land, deal with it lol" which perhaps was supposed to be a joke but it just feels like a "lol we know, fuck you")

[powdermelonkeg]

I’ve noticed that a lot of people have some problems with the Totk narrative and was wondering what you thought about it! I’m personally pretty neutral but I can see why people don’t like it. Have a wonderful day!

Okay so controversial opinion here from me:

TotK > BotW

WITH A CAVEAT

I enjoy games IMMENSELY more when I'm not spoiled on them. Skyrim mesmerized me because I flat out was not expecting an actual execution in the first five minutes. I love exploring things for myself.

I went into TotK with ZERO proper spoilers, on purpose. All I had was my own speculation from my trailer breakdowns, and the barest glimpse of Sonia from a leak. The world fascinated me. The physics engine was insanely fun to play with. I got super excited with the return of caves and dozens of collectables. I loved discovering new recipes. I LIVED in the Depths. And the slow horror of figuring out what exactly Zelda did to herself—I saw Tear 3, felt a sinking feeling of dread, rushed into the Depths of the castle to break down that last mural, then panicked as I raced around Hyrule trying to get the rest of the memories. I got the final memory, and I stood on top of Zelda's head for half an hour in shock.

BotW, on the other hand, I spoiled myself on, and was let down by in terms of what I expected out of it. I think the story would have captivated me had I stayed off of Youtube and actually bought the game (was broke at the time, didn't get it until 2019) and experienced it as intended. But I KNEW all the cutscenes, so I didn't have a drive to chase them. Which left the mechanics of the game on their own for me to get used to; I liked cooking, I loved getting a house. I hated how few enemy types there were, I missed my pieces of heart and secret caves and collectables. It's a secret to everybody? Wrong. 85000 shrines.

I started Zelda with Twilight Princess. That's been the bar for me since the beginning. If lighting two unlit torches doesn't give me a secret chest, or beating a challenging minigame doesn't give me a better quiver, it doesn't feel like Zelda to me.

Everything in BotW felt samey because I'd taken the narrative out of its natural habitat and experienced it as a movie rather than as a game, and the most variation enemies really had was a color or elemental difference. No Redeads in the desert, no Toadpoli in the lake, no Freezards in the ice. Also the bosses had no individuality.

Now, I 100% understand why people who love BotW don't love TotK. A lot of what was set up in BotW was undercut in favor of telling the story of Ocarina of Time again. There's no moving past the cycle like BotW implied there would be, and the refusal of the devs to so much as show the ruins of the last game's pivotal pieces feels like they didn't want to commit to anything. It's like if Four Swords and Four Swords Adventures were said to be direct sequels; they've got the same flavor, the same mechanics, but why does NOTHING have continuity?

(I've kind of microdosed on this frustration myself in regards to the timeline; all that effort to say BotW was at the end of all three timelines and do away with the mess they released in Hyrule Historia, and they add Zonai tech in on top of the Sheikah tech with no continuity??? Rauru and Sonia vs Skyward Zel??? Rito existed at the dawn of time. What)

As a continuation of BotW's narrative, it fails. Not egregiously enough for fans to be able to disconnect them and call them their own stories, but badly enough that the overall story feels like it was meant to be two, not one. That's a frustrating point to be in; too much is intertwined between them to break them off and create for them separately, but it's also not intertwined enough that you can't see that it's fraying at the edges.

Anyways...

I liked it. A lot. I think the whole dragon plotline and worldbuilding is fascinating. I have my gripes with dialogue, as one always does with Nintendo games, but you know.

[thatrandomlemononyourcounter1]

~Welcome to Wally's World~

Nah I'm just playing.

I'm CJ :DD (she/her :))

I'm a minor so no being weird in the chat

I'm also a special flavor of aroace, and I have undiagnosed ADHD

I collect fandoms like Infinity Stones, and here's some of my favorites: {COLORED MEANS THAT I POST MORE ABOUT THEM}

My Fandoms:

Keepers of the Lost Cities, TMNT (Mostly ROTTMNT, TMNT2012, Bayverse, and Mutant Mayhem/TOTTMNT but I'm going to start watching 2003), The Marvel Cinematic Universe (One of my slumbering hyperfixations), The Inheritance Games (I have read TGG so :D), Final Fantasy (IX, XII, XIII, VII, WOFF, Tactics WOTL), Legend of Zelda BotW/TotK, HTTYD (All the movies and Race to the Edge), Chronicles of Narnia (The movies/a little of the books), The Hunger Games (Books and movies), Divergent, Pirates of the Caribbean,  Pokemon (both anime and games), AGGGTM, One of Us is Lying series, The Folk of the Air series

I am a self-proclaimed writer :) I love making headcanons for characters, especially my children, which you can find linked here

Come here me yap about my original work, The Collector, on this blog: @the-collector-series

I'm cognates with @nowjumpinthewater so you'll probably see us talking on here a lot (ILY RANIA <33)

I'm a proud beta reader for @justmossyall 's original work (IT'S SO GOOD I'M WAITING FOR THE DAY IT RELEASES)

A few disclaimers:

I am a Christian which means I love Jesus so if you have any questions about that, please direct them to my inbox

I don't tolerate any sort of hate on my blog. Take that stuff somewhere else. (Like a therapist.)

I can't use emojis >.< unless I'm on my phone on the rare occasion

I type in caps when I'm happy/excited so if that bothers you please lmkkkkk

I will probably refer to you as bro and/or dude at least once cause I call everyone that

My DMs and inbox are literally always open like I love talking to new people :)

I'm a certified yapper, but I can be a good listener I swear

Anyway, here's some cute banners I found/made that I feel the explicit need to put.

I'll probably add more to this post as I progress on my tumblr journey ngl

[gascon-en-exil]

Now that you've mentioned it, I'm curious how'd you'd rank the Zelda games minigames from best to worst

That would be entirely too many minigames to do individually, especially from memory since I haven't played most of these games in years. I can go by individual title though, ignoring the ones that don't have minigames in the usual sense (the NES games, both Four Swords games, Tri Force Heroes) and also Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom because I never actually played the latter and because my frustrations with both are on a much deeper conceptual level. I do recall BotW having some obnoxious minigames though, involving horses I believe. I'm not counting as well any minigames that offer only minor rewards that don't contribute to 100% completion, because those can be safely ignored.

Rating is out of 10 based on how obnoxious they are, with 1 being perfectly manageable and 10 being so annoying that they actively discourage me from replaying those games.

A Link to the Past - 2/10

The only really notable ones are the treasure chest game and the digging game, both of which are pure RNG and thus can be save-scummed. They're also in the Dark World so you shouldn't be strapped for money when you play them which is nice.

Link's Awakening - 1/10 for the original/DX, 4/10 for the Switch

On the Game Boy (Color) the fishing, crane, and river rapids games are all simple one-and-done affairs if you know what you're doing. The Switch remake however adds a bunch of new mechanics and rewards to all of them which makes them more annoying and time-consuming. There are rare fish to save-scum for, a realistic physics engine to make the crane more finicky, and a rapids race that requires precise maneuvering to get its best stuff. I'm not counting the Chamber Dungeons as a minigame because that's basically a separate mode unto itself...and also because they're usually pretty fun.

Ocarina of Time - 8/10

Not off to a great start for 3D Zelda. The gravedigging "tour" is pure luck, Bombchu bowling is also RNG-reliant, the treasure chest game is only not a nightmare because you can cheese it later on with the Lens of Truth, and the shooting challenges are serviceable at best. It's the fishing hole that truly lands OoT this score though, because it's the perfect storm of awful: partially luck-based, finicky mechanics, and actually physically painful at times on account of how hard and for how long you have to hold the analog stick to reel the big fish in. Oh, and you have to beat it twice, and the second time is harder!

Majora's Mask - 3/10

Surprisingly manageable and even fun in places, like the beaver races and the shooting galleries even if they require perfect scores. The horse and Goron races have issues with rubber band AI, the hitboxes in some of Honey and Darling's games can be stingy, the treasure chest game is (again) mostly RNG...but MM somehow makes all of these not so bad in their own ways, perhaps to compensate for the constant stress of the ticking clock. If I had to pick a worst one it might be the jumping minigame in Great Bay, because it takes a while to reach and the camera is liable to screw you over. The dog race is mostly luck-based, but at least it takes very little time and can be somewhat cheesed with the Mask of Truth. I am absolutely not counting the fishing hole added in the 3DS remake, because it's not required for 100% and because screw fishing in particular.

Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons - 6/10

Sort of unfair lumping them together since Ages has all the really bad ones, but these two have always been a package deal. The baseball game is hard to get down precisely and also has a fair amount of RNG, the seed shooter game also requires some exact shots, and while both have dancing minigames Ages is the only one that takes into account timing. Making all this worse are the Oracle games' randomized ring system...plus a whole lot of randomized other things (Maple, Gasha trees) that aren't exactly minigames but still make these titles really annoying to revisit. Huh...I just noticed that "Gasha" sounds like "gacha"; were gacha games even a thing in 2001, or were Nintendo and Capcom just extremely ahead of the curve?

The Wind Waker - 5/10

Has some real nuisances, like the battleship game (RNG), the Flight Control Platform (precision gliding), and sword training (endurance). Much like my feelings on BotW however, it's not really the minigames that make me dread replaying WW so much as its various other headaches - many of which were addressed in the HD remake, granted, but they're still there.

The Minish Cap - 2/10

Another one where it's not really about the minigames. The only mandatory one I can even recall was catching cuccos, and a lot of that comes down to item progression later in the game. Kinstones are the real pain in MC, but even they're not so tough to find that you have to rely on minigames to get them.

Twilight Princess - 2/10

Same rating as MC, but for very different reasons. For me it's quite similar to MM in that there are a bunch of minigames but most of them are either inoffensive or actively enjoyable, and without the in-game time limit they're less stressful too. Snow sledding, popping balloons, the Clawshot cage games...all pretty fun. The only ones that stick out in my mind as not great are either quickly handled (goat wrangling, sumo wrestling) or are just boring (bombing pots on the river). Note however that this ranking would have been higher if I'd gone solely off my initial impressions from the Wii version. Having played the Gamecube and later HD versions afterward, I can safely say that, as always, motion controls make everything worse.

Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks - 9/10

The touch screen controls are bad enough, but I can distinctly recall both of these games also having some downright awful minigames. Hourglass has fishing and a merciless shooting gallery, Tracks has the whip race and the pirate shooting game, and both have stuff like another WW-style training endurance test and randomized part prizes making everything worse. I have very few good memories of either of these games, honestly; all their good bits get drowned out by the clunky controls and the miserable optional content.

Skyward Sword - 7/10

Again, motion controls suck - but at least the HD remaster fixed most of that, and in both versions a good number of the minigames are optional even by my standards. There are still some extremely bothersome ones here though. Fun Fun Island is very much not, the minecart race isn't the most responsive and the pumpkin shooting game can be very grating until you nail the exact way to (sort of) cheese it. I actually switched this ranking with OoT's as I was writing this, because I remembered how much losing the motion controls redeems the experience of this game. Still by no means a favorite, but at least I want to come back to it sometimes now.

A Link Between Worlds - 5/10 normally, 10/10 if you count the giant cucco

Fittingly, it's LttP but more of it - including more annoyances. There's still the RNG-dependent ones, but there's also now a racing game that requires some fairly precise movements as well as a finicky baseball game. The rupee-gathering games are now more about having a stopwatch on hand, but phones can cover that. The cucco-dodging game is a real pain and bumped the rating up a full point, but note that I am never in my life attempting to survive for 1000 seconds (that's over sixteen and a half minutes!) to get the giant cucco in the end credits. Even completionists have to know where to draw the line.

[drsteggy]

For the WIP Game, I'm not sure I've ever noticed Mipha's Grace on your WIP list before. Maybe it's been there and I missed it. Anyway, I want to hear about it!

Hi @unmaskedcardinal !

I had A Lot Of Feelings my first BOTW playthrough. Like I did not know Zelda, I did not know video game tropes or anything so every once in a while (okay, once a week) something would happen that would make me set things down and go think about my life for a while. Like I remember staggering into Kakariko and Impa is all Tame the Divine Beasts and I went yeah right. That just seemed insurmountable. But I also found the game weirdly forgiving?

So I did not know any of the history between Link and Zora princesses when I played and I did not anticipate how Mipha’s Grace would deploy until I got myself murdered one day while I was just trying to have a nice ride on a beach but a guardian stalker ruined that. I made notes at the time and then later back went and wrote them like a narrative and probably, there’s one of these for each champion, just Mipha punched me in the face, so she got like 3k into this.

Had he loved her? Maybe he had loved her. Did he now? Maybe he was a different person now. Her story was tragic and sad and who wouldn’t want to love that person? But she wasn’t really a person, was she? She was a story, a concept, not real, not to him. He could not imagine how she tasted if they’d kissed, or what her hands felt like in his, or how she might have measured up next to him in the dark. If she’d made his heart race, or his stomach flutter, that was gone, another casualty of the Calamity, lost forever anyway, as Mipha was dead and gone aside from whatever part of herself she’d passed onto him to help him along.

She still loved him, he realized. She never stopped.

He drew his knees up to his chest, folded his hands over them and rested his chin on his hands, looking out on the sun lazily sinking into the sea over Lurelin.

She still loved him.

ANYWAY this makes me sad.

[dracomelody]

A lot of people don't play Zelda games for the story, and that's perfectly fine. But I think we all have to admit that a good story can only make the game better, right?

1) the story beats in almost all 3D Zelda games are happening throughout the game. This gives you motivation to both keep playing (because now you're given a task to complete) and so you can see what happens next.

2) the story beats (memories) in BotW and TotK take place in the distant past. And you can beat the game without ever seeing them, so they don't really make a difference to the gameplay or your desire to keep playing.

3) the memories can be gotten in any order, so you might end up spoiling yourself by accident.

BotW saved the final memory until after all of the previous ones were found, so it was fine in terms of spoilers.

TotK didn't do that, and the key for the order of the memories isn't outright said to you, they're pictures on a wall that 1) you might miss, 2) might delete the photos you took of them on accident if you're filling out your compendium, or 3) you may not even have the camera app when you come across it (I was too chicken to go into the chasm at that part in the game, so I thought I could do the dragon's tears first, but I didn't have the camera so I did them out of order thinking the spoilers would be saved for last like in BotW. Nope.)

BotW's plot with the divine beasts wrecking havoc on the world was good. I liked their effects on the neighboring environments and the races who dwell there. The threat of a great flood, a neverending sandstorm, a volcano's constant eruption, and the Rito being potentially maimed if they fly too high. You prevented disasters and helped save people, and you gained useful abilities from the characters who used to be fight alongside, which ties them into the memories. The Master Sword in BotW was what let Zelda know Link could still be saved, and retrieving the Master Sword as a means to beat Ganon was mentioned after every dungeon, stressing the importance of it as a weapon that can't be broken.

All in all I liked BotW's story because of this.

But there were only four divine beasts (excluding DLC), so it was short lived compared to how massive the game is in every other regard.

TotK handled the dungeons better, but it had a similar problem, and some of the plot just doesn't make sense. As Yunobo would say: "Why'd you do it?!" Fake Zelda getting the Gorons addicted to marbled rock roast serves what purpose, exactly? It just makes them lazy?

Zelda turning into a dragon to restore the Master Sword serves what purpose, exactly? We saw in the beginning cut scene that dehydrated Ganondorf could shatter it, so what good is that weapon against a fully powered Ganondorf?

The sage abilities you get in TotK are cool, but they're mostly passive, so you're not in direct control of what the sages avatars do. Activating 3/4 of their abilities requires you to interact with them by pressing A, which is hard to do if you're in the middle of life and death combat and they're running away with you. In BotW the abilities were tied to buttons you could press at any time without this issue.

TotK followed the exact same route as BotW: find shrines, find memories, and beat dungeons. The dungeons also follow the same exact route as BotW by needing to activate terminals to reach the boss.

TotK had better gameplay mechanics with the building options and the amount of dungeons and their designs. But the story just doesn't make sense, and then it's shoved down your throat after each dungeon. It's even worse if you try to see where it fits into the timeline, it's like they went from not caring about the timeline to directly contradicting it with the founding of Hyrule. Especially after they advertised Skyward Sword HD and TotK to have some sort of tie-in.

TotK is easily the Zelda game with the least amount of thought/care put into its story, and no matter how cool the gameplay is, the story is a huge detriment to it.

[aufi-creative-mind]

I hc that the Bargainer Statues are early depictions of the Fierce Deity (who's true form therefore has 4 eyes), who is referred to as a Kishin in Japanese, which according to folklore, are wrathful, powerful, even scary-looking beings & vicious fighters, but are also deeply compassionate, benevolent, & protectors at there core. They're said to enact just & righteous vengeance for those who've been wronged.

Anyway, my thoughts are that he is the 3rd in the Hylian/Demise triad, being where the Hero's Spirit originates from. I also hc that he created the Sheikah much like how Hylia created the Hylians. (So, if the naming conventions follow, his true name could start with "Shei" or "Sheik.")

Anyway, he's a god of war, the moon, heroism, & death. Which is why Link is always able to see spirits. He gathered spirits & fought or soothed Poes (the enemies) either by fighting them or playing the Song of Healing.

The Dark Clumps being pieces of the pseudo-flesh that spirits form to create Poes & the Depths Set being made from this pseudo-flesh.

Also, I hc that the symbols are actually ancient Sheikah script, which the Fierce Deity taught the Sheikah. And before losing or giving up his immortality, he tasked the Sheikah with taking his place, which is who delivered the spirits to the Bargainer Statues before Link.

This is part of the reason why the Sheikah are so heavily associated with death & graveyards.

As for who the Bargainers are, they are this thing called a bushin in Japanese culture, which there deities have the ability to split pieces off of themselves & create lesser copies that rule over certain areas, but are lead by the source deity. The same is said for the Goddess Statues. Basically, Hylia & Fierce gave up their immortality, but the statues are still being run by their bushin.

Stop me, I will literally talk you ear off if you don't.

Anyway, what are your thoughts??

.................................................... OP. My guy, my gal, my non-binary pal. Why did you drop this on my inbox? This needs to be its own proper post! This is a very fascinating take on the Bargainer and the other known deities in the Zelda world.

-

Ngl, I haven't thought much about the Bargainer and their role is since there's so little in their lore. Other than "guiding lost souls into the afterlife without prejudice" and exchanging materials, weapons and outfit sets in return of Poes... (Kinda like how the Goddess Statue exchanges Blessings for Hearts, Stamina and Sage's Wills).

And seeing so many Poes in the Depths in a state of purgatory, makes me think that they are akin to the Grim Reaper of sorts. On top of the Yiga notes about how those "strange statues" would rip the souls out of fellow members if they come too close to it in the Depths.

I also imagine that the name "Bargainer" is a recent title when they were (re)discovered by present-day Hyruleans. And their true name had already been lost to the looooooong passage of time. And for all we know, the "Bargainer" was the god(dess) of the long extinct Zonai people.

That's about as far as I have for the Bargainer.

As for other deities like Hylia, Demise and the Fierce Deity, I don't have much beyond what is present in the games and the popular headcanons shared within the Zelda fandom.

I do have headcanons on how each race and clans interpret these deities and their own faith systems. For example, the Sheikah view Hylia as a "two faced" deity with "light and shadow" themes in their faith. Which is in contrast to their Hylian counterparts who have more clear-cut views on Hylia as the benevolent protector-goddess of their people (And why the Horned Statue exists and is shunned and hidden away).

(Though this is all part of my BotW-TotK Family and Legacy story.)

TL;DR I don't have a lot of ideas / headcanons on who or what these deities are. BUT I do have headcanons on how they are interpreted by different peoples/races.

-

But seriously though OP, if you're reading this, you need to create dedicated posts and elaborate more on these headcanon ideas. They have POTENTIAL to become some very delicious reads.

[thatoneastralpoe]

Okay, so first and foremost, I've said this before and I want to say it again, this project is in no way meant to be any sort of hate on Nintendo, BOTW, nor TOTK, both games are wonderful in their own right, and I love many other Nintendo games! So with that outta the way, let's get down to business!

[TW: Death, Apocalypse, famine, disease, bloodshed.]

Game Play Changes

Companion character

In every Zelda game (minus BOTW & TOTK), Link has a companion of some sort. Even in the newest title Echoes of Wisdom, Zelda gets a companion. I understand why they didn't in BOTW, but I'm a sucker for companions, so I decided that Wolf Link would be canon in this universe. Link wouldn't meet him right away, and he would be unable to speak, but I feel like he sorta fits with the theming overall.

Link would also be able to interact with Wolf Link, and other doggo's as well.

Malice

In this version of BOTW, Malice is going to do a bit more damage, than in the original game. Rather than just creating piles of Malice in the world, when Calamity Ganon shoots out the balls fo Malice, they would taint the land they hit, killing everything it touches and sleeping into the ground. It would also kill any animals/people while strengthening any monsters.

Heart Containers & Stamina Vessels

I would bring back heart pieces, but keep the stamina vessels. The way I would do this is by keeping the Stamina Vessels linked to the spirit orbs, but having heart pieces as a separate thing that would be found through exploration. Likely replacing many of the extra Koroks. (Yes, I would be lowering the amount of Koroks for the sake of mine, and everyone else's sanity) This would keep the heart piece system that every other Zelda game uses (minus BOTW & TOTK), while keeping a bit of the system that Nintendo had already put in.

Shrines & Mini Dungeons

Due to making heart pieces their own thing again, a lot of the shrines would become obsolete. So to make up for this, I would add in mini dungeons. These would kinda be like the one's in EoW, where the boss drops a heart piece, and would be mostly full of puzzles and traps, along with extra lore.

Main Story

My main gripe with the main story of Breath of the Wild is that, unlike every other Zelda game (minus TOTK) we don't really play through a connected story. Don't get me wrong, there is A story, but it's already happened, and the story that is in the present is disjointed and unconnected to itself.

I know that the story wasn't the "main" focus of the game, but I thought that being able to playing through the story was always better than just witnessing it. Plus even the memories which give 90% of the story kinda suck for their own reasons that I'll get into that in a different post.

I had a few ideas that I threw around, one of them being a civil war esq scenario that was inspired by Hyrule Warriors (which is cannon here), but I decided on a different idea.

The decided to look back at the apocalypse theming that Breath of the Wild has, and pulled from it, eventually deciding to use the Four horsemen of the Apocalypse as inspiration for the main story. With each race having to deal with one of the issues.

Disease with the Zora

Famine for the Gorons

Bloodshed in the Rito

And Conquest to the Gerudo

For the Zora, the Malice would've tainted the waters prior to the start of the game, and any Zora that was in the water at the time, or ate fish from the water ended up sick similar to how people are with Gloom and the mud in TOTK. This would've led to the quest in the area. Sidon would also be more involved in this quest, and would get a bit more character building, along with a few other characters. This would also introduce the fact that Zora can manipulate water.

In the Gorons, similar to the main game, Rudania would've been stomping around the mountain, but in this version, the machine would've blocked off the Gorons food source, and the Malice would've corrupted any other viable options. Again, this would lead to the main quest, and give more characters more time to develop.

The Rito would've been suffering from a constant barrage of attacks during their quest, one that had exhausted a many of their warriors, and killed more. The deaths would likely be more implied than explicitly told, but it would still be there. Tulin would also play a role in this quest than in cannon BOTW, this way we would actually know the kid exists, rather than him just popping out of thin air.

The Gerudo would be funding with the Hylian's (this may change for story reasons) due to reasons that will be explained in the post on this quest. During the quest we would get more lore about Riju, her mother, and the Gerudo in general.

I'm aware that conquest and bloodshed sound similar, but I will explain the differences in separate posts that I will dedicate to each race. This is because I don't want to load everything into one post, and I also want to give each part of the story the time it deserves.

I know that the way I've been talking about this makes it seem like there will be a dungeon order, but there wouldn't be. Link would still be able to go through the dungeons in any order they like, and it would even change the story in small ways when if they did.

Anyways, that's all for today folks! Hope you all have a wonderful day or night, and stay safe and hydrated y'all!

[makapatag]

so hear me out right (and this is by no means a smart blog post thing, im just rambling at 2am)

a lot of combat heavy ttrpgs (D&D4e, PF2e, ICON, Lancer, Panic! At The Dojo) rely a lot on keywording and mechanical definitions to create this interlocking (and hopefully well-oiled) combat engine that rewards good tactical choices and forward thinking. 4e needs you to know that Ranged Attacks Provoke Opportunity Attacks, and so you need to move away first to avoid that (often by spending their Move action to Shift). this goes for other games as well. ICON needs you to know that if an Ability does not have the "Attack" tag then its explicitly not an attack, even if it deals damage. This is important because some classes and abilities benefit from not attacking, such as the Demon Slayer

the far end of this is PF2e, where almost everything is Keyworded. Classes, Races, even Feats have keywords, and some keywords have Keywords in them. this is not bad design in my opinion: mastery of this keywording can create for some really cool effects (and you can feasibly design something very BotW which also depends on a lot of interactions between elements).

now consider that so much of tactics trpgs (that is, Traditional/Tabletop Role-Playing Games) rely on so much of that interaction to create fulfilling scenarios. most of the time this is because tactics rpgs also depend on build-crafting. there are a lot of tactics trpgs that don't really care about build crafting or has less of a focus on it to focus instead on the grid combat: games like Rune, Valiant Quest, maybe even Blood Neon, so im explicitly talking about the variety of tactics trpgs that are build-centered: basically anything that comes from the vein of Fourth Edition Dungeons and Dragons

one of my favorite parts about TTRPGs is that you can play them based off of the fiction. writing Gubat Banwa, I understand that sometimes you have to create that fiction, especially if its not one thats well-represented. the created fiction or genre is the blueprint from which the play-fiction arises during the game: that's the fire-like collective imagination that arises from play.

There's a design and play philosophy (common among OSR, PbtA, and FitD) known as Fiction-First. This means that you follow what happens in the fiction first before the mechanics or anything else. Not to preserve the integrity of a "narrative" but rather, to preserve the integrity of the fiction.

What would a Fiction-First Tactics TRPG look like? This is something I tried to set out to do with Gubat Banwa. I haven't really succeeded, as of 1e.3.

so i've been thinking lately. What if a game was Fiction-First? It would work similarly to the Keywording of PF2e, but more open-ended in its interpretation.

Look at the Panabas from PF2e (a weapon present in SEAsia! From the Malay Archipelago all the way to the Philippine Archipelago). It has the Forceful (your second attack on your turn gains +X (X = damage dice, third up gets +2X.), Sweep (+1 to attack if youve alr targeted a separate character), and Two-Hand d10 (roll a d10 when you wield with both hands) tags.

I'm not going to be translating these one for one, but let's use the fiction-first style of writing and mechanics i'm concocting:

Panabas. A heavy blade. Using this, you strike with Bravery. The forward-curving blade can chop through tree, bone, and bramble.

Heavy Blade is a weapon type, so this is classic keywording. The text afterwards is also keywording: striking with Bravery means you roll your Bravery stat when making attacks with it. All well and good: there's always going to be some classical keywording in there as necessity (its this entanglement of mechanic and fiction that's made me love PbtA anyway).

The later text is more important, because say then I made an enemy like:

Walking Tree. A tree that uproots itself, and whistles to kill victims. Made of wood, so they lose 1 Stamina when they suffer chopping attacks. If they're struck by flame, they start burning. [Insert other combat-important stats here].

Now the fact that the panabas can chop through trees interacts with the description of the walking tree being vulnerable to chopping attacks.

Now these really aren't too different from the concept of keywording (really they're in the same concept park), the different thing is two things:

You can now apply that chopping quality to anything in the fiction. Find some brambles on your way, maybe even brambles as hindering terrain? Then spend a Beat to attack it to remove it! That's fiction first after all

It's easier to understand just at first glance with just natural language.

The important part here is natural language. In Play, a lot of the time, my players love picking up on little things about lore-bites of the items and techniques they have and seeing how that can apply to the fiction. So this is more of that: weapons, items, techniques, armor all become things that establish fiction. When two fictions interact, a new fiction arises!

Burning: A status effect. While you're burning, lose 1 Stamina when you start your Break. You lose burning when you're doused by water or you take time to remove it. Improvise: (A basic action). Do anything that does not inherently harm, as long as it makes sense in the fiction, and doesn't take more than 4 seconds to do (Beats take up 4 seconds). You can use this to stop drop and roll to get rid of Burning. Deep Water. -1 Elevation. Water reaches up to your shoulders. Moving into deep water costs +1 Speed.

Of course there's still going to be mechanical descriptions there, we're not going for FKR full just fiction thing. We're just blending fiction into the game part. Even PbtA still has stats and rolling and mechanics to further support their fiction.

I wanted to write this so that techniques and other widgets can be written with fictional wording in mind, and that wording would affect how its used in tactical grid combat. A technique that says: "You are surrounded by a barrier of tornado-force winds. Any attack from outside your adjacency is swept away, unless it cannot be buffeted by winds." Becomes a mechanical thing: perhaps a spell of concentrated curses pierces through this, but not arrows or weak fireballs?

The Arbiter

The last piece of the puzzle will almost always be: who arbitrates the fiction? There almost always needs to be a final word. For GuBa, this is the Umalagad, not so impartial arbiter. For Solo Play, this is still the Umalagad, but as the oracle: they ask a question, ie, "Would this area of effect attack be buffeted by the wind barrier if the origin point starts from outside?" and they would roll a d10. On a 6+, the answer is no, the target would not be buffeted because the flames overwhelm. On a 5-, the answer would be yes, it is buffeted because the target is not the brunt of the attack. And the final answer becomes the ruling for the rest of that scene.

Last last thing is this particular rule that sets things down that I might put into Gubat Banwa:

The Law of Phenomenon Pay close attention to the words that you have. These words will decide whether your blade can chop down a tree, or your abaka weave blunts edged strikes, but susceptible to piercing spears. These words will decide whether your dazzling spell can daze opponents, or if the opponent you fight ignores it due to them not depending on their senses to fight. The words establish the fiction. The fiction is the world in which your characters live: follow it always.