#but i started with ocarina of time because i started that one years ago and never finished it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

monpalace · 1 year

Text

ships .. (ocarina of time/majora's mask) link/reader, (linked universe) time/reader.

content .. it's only natural you search for your nephew after he enters the lost woods on a dare. you can't have a problem with the hand dealt to you when the beast who gives you shelter is so kind.

warnings .. no beta, we die like the promise i made to finish this before the summer after my junior year ended (i started this in april, it's august). i didn't know where i was going with this after a certain point and i think that's obvious. reader uses she/her pronouns. large, legal age gap (reader is in her 30's - 40's, time is a few hundred years old). less of a fic and more snippets, but it's almost 7.5k+ words. i don't think i explicitly say which link it is, so i guess it's ambiguous? nephew is named because this would be a pain to write otherwise.

notes .. prompted (not inspired!!) by beauty and the beast, but also the batb fanfic i found after my friend showed my an nsfw ao3 tag account on twitter. beelzebub / lord of the flies from fear and hunger was a huge inspo for link / time's physical description but there is leeway for how he can be envisioned. he's still large as shit though lmao. the layout of the manor was this, only because i wouldn't be able to write this without knowing.

supposedly there's gonna be a second part. supposedly.

idk. i might hate this enough to just. not.

The Lost Woods wasn't as intimidating as everyone talked it up to be.

Yes, it felt like the trees moved when you turned your back to them, and, granted, there were a few mobs of monsters that could get the jump on you if you weren't paying attention, but you had managed to get away with a few scrapes the few times it had happened.

The only thing to keep you company was the howling winds that grew in intensity and your own thoughts that were sprawling into whatever corners they could reach, but that was fine. You'd gratefully take decades-old gossip from the next town over instead of the creeping paranoia of what was behind you.

Of course, you would willingly go through this, that, and whatever else one thousand times over if it meant finding your nephew— and to keep yourself from reprimanding yourself from reprimanding the teens that had dared him out into the woods, but that was another thing.

Along your investigation, you'd found a broken trail of breadcrumbs that led to nothing when you followed them. They were torn pieces of fabric from his clothes, just big enough to be noticeable but small enough to keep himself protected from the elements.

(You'll forever be thankful that a younger your drilled the idea into his head.)

You'd long since discovered calling his name was useless. The only thing you've managed to do was draw the attention of a few wandering stalfos dressed in clothes from centuries ago.

The ones that had managed to find weapons were always the most painful to deal with.

If your determination weren't so established, you would've lost your sanity within the first day.

Food and water were no issue, you were smart enough to pack more than a week's worth of both. There were non-perishable options and several choices for your nephew when you found him; he'd no doubt have his fair share of cravings after being lost for so long.

(Three days was an eternity to you.)

Just before the sun had reached its crest in the sky, you'd realized that there were more empty clearings than trees. Wildlife had become scarce as well.

Where deers and wolves previously ran abundant, birds and squirrels that ran from the smallest of noises replaced them.

The wind had calmed, at least. It no longer wanted to push and shove you in whatever direction it pleased or steal the bag full of items you brought along. You didn't have to hug your sweater to your chest in fear of it being ripped from your arms either.

Instead, it was still.

Admittedly, the clearing gives you more paranoia than anything else.

When your mind starts to wander to places you'd rather it not reach, you begin to hum a quiet tune to yourself— your nephew's favorite— and allow it to ground you.

You were here for a reason. You wouldn't leave until you found him. You'll be fine until you find him, and you'll find some way to live in the forest that refuses to let its inhabitants go peacefully.

It's hours later when you hear the first sound of life (or suspended death) that doesn't feel like a threat— though, in hindsight, you should've been smarter and more suspicious of it when you first heard it.

A high-pitched instrument repeats each croon you let out, eventually taking over and silencing you. You follow the tune without much of a thought. If it were some sort of elaborate trap to lure you in, you couldn't be mad at yourself if you fell for it.

Clusters of trees become less and less as you follow the instrument and its recreation of your nephew's song. You call his name and are met with nothing but the music (from an ocarina, you quickly recognize) growing louder as time passes.

To say you're shocked when a large and, admittedly, well-kept manor enters your field of view would be an understatement. It's covered in vines, invasive arrowroots, and spreading flowers, but looks lived in if the smoldering smoke slowly dissipating in the afternoon air was anything to go by.

You couldn't begin to imagine who lived inside before the woods took it over (or what lived in it now). The architecture says it predates the Hero split in four, but you doubted the inhabitants of the floating sky built something so elaborate when they returned to the surface.

Your eyes jump past the crumbling pillars and dilapidated statues to the half-glass double doors that seemed to open on their own.

The music was coming from inside the manor now.

Steeling your nerves and squaring your shoulders, your hand grips tight on the strap of your satchel as you walk up the stone stairs covered in moss. You have to hold onto the guardrail installed next to it just as tight. Looking down, you find the carvings of it sorely separating it from the older antiquity of the manor.

Taking in smaller details (for future escapes or weapons against whatever lived inside, you'd figure out later), you find that the small pools of water that came from the sides of the manor and ran and fell alongside the stairs you climbed held small clumps of straw-colored fur. Some caused the surrounding water to turn into a pink hue that reminded you of fairies you've seen in childrens' books.

(Your hand reaches into the satchel to make sure you brought all of your nephew's well-loved books as well as a novel or two for yourself.)

(You did, thankfully.)

There's a smell filled with musk that permeates the air the closer you get to the manor, thick with amber and ginger and it reminds you of the times you come across a pack of wolves during your childhood.

Upon entering the manor, you find it was strongest in the wing of the manor to your right. It took over almost the entirety of your senses, but it wasn't an unwelcome or overwhelming sensation. If you paid close enough attention, you could sense the homely feeling underneath the ferality of it.

You prayed you'd be able to tell when the beast returned; if it was gone in the first place.

You take close note of how the foyer wasn't truly a foyer with how it was filled with windows rather than walls that led to a courtyard and how the only way to enter the wings of the manor was the winded stairs that connected via the terrace.

You don't fail to notice how the wing coated in the musky scent is coated entirely in shadows despite all the sources of light.

You couldn't decide if you were thankful or filled with loathing at the idea of what roamed on that side of the manor.

It's a struggle to turn your eyes away from the darkened wing of the manor, but you do manage when the music picks up once more from the left wing. It's significantly brighter and doesn't fill you with a sense of dread as the right one does.

Trap be damned, your nephew was here, you knew it— you felt it.

Reaching the top of the stairs, you find that you're inside a parlor room that leads to three other pathways. One was a library, another was a dining room, and the last was a small hallway.

In any other situation, you'd explore some more. The supposed beast that possibly lived in the manor kept everything in better shape than what you'd expect— or hopefully it was the forest spirits that lived throughout the forest.

Hopefully, those same spirits kept your nephew safe.

You have to close your eyes to better determine where the music is coming from, the only thing you can hear beside it and your own breathing being the manor settling. Your ears guide you inside the hall and you find it branches into a corridor, a bathroom, and two bedrooms.

Common sense seems to leave you when you spot the back of your nephew's head. Your breath quickens as you watch him clap along with the ocarina, you force your eyes to keep their clarity when you hear him hum each note just as you remember.

"''ire," you call in a weaker voice than you intended or thought you had. The nickname he claimed he hated so much tumbled from your lips so easily as you rushed inside the room, one arm rushing to remove your satchel while the other reached out to almost check if he was real.

The Lost Woods were known for their tricks, after all.

When he turns to face you, he's scrambling over himself in the bed. You're able to see how he limps on his right ankle and knee, how the entirety of his limbs were wrapped in bandage wrap as though done by a child. There was no blood, so you hold off on checking him over.

(The bandages were stained, thankfully not with blood. It was mostly dust and grime.)

(You'd have to sanitize whatever was wrong.)

You meet him more than halfway when you catch the way he winces and hisses with each movement.

"Auntie— Auntie— Titi!" His voice is airy as he speaks, emotion causing his words to come out as chokes. His arms reciprocated the tight hug you had on him, forcibly keeping his arms from trembling due to either nerves or injuries. "Titi, Titi, Titi!"

The way he says the word makes him sound like some chittering bug. If you listened hard enough, you could tell how his teeth clattered together, but you couldn't decipher if it was from a chill or emotion.

All you wanted to do was keep his head against the crook of your shoulder and neck while you pressed kisses to the crown of his head and kept him as close to you as you could, but you knew better.

Pulling away, you reach back for the satchel that you previously discarded. "What's wrong? What happened?" You force your voice to even out when you speak, hands already reaching for his arms after you sit the bag against your hip.

He shakes his head, but you've known him long enough to know there was something wrong. "They're from when I first went in the forest," he answers, voice quivering. "It's all healed. I think."

He doesn't push your hands away or pull his arms back when you skillfully unravel the bandages, carefully pulling and prodding the scars that littered the skin, and he was telling the truth despite the coloring.

"Did you forage like I taught you? Why are most of them green?"

"The spirits."

"The spirits?"

"And the soldier." He looks over your shoulder as though searching for their figures. "I haven't seen him yet, though."

Your eyes squint as one of your hands rubs over the strange texture of the scar, the other reaching for the antiseptic and clean fabric in your bag. "Are these spirits children or small trees with masks?"

You'd heard of both in legend. No one's ever seen them.

You're not sure which you'd rather watch over your nephew.

His eyes drift to his side before peering back over your shoulder once again. His brows furrow as he thinks of how to answer, head tilting as his pupils dilate.

"Both," he answers, "and ones that look like scarecrows. I asked them to bring you."

You force your gaze to keep itself on your nephew. You wouldn't let it wander to spirits you couldn't even see. "The ocarina?" You instead ask another question jumping around your mind, sucking your tongue in appreciation when he nods. "Smart boy."

An airy laugh leaves him, his face lighting up with a smile. "Learned from the best," he snorts.

You risk pressing kisses to the apples of his cheeks and forehead at his flattery, hands cupping themselves on the nape of his neck to bring him closer.

A younger him would push you away without a second thought, whining on about how you were embarrassing him in front of his friends.

He lets you do so now regardless of the spirits that surround you both.

"What've you been eating?" Your hands drop to his biceps when you pull away. They weren't thin like you'd expect them to be after three days in the forest; they were fatter than they had been before he left. "Who's been feeding you?"

His answer of "the Soldier," is quicker than you would've liked. "He goes out and hunts. He always brings back meat. I think it's deer.. it tastes.. bland."

"He.. cooks it, right?"

Another laugh wracks through your nephew's body. He knows you're only being cautious, but he can't help it.

"All the way through," he hums, flexing his arms when they start feeling stiff. "I think I don't like it because it's not your cooking."

He knows what your response is going to be before he finishes speaking, years of having lived under your guidance making him attuned to the smallest of your movements.

When your expression shifts from being relieved to disappointment with a twitch of your eye, he can tell you're not pleased with his statement.

Dousing the fabric in the antiseptic, you take his arm in your hand and begin wiping it down. "Don't be rude." Your voice takes on a less-than-pleased rasp, speaking lowly as if you knew the Soldier was near; but you still apologize when the sting sets in. "Have you thanked him?"

(You're sure you would continue to speak quietly regardless of the context of the conversation. You didn't want to risk "the Soldier," doing anything unfavorable.)

(Your nephew's words of praise did little to ease your stressed heart.)

"I never know when he's here. He drops the food off while I'm asleep. He brings books and carvings too." He watches as you wrap his arm in another roll of (cleaner) bandages, undoing the old one on his other arm while you prepare another piece of fabric. "The Spirits say I'm the most excitement he's had in a while, so he doesn't mind."

His voice was beginning to grow hoarse from speaking so quietly. You tap his throat to tell him to relax.

"They say he's nice," he continues, doing as told. Tapping the fingers of his now free hand against your shin, he tries to recall what all they've told him.

"I think they said he used to live in another part of the woods when he was a kid?—" His eyes glance back over your shoulder, suddenly becoming sure of himself. "— Ah. They did. They said he left and came back when he was older."

You raise a brow but don't speak your question.

Your nephew takes hold of your retreating hands in both of his.

A clatter and snippy huff outside the bedroom door rouses you from your light sleep.

Nearing a week into your stay at the manor, you'd think you'd be more accustomed to the noise, but you aren't.

You carefully remove your nephew's head from your arm, using even more caution when trying to remove the conjoined weight of several spirits from your legs as you slip out of the bed.

It's hard, but you manage to do so without waking any of them— you hope.

(You still couldn't see any of the Spirits, but over time you could feel when they crowded around you and when the wind moved as they rushed past you.)

The floorboards creak beneath your feet.

You hear the sound of claws scratching against the floor on the other side of the door.

Pressing the crown of your head against the door, you tap your fingers along the handle to give the Soldier a warning and wait a few moments.

If you listened hard enough, you swear you could hear him scurrying into one of the other rooms before he shut the door behind him.

It reminded you of a dog.

Smiling to yourself, you're careful opening the door, keeping your head to it and your eyes on the floor. You turn to the other side of it to close it, waiting for the click of the lockset to speak.

"Are you decent?"

His confused "huh," sounds more akin to a gasp than any other noise.

You rap your fingers against the handle again. "Can I look up?"

"Oh—" he sounds choked. "Yeah— Yes. Yes. You can. Sorry."

"Thank you," you hum, leaning down to pick up the tray of food. It consisted of almost entirely meat with a few vegetables you figure are exclusive to the woods. "For both the food and taking care of my nephew."

There was a thumping noise behind the door, the frequency of it was like a tail beating excitedly.

The Soldier lets out a croaking noise and you know his mouth started moving before his mind was able to catch up. "No, I should thank you for looking for him— and for telling him not to use his name."

You let out an airy laugh. "It's common knowledge where I'm from. I wouldn't be a good parental figure if I didn't."

Another noise leaves the Soldier as you fix yourself to open the door. You can't discern what this one means. "I don't know when they started calling me the Soldier, but it's not— uhm.. A favorite.. of mine."

"Oh?"

"Soldier," he sounds more confident in himself and you don't have the heart to tell him you heard him the first time, "it's a nickname. I don't know where the kids got it, but I don't like it."

Readjusting the tray to rest against your hip and forearm rather than in both your hands, you hum curiously. "So what should we be calling you?"

He pauses longer than you'd think it'd take to remember your own name, but you wait.

"Link."

"Link?"

"Yes."

"Like in a chain?"

".. Yes."

You nod even though you're sure he can't see you. "I'll be sure to tell 'ire."

"Thank you." There's more thumping from behind the door.

"And thank you."

There's another noise from Link you struggle to understand, but you figure it's because he starves for conversation. "I heard what your nephew said about the food, too. I'll try to find something to flavor it with next time I'm out."

"Thank you," you repeat. Your eyes curve with your smile. "He'll greatly appreciate it."

Link raps his fingers against the door in response, but he doesn't say anything. You take that as your queue to reenter the bedroom.

"How come your side of the house is always dark?"

You gently pinch your nephew's elbow and he swats your hand away, leaning impossibly close to the door that separates him and Link.

There are a few moments of silence from the man that 'ire filled with bated breath. Link takes an audible, steadying breath before knocking what you think is his nail against the door.

"I wouldn't want to scare you both off."

It was an answer you expected, but you were disappointed nonetheless.

"Boo," your nephew groans. You're sure Link could hear the pout in his voice if the quiet chuckle he lets out was anything to go by. "You can't be worse than what I've seen out there."

There's genuine intrigue in the noise Link lets out. "Oh? What exactly have you seen then?"

Pure excitement fills your nephew's expression when he turns to look at you from over his shoulder. His fingers tap against the floor restlessly, tongue already listing off whatever monsters he's encountered (read: come up with) in his twelve years of life.

"— but their teeth are the worst! They're poisonous and there isn't a cure for it!"

You have no clue as to what creature he was talking of now. There were at least fifteen of them who injected poison through their teeth, eight of which had no cure.

(You don't have to strain as hard to see the Spirits as you did two weeks ago. The shadows and light shift around then as they move to sit around your nephew, seemingly hooked on your nephew's every word.)

(You remember when he would crowd himself around you similarly whenever you would tell him a story.)

You close the book that sat in your lap more for decoration than entertainment at that point and place a hand over your heart.

"I drew a lot of them too! My aunt brought them with her!" He pushes himself through the motions of standing up before immediately stopping and returning to his seat in front of the door. "I'll show them to you if you eat dinner with us!"

There are a few stammering noises from the other side of the door and yet you can't bring yourself to apologize for your nephew's bargaining.

Your own curiosity was quickly starting to get the better of you against your wishes.

The noise he had made several nights before makes itself heard again. His claws (you discovered those a few nights ago) scratch against the wooden flooring as he moves to sit against the other wall rather than the door, his voice moving with him.

"I don't want to— I wouldn't want— want to disturb you— either of you." His words are muffled by the door and his growing quietness, a regretful lilt stuck in his throat. "But thank you for the offer."

If he truly didn't want to join you and your nephew (and the spirits) for dinner, he was terrible at showing it.

"I know I wouldn't mind," you hum, standing to put away the book. A loud thumping makes the floor vibrate and 'ire has to stifle a laugh. "I wouldn't mind picking up a pot and pan again either."

"No!" Link quickly apologizes for his tone after realizing his outburst. "You don't have to. I wouldn't be a good host if I made you do that."

"Are you scared I'll poison you?"

Your nephew's voice drops to a whisper he swears you won't be able to hear. "She can't. She's the best cook ever."

You're not sure how the two correlate, but you'd take thew compliment.

"She won't?" Link's voice drops to entertain your nephew despite his earlier convictions. It takes on a playful direction, fur rubbing against the wood-tiled floors in excitement (based on prior interactions). "You've never gotten sick? Not once?"

'ire begins to shake his head but quickly stops. "Only from eating too much— which you will do, by the way. Best cook around," he reiterates.

Link chuckles, tapping his fingers against the floor restlessly. It takes him a moment to come up with something to say and neither of you push him to hurry.

You were both too hooked on his every word to do so anyway.

"I'll.." He's shy for all the attention. You wonder when the last time he got so much focus on him outside of the spirits. ".. I'll be sure to think about your offer. Why don't you tell me about a few of your monsters so I have more of an incentive?"

Your nephew jumps on the opportunity while you think over the plethora of recipes in your mind.

It wasn't rare for one of the imps to accompany you outside when you went foraging.

You never strayed too far from the manor— the last time you had been dragged outside of the area you had designated for yourself (and your nephew) by the children, Link had to come and rescue to lot of you before the sun had gotten too low.

Suffice to say, it was a rather humbling experience.

Kneeling, squatting, or sitting on the ground had never been easy on your knees or back, but the grass below you had felt as though it were a pillow hailing from the Heavens itself.

Your body works on picking herbs from the ground before placing them in your bag repurposed for your (new) everyday tasks while your mind wanders elsewhere.

You're humming to yourself when a twig snapping breaks your focus.

It was a nice reminder that the imps hadn't, in fact, accompanied you that day.

Your head lifts to survey the surrounding woods. Your entire body was still, mimicking a deer caught on a hunting trip.

There was nothing immediately in your line of sight that could be seen as a threat, but you had lived a long enough life to know that wasn't enough reason to let your guard down.

You're slow to rise to your feet and your ears are strained as you listen for whatever had made the noise.

"I'm sorry!"

You can feel your body relax when you hear Link's voice call out from behind a tree. You sink back to your knees without much thought, clutching the fabric of your top to calm your battering heart.

You weren't sure what you were going to do if it were an actual danger anyway.

"I didn't mean to scare you," he continues. His arms move and you can see one drop against the side of a tree while the other tightens around the corpse of an animal. "You were so still, I wasn't sure if you were okay."

A quiet, breathless noise leaves you. You're not sure if he could hear it, but you can see his shoulders relax when you do. "You're— You're fine! I just.. didn't know that you'd be out and about at this time."

When the hand not occupied with that week's dinner (barely) lifts to grab ahold of a tree branch, you're shocked to just now find out how tall he is.

"It's not your fault. I didn't know you were out here," he grunts while gently tugging at the branch. "Are you alone?"

Your eyes drop to the flora that surrounds you to not feel so invasive. Your fingers rub against the blades of grass idly when a restless feeling overtakes you. "A few of the kids said they'd join me later, but I'm not too sure when that's supposed to be." A short, genuine laugh leaves you. "I wouldn't be surprised if they forgot."

Link lets out his own, quiet laughter that you can only clue together when you see the entire tree shake in your peripheral. "I wouldn't take it to heart. They say they'll join me in hunting all the time but never do."

"Have you ever given them a stern talking to? I've heard that usually works with spirits."

"They barely listen to me as is. I think you'd have more luck than me."

"Is that an offer?"

"Are you headed home now?"

A strange vice tightens around your heart at his wording while you look through your bag. "Mhm," you hum, standing now that your legs aren't like that of a newborn. "You'll have to remind me of the way, though."

"I can guide you," he hums in reply. "You just can't look back."

Turning your back to him, you're surprised you don't jump when a sharp claw gives a ghostly touch to the center of your back.

You're shocked that you disregard the urge to check over your shoulder every step back to the manor.

You were no stranger to 'ire's night terrors.

They'd gotten better over the past few years as he aged, but all that progress had been undone during the near month you'd been in the forest.

Wiping away the tears that had managed to slip out, you ignore the prickly and uncomfortable feeling that comes with keeping your lulling head up so you can watch him.

You'd done it a thousand times before and would do it one thousand and one more if it meant he felt better.

You don't miss how his grip on your arm tightens when you start humming his favorite song. Your hand trails up to his hairline, nails (claws?) tracing the paint on his face that refused to fade.

You'd spent so long trying to scrub them and the green marks off, you hadn't even realized his skin had started to pale into a sickly grey in patches while darkening into (what looked like) a necrotic black in others.

You didn't even want to think about the changes that had started coming to your body.

You were, however, thankful you weren't thinning into a stalfos.

"You're not as sneaky as you'd like to think."

"How'd you know?"

"I have a young nephew. You learn quickly."

A brief laugh leaves Link from behind the cracked door. Though you didn't face him, you could see the way his eyes illuminated the wall in front of you, even managed to catch on some of 'ire's face.

It was a pretty blue color.

You don't comment on it.

"What's wrong?" Your voice has a deep rasp to it, your hand continuing to stroke your nephew's face even after he begins to calm down.

He'd slowly begun dropping more and more barriers (physical and mental) when it came to communicating with you both, having taken up shadows in their stead. He had gotten more confident in conversation as well, stammering and stuttering less the longer your nephew forced him to talk.

It makes you wonder how long it'd take for him to finally make true on those dinner plans.

"I heard him," Link hums just as quietly, the glow of his eyes moving to instead look over the sleeping spirits that crowded themselves around the space not occupied on the bed. "I was worried. Do you want help with them?"

A soft laugh leaves you when one of the imps buries their head onto your calf as though it were a pillow. "They've been like this since we first got here. 'ire," you press a kiss to his forehead when he rouses, waiting for him to settle before speaking again, "says they like to cling."

"You don't mind?"

"He's not too far off from them nowadays."

"Does he miss anything?"

Laying on your back, you being 'ire's head to rest against your shoulder. Your gaze is finally able to see how he'd take up all of the doorway (and then some) through the crack of the door.

You'd be shocked he hadn't flinched away if it hadn't been for the way his hand reached out to clasp it.

The tips of his fingers reached well past the frame of the door, his claws further, and you could only imagine just how much space he was taking up in the small hallway.

You were confident he could fit five or six of you in his hand without trying.

Your eyes jump back to the three (possibly four?) eyes before he can become self-conscious.

"Almost everything," you answer after pulling yourself from your thoughts. "His clothes, his dolls.. He could go without his friends, though."

His eyes jump from your face to the window as he huffs out a nervous laugh. It makes you wonder if he knows something you don't, but you don't push. "And you?"

"Hmm?"

"And yourself," he clarifies, "what do you miss?"

You're silent.

What exactly did you miss?

The feeling of your village's grass between your toes after the rain, the baker's treats that no other could replicate, being a part of such a tight-knit community, the sun after a particularly muggy morning—

There wasn't any need to be a sap.

"I'm not sure," you finally say after a long period of silence. You hadn't realized your eyes had left Link, yet when you force your gaze back to him, he holds it without issue. "I struggled with becoming attached to things unlike 'ire."

"Hm."

"What?"

"I can't remember the last time someone said something like that."

"You have visitors like us often?"

"More than you'd think."

"And what's become of them?"

The glow of his eyes drops to the sleeping spirits that litter before looking to the window again and you quickly understand.

The hum that leaves your throat is more lackluster than you intended it to be, but given how quickly the topic had changed, you give yourself the grace.

"Well," you start after clearing your throat, "what's something that you miss?"

The manor creaks when Link leans against a wall and his confidence in the movement tells you more than you'd expected.

You don't think you'd ever have the same amount of trust he held in it.

There's a playful tone in his voice when he speaks, one of his hands raised to scratch against his chin. "You'd have to promise not to be dramatic when I say."

"Is it my fault you use such outdated terms thousands of years behind my time?"

Link turns away to stifle his laughter, shrouding the room in darkness and forcing your eyes to strain with it.

"I can't say I've had the easiest experience understanding you or your nephew's sayings," he hums, drowning you in the light of his eye when he turns back, "the kids have to keep filling me in."

"Shame, and here I thought you'd been closer to my age. Have you been leading me on this entire time?"

Link's claws knock against the wall, his tail wagging against the floor while he huffs his amusement. "Have I? When I don't even know your name?"

If the weight of 'ire wasn't on your shoulder, you're sure you would've had a physical reaction of some sort.

"It'd do you good to not forget it," he hums, the movement of his tail slowing until it stops entirely. "Titi and Auntie, as much as I hate to say it, won't do much good."

Another lackluster noise leaves you as the arm trapped underneath your nephew lifts to rub your thumb during his forehead. "How fun."

"The kids are too attached to do anything now." The door slowly creaks open before stopping. It shuts so there's only a crack instead. "You'll be fine to share your name now."

"You never answered my question."

"Which one?"

"I haven't asked a lot," you huff before taking a softer tone, eyes rolling closed. "What is it that you miss?"

Link quietly snorts, muffling it by pressing his face to the door. He takes a steadying breath before saying a quiet, "a lot, I suppose. I can't name just a few things." A low noise leaves him, it's similar to a growl. "My friends? Playing music as well— my hands aren't good for much but skewering these days. My horse, Epona, too. She was the prettiest mare."

"Is she red with a white mane?"

"You saw the kids' drawings?"

"I've seen her before, I think— or maybe it was a hallucination?" The hand stroking 'ire's forehead stops as you scrounge your memories. "When I saw her outside the forest, I knew it was real. Another fated hero was mounting her."

You'd like to think yourself a master of figuring out what each noise he makes is meant to mean, but the one Link lets out once you finish speaking is short and of a higher pitch than normal.

When he begins to stammer over his words as he had when you first interacted with him, it feels like years' worth of progress has been undone.

"I— uhm— You— I don't— err— Thank—"

His tail thumps three times before he knocks his head against the door with a heavy groan. He lets out a quiet "Hylia, be damned," you couldn't help but think he hoped you wouldn't hear to go along with his frustration.

"It's been a long night," you finally prompt. "You'd best get some shut-eye before 'ire bombards you with more from his imagination, yeah?"

"Yeah," Link answers in a weak voice. "Yeah," he repeats to himself more than anything, "of course. Good night," he steps away from the door. "Sleep well."

"Same for you."

The night Link finally takes you and 'ire up on your offer for dinner, your nephew and the spirits had taken to floating around the east wing's dining room to prepare it for such a grand event.

"Titi, titi!" One of the Kokiri exclaims, tugging at the fabric of your skirt (that Link had made out of a spare bedsheet). Her voice had a strange echo to it— all of them, really— and had given you migraines up until you'd finally become accustomed to it. "'ire says that you'll make your world-famous pudding! Will you? Will you?"

You ignore her exaggeration in favor of forcing yourself to wrench your eyes away unless you wanted her puppy dog face to work on you. "Should I? I.. I can't say any of you have been acting well enough to deserve it.."

Even in your peripheral, it's not hard to miss the absolutely crushed look on her face. Her eyes were wide and her bottom lip wobbling like she was about to cry despite your joking tone.

"But why—y," she whines, dragging the last syllable on while hiccuping on her breath as she went on. You know the tears pooling in her eyes are just as fake as your rejection of her request— but you know just as well who'll win the battle at the end of the day.

"I—" hiccup. "Want—" hiccup. "Cake—" hiccup.

You raise a brow. "Pudding or cake, sweetheart? I can't make both."

The girl begins to climb your back while you return to sautéing the vegetables, arms wrapping around your neck so she can press her cheek against yours. "Cake! No, pudding! No! Cake! No—"

"I'll tell you what," you interrupt, taking the pan from over the open flame once the food is charred to your liking. Your skin thanks you when you step away and douse the fire, the arid air leaving through the open window. "Why don't you ask a few of the others which they want then we can try and get Link to bake it after dinner?"

The girl jumps off your back with stars practically filling her eyes. She cries out for several names while she runs off, hands clapping excitedly as she shouts out the change in plans.

You're left in peace until your nephew enters with his journals clutched between his arms, bouncing between his feet while he watches you finish plating each food item on dishes you could only dream of owning where you're from.

"D'you think he'll come?" 'ire's voice is low, almost as though scared Link will hear. You know he does if the night of his nightmares a few months ago were anything to go by— but he didn't need to know that.

"He'd better," you answer in an equally low tone. "I didn't spend so long slaving away at this just for him not to."

"Is that a threat?"

The plates in your hands aren't spared by the flinch that wracks through your body. Your reflexes are quick to catch them before any of the food can hit the floor.

'ire, on the other hand, has no issue with voicing his shock in the form of a scream, scurrying from the doorway while dropping his journals. He jumps behind you, hands clutching the fabric of your skirt while he hides himself behind your hip.

"Well?"

Placing a hand over your racing heart after putting the plates down, your other hand comes down to rest on 'ire's head. "It's rude to sneak up on people, you know."

The blond fur of his chest rustles with his laughter. It was difficult to see much else other than that, what with the way he hid himself behind the wall connecting the kitchen to the pantry.

You hadn't even heard his footsteps or creaking floorboards when he first approached. Had he been there the entire time and 'ire hadn't seen him, or had he only walked in after 'ire entered?

You wondered if he was naturally quiet or if he just learned which floorboards were loose.

"Is it sneaking when you were expecting me?" Link's voice is lighter than it usually is, a slight tremble could even be heard if you focused on it enough. He rocks on his feet and briefly leans forward, a less organic-looking side profile coming into view before leaving right after. "If I knew I would be this unwelcomed, I—"

"That's a joke, right?" 'ire stomps away from your side while he speaks, stepping over his discarded compilations of works to stare up at Link with wide eyes. Your nephew ignores the way Link's hands raise to cover his face and how he backs away as soon as he pivots in his foot to face him. "You're not actually gonna pansy out, right?"

Your feet lead you to the two before you can have much of a thought. "Zaire," you say in a terse voice, taking hold of his shoulder and bringing him against your front so you can stop him from interrogating the poor man. "Don't be rude."

Whatever argument he has dies on his tongue when he takes a good, long look at Link. His mouth gaped open like a fish, one of his fingers lifting so he could push it into the fur of his stomach, watching the skin beneath sink with the force of it as though it were the most interesting thing in the world.

"Woah."

If you had any less sense of dignity, you'd let yourself have the same reaction.

"Don't be rude," you reiterate, pushing Zaire's hand down until it finally reaches its rightful place at his side.

"No," Link breathes into his palms, clearing his voice to try and rid it of the anxiety (and, possibly, humiliation). "He's— he's fine. This wouldn't be the first time someone responded like that. I'd be more concerned if he did any other way."

Zaire shrugs your hands from your shoulders, stepping until he is toe-to-claw with Link. "Then why are you hiding your face? It can't be that bad," he says, tugging at the fur of Link's elbows, rubbing them between his fingers so he could better be accustomed to the texture.

Spreading his fingers enough so you both could see the four holes in the inorganic material, Link lets out another heavy breath. "I'm self-conscious," he can tell the answer doesn't please Zaire and continues speaking, "It's been.. too long.. since I've shown anyone either of my faces."

"A mask is.." Your voice falters off when you finally find the words to speak, losing them again when you fail to find a proper way to articulate your thoughts.

"It's mostly you and the kids, no?" You try again when you figure out a way to better word it. "Is a mask not.. Is it.. necessary?"

When the blue light that emits from his eyes lifts to look at you, an unidentifiable emotion shoots through you. He holds your gaze for a few, silent moments before turning his head and dropping his hands.

"It's like a second skin," he simply offers.

"Sad," Zaire sighs, backing away and turning until he stood in the center of the kitchen. "Can you still eat with it? Like I said, Auntie is the best cook in all the realms and you have to taste it to believe it."

Curse your nephew's skill of lightening a mood.

Rather than let his insecurities keep him from looking at either of you for the duration of the night, Link looks down at Zaire with a playful jolt of his shoulders. "It's not fused with my face."

Zaire's eyes curl into crescents while he grabs two of the plates from the counter. "Good!" His tail (a terrifying new addition when he first started changing) wraps around the third dish, walking himself past the two of you in the pantry so he could place each one on the dining table. "You'll love this then! Auntie," you don't miss the way he adds your name causally, "always makes this on a big day!"

Link repeats your name under his breath before doing the same with Zaire's. He lets out a thoughtful nod as each one rolls off his tongue, one pair of eyes looking at you while the other continues to follow your nephew.

He wrings his hands together when he catches the way you examined him oh-so-carefully, arms crossed with your head tilted.

"It's nice," he gulps as though every inch of nervousness had reentered his body. "It's a nice name. I like it. It suits you."

You don't know if you were teasing him prior, but you decide to do so now.

"I'd hope so." You pat a hand against his arm as you walk into the kitchen, ignoring the oily feel of his fur. You ignore the feeling of him watching and instead focus on searching through the cupboards for the drink you had foraged around to make just days before. "I could say the exact same for you, thankfully."

"Now, why don't you have a seat so I can play host this time?"

118 notes · View notes

missbutterworthless · 9 days

Text

[i’m not a violent dog. i don’t know why i bite.]

The lead singer of BOTB’s Season 4 projected underdogs, Arlo Beck of Penny Arcade, declined further comment in regards to the threatening of a member of the media when questioned about former band mate and fellow competitor, Seven Lawless of Soft Violence.

Further Info Under the Cut!

TW for mentions of addiction 🫶

Introducing Arlo Beck, lead singer of Penny Arcade, a pop punk band of humble origins known most for their musically delivered political commentary and their revenge anthems (it is of particular note that such anthems were not common in the Lawless Era, with the band leaning far more heavily into charged love songs. Which could mean nothing.)

Fun Facts!

Beck is an Aquarius!

According to an insider source, beyond singing, Beck is quite capable with the ocarina.

Beck is known to juggle at any and every opportunity, regardless of who may or may not be watching. (He is apparently rather talented as well.)

Beck is known for accessorizing with heart motifs, noted by a previous local publication to be a nod to fellow bandmate Rowan Hart.

Beck often carries a bottle of quick dry black polish for ‘manicure emergencies’. He is known to have addressed such emergencies while on stage after chipping a nail during a performance.

Beck is often cited as the source for Penny Arcade’s ‘gimmick’ of collecting loose change in collection bins during a dedicated song at every performance. The change is then matched and donated to queer and at risk youth. Beck remains firm that every member of Penny Arcade, past and present, is equally responsible.

Picture Easter Eggs and more Fun Facts!

Arlo is wearing a WWOD? bracelet in the pic! The band got together to make bracelets with Orion’s most recent catchphrase while waiting for filming to start. Arlo made his particularly fruity. He also made a keychain version for Orion.

The time on Arlo’s phone is a nod to MCx7. Seven is, well, 7. And Arlo is 1 & 2 because his initials are the first and second letters of the alphabet. Hence, 7:12.

Arlo’s initial tattoo utilizes the S in SD as an infinity symbol. He acknowledges it is cringy. And poetically tragic.

Not shown is his tongue piercing, which Orion chewed him out for getting because his tongue was swollen and his speech slurred for nearly two weeks!

As stated above, he likes to wear motifs of his band members! Because he is a doofus! Most common because it’s his daily accessories is a heart motif for Rowan, but he also has jellyfish pendants and vampire bite chokers for Iris and different color bee pins for Devyn depending on their hair color! Jazzy is represented in the case he carries his juggling equipment in, which he takes literally everywhere after she bought him one for his birthday years ago. He is currently racking his brain for what to do for August!

43 of the 57 missed calls on his phone were from Orion. He knows because Orion’s ringtone is I Don’t Dance from High School Musical 2.

He is heavily addicted to nicotine (to Orion’s chagrin) and became a functioning (for now) alcoholic after The Fight™️. Prior, he imbibed during social functions but never alone and never when he had plans. Up until the audition, he never partook in other substances but caved into peer pressure. Despite his snark and notorius RBF, he is a chronic people pleaser.

The eyebrow slit is a scar from slicing his eyebrow open in Lucy’s diner after crashing head first into the dish station and shattering a plate. With his face. The scar is almost entirely faded but he can no longer grow hair there. He’s actually really insecure about it and has considered getting the spot microbladed.

That’s all for now folks! I mostly wanted to share my art :) I adore @infamous-if and have been playing with Arlo as my MC since Day 1! He finally fully clicked in my head and after days of attempting to find a face claim or craft him in the sims I decided to crack open Ye Olde iPad and do it myself!

Please feel free to share any fun facts about your own Infamous OCs! Regretfully my friends stay firmly opposed to interactive fiction so I am starved for fellow Infamous fans

#infamous if #infamous oc #interactive fiction #oc artwork #my art #my artwork #I arose from the depths just to doodle this dude #he is literally just a guy #but I love him anyway #he alternated heavily between full throttle f u and your chicken strips and pleading for forgiveness when he saw Sev at the party #he chose the chicken :(#any and all pronouns are a-okay!

17 notes · View notes

thegeminisage · 2 years

Text

So You Want To Get Into The Legend of Zelda But Don't Know Where To Start: A Masterpost

this discussion came up in my zelda stream the other week so i thought since i'm a longtime fan and Extremely Normal i'd make a guide to people who are just now getting into the series because of breath of the wild/tears of the kingdom. there's a lot of games and it can be confusing on how they're connected, where to start, etc. this is going to be an EXTREMELY LONG guide, sorry - if you want a short version you can check out this post i wrote a long time ago.

The Timeline

so the good news is that the zelda games were published non-linearly, meaning that the game that takes place first chronologically was not necessarily the first one ever made. they didn't even HAVE a timeline until like 2011 or so. for that reason, with a few exceptions*, you can jump in pretty much wherever you like. most zelda games (or pairs of games*) are spaced hundreds or sometimes even thousands of years apart, featuring different links and zeldas and other characters, which means you don't need to know anything about zelda to start with any game. the series is deliberately made so that each title works perfectly well as a stand-alone game.

*the exception is that a very few games have direct sequels - for example, majora's mask takes places just a few years after ocarina of time, phantom hourglass takes place after wind waker, etc. luckily even with these games, you can still jump in without having played their other half and have a good time without getting lost.

The Introduction

that said, the zelda series is extremely eclectic. while they all have the undercurrent of "zeldaness" that makes them special they can be as different as night and day. 2D or 3D, happy or edgy, mainline or spinoff, story-heavy or story-light...which game is best for you to start with will depend heavily on your own personal tastes.

the short version: if you haven't yet, i recommend most people new to zelda start with either ocarina of time or breath of the wild. these games, released almost 20 years apart, were both completely revolutionary and redefined their genres (or, in oot's case, the entire industry). they usually have something to offer everyone and they're both games with standout tutorial sections that teach new players the lay of the land with ease. there's a reason most people start with one of these two - which one you prefer depends on whether you can enjoy an older game or would prefer something newer. for brand-new gamers, i might also recommend skyward sword because of how much the game holds your hand - it's frustrating for more experienced players, but for those just getting started in gaming in general it might actually work out well.

the long version: OBVIOUSLY i'm going to do a game-by-game write-up. sue me. if you're looking for information on a particular title, ctrl+f it. otherwise, settle in. time for a cut!

The Games

how to read this guide:

which games: most of them. this guide is long enough as it is, so i'm not doing a whole ass writeup for REALLY niche spin-offs like the tingle games, the crossbow training game, the bs releases, or the much-loathed cdi games, even if i think the crossbow game ruled. i will do hyrule warriors and cadence of hyrule because they're properly fleshed out games. ports and remakes are gonna get grouped together with the originals to save time and space. if there's something missing from this list you want to know about, the wikipedia article with the complete list of zelda media is right here and it's a genuinely fascinating read. have fun!!

release date: self-explanatory. using japanese release dates for overall accuracy, and the games are in order of release date as well, but you DO NOT need to play them in that order - that would be madness

console: original console, other consoles it's available on (not including the weird experimental stuff like satellaview, c'mon), and whether or not it is available for switch. why? the switch is the latest console, how many new fans got into zelda, and because of nso, it will be the easiest access point for people who can't or don't want to buy new consoles/emulate on pc. nso stands for "nintendo switch online," which is a the online membership you can purchase from nintendo. the basic plan allows, among other things, emulation nes, snes, and gameboy titles. the expansion pack tier adds emulation of n64, sega genesis, and gameboy advance titles. i think nso is a good service with great value if you can afford it - read about it here. virtual console is just buying the game, usually for a low price, and downloading it digitally to play on newer consoles, but most of those services have been shut down now. there's also backwards compatibility - the wii u can play wii games, the wii can play gcn games, the original ds (and ds lite) can play gameboy advance games, and the gameboy advance (and gameboy sp) can play gameboy and gameboy color games. the snes can also play gameboy and gameboy color games with the super gameboy, and the gcn can play gameboy, gameboy color, and gameboy advanced games with the gameboy player.

average playtime: this comes from howlongtobeat.com - if it seems off, take it up with them

mainline game: this just means whether or not this game was a "big entry" into the series - typically, mainline games are devloped by nintendo directly (though nintendo develops side-games too), and they have a higher budget and a longer dev time, but this doesn't necessarily mean they're better - some mainline games are received more poorly than the ones that aren't mainline. also sometimes people argue about which games count as mainline games so take it with a grain of salt

sequel: whether or not a game is directly tied to another game in the series - again, even if they are tied to another game, you don't HAVE to play that other game first

story-heavy: how many cutscenes/cinematics/character stuff is going on

edge level: how much grimdark and serious stuff is present and how "on-screen" it is. zelda games are infamous for a careful balance of cheerful and dark stuff in all games, but some games are more forthright about the darker elements than others. i prefer those, but you may prefer it the other way!

the premise/the good/the bad/the verdict: the actual write-up. unfortunately not even i have played/finished every zelda game (someday...), so for the games i can't speak on personally, i will make a note on it so you can seek a second opinion.

now let's get started!

The Legend of Zelda (1986)

original console: nintendo entertainment system

available on switch: yes, with nso (basic)

also available on: gcn & gba (ports), gcn (gameboy player), wii, wii u, 3ds (virtual console), original ds (backwards compatibility), pc (emulation)

average playtime: 8-10 hours

mainline game: yes

sequel: no

story-heavy: no - in fact, for games in this era, reading the instruction manual is a must if you want story content; because the file size had to stay small, story content that couldn't fit was often added to manual instead

edge level: low

the premise: explore hyrule to find and put together eight fragments of the triforce so you can rescue princess zelda from ganon, prince of darkness.

the good: a solid introduction to the series, you can waste HOURS exploring this game, which is kind of a miracle considering the whole thing is only 128kb. (if you enjoy emulation, any computer will be able to play this. like doom, it could probably run on a microwave.) it's charming enough for when it was made and the music is all catchy as hell, even though it contains only a dozen or so tracks. this game is pretty light on puzzles, but most of the fun comes from the exploration - in fact, it was this game that the dev team for botw drew inspiration from when they were trying to figure out how to "reinvent" the zelda series - what they actually did was take it back to its roots.

the bad: well, it's that you can waste HOURS exploring in this game. back when it was released, the intent was to get players talking to one another - you would get one piece of the map explored and fine one secret, your friend would find and explore a different piece and find other secrets, and you'd trade! many people even had their own hand-drawn maps put together one screen at a time. since it really isn't possible to play this way today unless you get a bunch of friends together to do it blind, you almost certainly need a map or guide for this game when you're doing it on your own, otherwise you're never going to get anywhere, because there aren't usually indications that certain walls are bombable or bushes burnable.

the verdict: if you're a veteran who liked alttp (particularly the combat), if you have a high tolerance for aged games, or if you wanna see what this series looked like during its humble beginnings, you will like this game. if you're looking for a more guided experience or something with a lot of cinematics or puzzle-solving, pass. don't forget to read the manual!

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987)

original console: nintendo entertainment system

available on switch: yes, with nso (basic)

also available on: gcn & gba (ports), gcn (gameboy player), wii, wii u, 3ds (virtual console), original ds (backwards compatibility), pc (emulation)

average playtime: 11 hours

mainline game: yes

sequel: yes, to the original legend of zelda

story-heavy: no - ditto for story being in the manual, like with the original loz

edge level: low

the premise: dive into six ancient palaces to place crystals there to wake princess zelda from an era long gone, who has been sleeping for hundreds of years. avoid being caught by ganon's minions, who want to use link's blood to revive their master ganon.

the good: because this game began life as an independent title which eventually got zelda-fied, it's quite different from most games in the series. it has side-scrolling combat and rpg elements. the soundtrack is very catchy, and this game also introduces dark link, an extremely cool popular doppelganger of our beloved hero. the map is HUGE in comparison to the original so there's tons more to explore here.

the bad: this game is HARD. not, "challenging," like, "bordering on impossible." i've never beaten it. i got just a couple of dungeons in and i was so miserable i had to give it up. even playing the "special edition" on nso (which is with all the unlockable upgrades to make it easier), it's a fucking slog. that's it! that's the only flaw.

the verdict: even with all its good qualities, even with how fresh it feels, it's so damn frustrating that only gluttons for punishment and very unique souls will truly find joy here. if you do decide to brave it, remember to read the instruction manual.

A Link to the Past (1991)

original console: super nintendo entertainment system

available on switch: yes, with nso (basic)

also available on: gba (port), gcn (gameboy player), wii, wii u, 3ds (virtual console), original ds (backwards compatibility), pc (emulation)

average playtime: 15-17 hours

mainline game: yes

sequel: no

story-heavy: medium. this was the first game to actually HAVE a proper story with named characters and extended dialogue. it wouldn't be considered story-heavy by today's standards, though.

edge level: medium, but like, on the high end of medium

the premise: one stormy night, link and his uncle receive a telepathic message from zelda begging for aid. link's uncle goes out into danger and doesn't return, so it's up to lik to go rescue her in his stead. from there you'll have to explore hyrule to locate the master sword, and explore the mysterious golden land behind the seal of the seven wise men to locate their missing descendants.

the good: alttp set the blueprint for the rest of the series - we finally have our first dungeon-crawler with proper puzzles, real dialogue from zelda, named bad guys, a huge array of funky items, and jammin' tunes still used in the games today (hyrule castle anyone?). plus, link has pink hair! the opening to this game is utterly iconic in every way, and traverse through not one but TWO world maps that overlay one another makes exploration even more exciting.

the bad: truly, no complaints here. it does require some patience. it's a little aged, and it's always possible to get lost without a guide, but so is it true for every game with a big overworld like zelda's.

the verdict: again, this game isn't story-heavy by today's standards, but back then it was more story than we'd ever gotten from a zelda game. as long as you don't go in expecting it to have an rpg kind of story, you'll probably enjoy it. if you don't like 2D zelda combat or need shiny graphics to keep your attention, give it a pass.

Link's Awakening (1993, 2019)

original console: gameboy/gameboy color, and a switch-exclusive remake

available on switch: yes - you can play the original with nso (basic) or the switch-exclusive remake

also available on: snes (super gameboy), gcn (gameboy player), gba, original ds (backwards compatibility), 3ds (virtual console), switch (remake), pc (emulation of any version)

average playtime: 14-19 hours for the original, 14-21 hours for the remake

mainline game: yes for the original, no for the remake, technically

sequel: technically a sequel to a link to the past, but they truly have nothing to do with each other

story-heavy: medium - similar story style to a link to the past. smaller cast and less overall dialogue, but more character work on marin specifically

edge level: usually pretty low, but in the rare moments when it jumps out it REALLY jumps out

the premise: while sailing, link becomes shipwrecked, washes up on shore of a remote place called koholint island, and is rescued by a girl named marin. with his boat in pieces, he has to go on a bittersweet adventure exploring the island and getting to know his rescuer in order to wake a mysterious being known as the windfish so he can go home.

the good: a tiny yet vast map, foreboding dungeons (hello, face shrine), a strange and quirky world that's impossible not to love with a small but charming cast to match (though, of course, the real stand-out character is marin), fun minigames, and a soundtrack that only got better in the remake. this game has it all! the story will surprise you by leaving you weeping at the end. there's not a huge difference to the gameplay between the original and the remake - it's mostly a graphical update, though they did add some side content.

the bad: it's one of those games that's different from the rest of the zelda series, which means it's not for everyone - there's no zelda, no ganondorf, no hyrule. also, getting the best ending is absolutely painstaking.

the verdict: what a wonderful game! the story is sparse but rewarding. if you don't like 2D zeldas, story-light games, or don't want to cry through the credits, you can give it a pass - but everyone else should love it.

Ocarina of Time (1998, 2011)

original console: nintendo 64, and a 3ds-exclusive remake

available on switch: yes, with nso (expansion pack)

also available on: gcn (port), wii, wii u (virtual console), 3ds (remake), pc (fan-port or emulation of either version)

average playtime: 25-40 hours

mainline game: yes

sequel: no

story-heavy: yes, medium-high. it wouldn't impress by today's standards but back then it WAS the standard

edge level: medium-high. it's horrifying in some respects, but overall very wistful and bittersweet

the premise: link, the local outcast, is ousted from his idyllic home after tragedy strikes in the form of ganondorf murdering his forest's guardian spirit. from there you'll explore hyrule to open an ancient doorway, and go on a time-traveling adventure in a last-ditch attempt to prevent a terrible future and heal a broken world that didn't always want you.

the good: what can i possibly say about ocarina of time that hasn't already been said? critically acclaimed as the best game of all time when it was made and still 25 years later (with only breath of the wild threatening to unseat it), this game is everything. this is the game that taught me to love stories, to love gaming, to love zelda. the world is full of secrets and places to explore, there's a kind of dual-overworld thing happening the way there was in alttp, there's a lot of collectibles and sidequests and TONS of minigames, there's a huge cast of characters with real depth, you can RIDE A HORSE, and the quite literal coming-of-age story has actual plot twists that affect the gameplay. this game defined the official timeline for zelda (massive spoilers at the link), it defined the series itself, it defined the genre and even the industry - games everywhere are still using concepts introduced (or made popular) here, like targeting enemies, context-sensitive buttons, dynamic soundtracks, and day-night cycles.

the bad: one of the dungeons is a shitty goddamn motherfucking royal pain in the ass. you know what i'm talking about. unless you don't, in which case i'm sorry. maybe it's less horrible in master mode, i don't know. also, like, it's not that the game has aged poorly, it's still a solid adventure, but it HAS aged. since basically every game you've ever played has emulated oot with stuff like lock-on targeting, these features won't feel as revolutionary and special to a new player today as they did to new players in 1998. that's not bad, but it has caused some people to get excited to look into the hype, pop the game in, and then go "wait, i don't get it."

the verdict: unless you absolutely cannot deal with playing a 25yo game, pick this up - for the historical value, if nothing else. i cannot more highly recommend any game that ever existed than i do this one. that said, for people who are new to GAMES IN GENERAL, it may not feel as intuitive as it did to new players in 1998, because speak a slightly different language now. new gamers should definitely still play this, but they should either use a guide or consider not making it their very first game. more experienced gamers should still be fine making this their first zelda game.

bonus verdict: as for which console to play it on - the 3ds version has a lot of quality of life adjustments, including gyroscopic controls and a master mode (gcn version also has master mode), and the graphical improvement is absolutely astounding...but it's on a teeny-tiny little screen. i think the best way to play ocarina of time, if you're able to, is to emulate the 3ds version with the fanmade 4k upgrade. of course, this requires a good pc, emulation skills, and a properly connected controller (i haven't done it yet myself) - so don't feel bad playing anyway you can access it.

Majora's Mask (2000, 2015)

original console: nintendo 64, and a 3ds-exclusive remake

available on switch: yes, with nso (expansion pack)

also available on: gcn (port), wii, wii u (virtual console), 3ds (remake), pc (emulation)

average playtime: 20-38 hours

mainline game: yes

sequel: yes, it's a direct sequel to oot. the opening may be a little confusing if you haven't played it but otherwise you're fine

story-heavy: yes, VERY. the character-work alone is unparalleled even by modern standards

edge level: EXTREMELY HIGH. this is without a doubt the darkest and most haunting game in the series

the premise: link, trying to escape his problems back home, gets thrown into an unfamiliar world where the moon is going to fall and destroy everything in only three days. with the help of multiple forms (link can shift into a deku, goron, or zora), and time travel, link relives the same three days over and over again, exploring clock town and the lands around it, and getting to know its people, so he can find a way to help everyone and prevent the oncoming apocalypse.

the good: holy cast of characters, batman! as with every zelda game, there is exploration and dungeon-crawling, and these are phenomenal here - of particular note is how the use of 4 different forms plays into puzzle-solving - but the real meat of this game comes from its incredible cast. near the beginning of the game you are given a journal, in which to note the schedules and habits of each and every resident of termina as you learn them. you play the same three days over and over, so while the clock is always ticking, there's an infinite time to get to know them. each character reacts to the upcoming armageddon differently: some are resigned, some are frightened, some are brave, and some are in denial. (notably, one minor character who appears brave crumbles in the final hours, begging not to die.) who these people are and the sorrows they carry around with them to the end of the world define this game and make it like no other.

the bad: look, it's a game about an upcoming apocalypse. you're on the sinking titanic and the clock counts down every precious second and no matter what you do there will ALWAYS be that time limit, which not everyone likes. it's stressful, and it can be sad and tragic, even upsetting at times, which is kind of a requirement for the powerful catharsis it also offers. it's very different to the usual zeldas - no zelda or ganondorf or hyrule - which also isn't everyone's bag. it's also a huge timesink - you really miss a lot of the point if you don't 100% it or at least get all of the masks, which takes a long time and a guide (although it is fun as hell the whole time).

the verdict: some people really hate the time limit and find it imposing. i mostly don't have a problem with it - sometimes i have to race to finish a task before i run out of time so i HAVE time to travel back before i get blown to bits, but without this mechanic, the game wouldn't work at all. famously, this game was made in only one year (hence the reused assets), so the pressure the devs felt really came out in their work. i think it's a fucking masterpiece, but it is a game about death, among other things, so if you need a feel-good title this one probably isn't your stop. that said, the incredibly powerful cast makes this game timeless - if not for the graphics you'd hardly know it's aged at all. even newer gamers should enjoy this one, but use a guide! for a game this complex it's more important to find everything than it is to do it blind.

bonus verdict: while the graphical improvements on the 3ds are wonderful, and the added fishing minigame is great, i mostly preferred the controls of the original. new players may not notice the difference, though!

Oracles of Ages & Oracle of Seasons (2001)

original console: gameboy color

available on switch: not at the time of writing, but nintendo has confirmed it is coming to nso (basic)

also available on: snes (super gameboy), gcn (gameboy player), gba, original ds (backwards compatibility), 3ds (virtual console), pc (emulation)

average playtime: 16-25 for oracle of ages, 15-21 for oracle of seasons, leading to about 31-46 hours total

mainline game: no

sequel: not linked to any other games in the series, but they're technically both sequels to each othjer - more below

story-heavy: no, about medium-low

edge level: low

the premise: link hears the triforce calling out to him, and when he investigates, is thrown into one of two words, depending on which game you're playing. these two games stand alone, but they can also be linked via a code so that your playthrough on one can be transferred over to the other (like golden sun, if you've ever played those games). you can choose which game to play first. at the end of your playthrough, you can get a code, which can then be entered on the other game - complete both and you get a secret special grand finale. somewhat like pokemon games, the games complement each other in their differences, thoguh the differences here are much more drastic - they have different overworlds and dungeons, a slightly different set of items, and a different way of interacting with the world (by either traveling through the ages or by changing the season). oracle of ages is focused on puzzle-solving, while oracle of seasons is focused on combat and action.

the good: what a dense and detailed little adventure these games are! with a double of everything from items sets to overworlds, there's a ton to do. the worlds have a ton of variety and can feel endless at times. and since they were built on (i think) the link's awakening engine, gameplaywise it's kind of like getting to play a really good sequel to that game for the first time...twice. the lore is fun, the lands are fun, there's a couple of unforgettable tracks i still listen to. since you can play the games in either order, there's a good bit of REplayability involved, because hardcore fans will want to experience it both ways - leading to two playthroughs of each game, meaning four total playthroughs, for up to a whopping total of 92 hours of gameplay. talk about bang for your buck!

the bad: the codes are a real pain in the ass to work with, and you really can't get by without them. not only is it essential for moving your file from one game to the other, but you can also use them to get special items from one file to another. it's SO EASY to enter these codes in wrong and SO TEDIOUS to have to check them character by character. here's hoping the nso version has a better way (though i'm not holding my breath).

the verdict: an absolute must for any 2d zelda fan. first-time players, i HIGHLY recommending playing ages first. there's an important side-character in ages whose story gets resolved in seasons, but not if you play seasons first. of course, if you really like the games a lot, you can always start over and play them in the other order for different cutscenes.

Wind Waker (2002)

original console: gamecube

available on switch: no :(

also available on: wii u (hd port), pc (emulation)

average playtime: 25-60 hours

mainline game: yes

sequel: technically, this is one POSSIBLE sequel to ocarina of time (which splintered the timeline, leading to multiple possible branching paths), though it takes place hundreds of years later. it has the same ganondorf from that game, but you should understand everything just fine whether you've played oot or not.

story-heavy: yes

edge level: medium-low - there are some more serious moments, and this is technically a post-apocalypse story, but overall this is one of the more bright and joyful games

the premise: this is a hyrule that was flooded by the gods when the hero of an ancient era could not show up to defeat ganondorf. people live on former mountaintops, now islands, interconnected by only the sea, and sailing is very dangerous. when link's younger sister is kidnapped, he has to leave his little island and go on a sea-faring adventure with pirates in order to get her back and unlock the mysteries of the hyrule beneath the waves.

the good: the game is vibrant, colorful, beautiful, and full of life. even if you don't like the cartoony art style (and i have mixed feelings), you can't deny the ambiance. there's a new combat system where for the first time you can pick up the dropped weapons of enemies, and the cast is stand-out - the "zelda" of this game is more hands-on than in any other title, and ganondorf is at his most sympathetic here, not to mention all the minor characters and their various sidequests. the characters are truly some of the funniest and most endearing yet - this game will make you laugh out loud. the enemies and bosses are unique and fun to grapple with (special shoutout to helmaroc king) and there's no shortage of stuff to do.

the bad: firstly, we have to mention the art style, which has been a little divisive over the years. it won't be for everybody. i like it for the most part, because you couldn't get the same vibe without it, but i do wish it was just a little less stylized - just a little! secondly, the game is just not finished. the development was rushed, leading to the cutting of an entire dungeon and a poorly-implemented second half where the focus shifts from exploration and dungeons to a near-ENDLESS fetch-quest for triforce pieces which involves a LOT of incredibly tedious and time-consuming sailing. (as kids, some trips were so long we could just set the direction and leave the controller on the floor while we took a bathroom break.)

the verdict: overall, the flaws aren't enough to ruin what is a truly great adventure. fans of the more serious games (hi! me!) may find themselves wishing wind waker had leaned into its post-apocalyptic setting and mysterious drowned world aspect more, and fans of lighter zeldas will find themselves wishing the damn thing was finished, but overall, everyone should find it's worth at least one playthrough, unless you absolutely cannot tolerate the visuals. fans of lighter zeldas, combat, and pirates will all love this one.

Four Swords (2002)

original console: gameboy advance

available on switch: no :(

also available on: 3ds (single-player remake), potentially pc (idk if emulation of the original is possible considering the connectivity, but you could almost certainly emulate the remake)

average playtime: 3-17 hours

mainline game: no

sequel: technically, it's a sequel to minish cap, but minish cap hadn't been made yet, so whatever

story-heavy: not at all

edge level: non-existent

the premise: link pulls the ancient "four sword" in order to defeat bad guy vaati and becomes split into 4 selves. this game was the first multiplayer zelda, and you had to have three friends, all with their own gameboys and link cables, to even play this bad boy. from what i understand in most of the game you just compete to see who can get the most rupees? a single-player version was released on the 3ds a few years later but i don't know if you can still buy it legit or if the 3ds store was shut down. since it was so inaccessible, pretty much no one played this, including me, so i can't give it a proper writeup. probably nobody reading this will ever get a chance to experience four swords how it was originally meant to be played either, but you can find this game's spirit in similar titles like four swords adventures or minish cap, which are much more accessible.

Four Swords Adventures (2004)

original console: gamecube

available on switch: no :(

also available on: uh yeah that's it. just the gamecube. you may be able to emulate it on pc though - i've never tried

average playtime: 15 hours

mainline game: no

sequel: teeechnically a sequel to the original four swords, but nobody played that, it's fine

story-heavy: not at all

edge level: very low

the premise: a sequel to four swords, this was intended to be the sleeker and (somewhat...) more accessible version. you can play this one as a single player, but my brother and i did it on co-op with a link cable and a gameboy sp - just the two of us, and no need to find two other friends - we each controlled two links each, to simplify it.

the good: the game is FUNNN as hell. the graphics are sleek as fuck because it's a 2d game running on a system capable of rendering 3d ones (just look at those flame effects!), the gameplay is addictive, and co-op puzzles are a blast. nintendo has always come out strong when it comes to in-person multiplayer (even if they have yet to catch up with online multiplayer...) and this is no exception. for anyone who ever wished they could sit on the floor and play zelda with their siblings the same way they played mario kart or smash bros, this game is a dream come true.

the bad: this game is still so GODDAMN inaccessible. we were lucky enough to have the gameboys and link cables we needed, but i don't have any idea how you'd go about playing it with other people now without some extremely tedious emulation or buying some extremely old (and expensive) gaming equipment. sure, emulating the single-player version on gcn is no big, but the game really shines in its multiplayer aspect, which is all but impossible for most people to enjoy now. it's incredibly frustrating.

the verdict: if you're lucky or rich enough to own a gamecube, a gameboy, and a link cable (multiple gameboys and link cables?) in 2023, AND you have a friend or three to play it with, please pick this one up. unless you just hate 2d zeldas, it is a FUCKING blast, and zelda fans the world over are probably envious they can't experience it for themselves.

Minish Cap (2004)

original console: gameboy advance

available on switch: yes, with nso (expansion pack)

also available on: original ds (backwards compatibility), 3ds, wii u (virtual console)

average playtime: 15-27 hours

mainline game: no

sequel: no, but it is a prequel to the four sword series (made well after those games were released)

story-heavy: medium-light - about the level of most 2d zelda games

edge level: very low - this is such a bright and cheerful adventure

the premise: in an adventure meant to explain vaati of four sword fame's origins, you meet teeny-tiny people known as the minish, who live in teeny-tiny spaces all over hyrule. they mend shoes, use pots and old boots as houses, fight dust mites, and leave surprise gifts such as rupees and hearts beneath pots and the like to help adventurers. by shrinking and growing you explore various nooks and crannies and solve a ton of puzzles, and through fusing items called kinstones with strangers you can change or uncover more of the overworld and unlock even more secrets

the good: the game is beautiful, bright, and fun. the soundtrack is catchy, the gameplay is addictive, the puzzles are very fresh, and the kinstone fusion feature means you'll be doing a lot of backtracking and replaying to see all this game has to offer.

the bad: besides zelda, i didn't find myself terribly enthralled with most of the cast. the reused sound effects from other games can be nostalgic sometimes but sometimes they feel a bit cheap, since they had to be downsized; they're the audio equivalent of a pixelated jpg. and as great as the soundtrack is, it suffered from the same thing.

the verdict: my nitpicks with this game are minor - i think it's a wonderful and fresh entry into the series, and probably one of if not the best 2D zelda. if you like 2D zelda at all, you'll want to pick it up.

Twilight Princess (2006)

original console: gamecube AND wii (i know)

available on switch: no :(

also available on: wii u (hd port), pc (emulation)

average playtime: 30-56 hours

mainline game: yes

sequel: technically, this is another possible sequel to oot, taking place 100 years later, and involving oot's ganondorf. (it has nothing to do with the timeline wind waker is on.)

story-heavy: yes, very - the cutscenes look great, the mocap for this game is wonderful

edge level: very high

the premise: 100 years after ocarina of time, darkness falls across hyrule in the form of "twilight," desolating every part of hyrule that it touches by turning its denizens into ghosts, and forcing princess zelda to surrender to zant, the king of the twilight realm. when link's village is destroyed by this twilight and he is turned into a wolf, he leaves to save zelda, save hyrule, and save his home. this game was meant to be a gcn title originally, but development was delayed for so long that they began co-developing it for the wii and released it as a launch title for that console.

the good: where do i start? this game was intended to be a return to oot's more realistic artstyle after many years of the wind waker art style in spin-off games, and was in fact a spiritual remake of oot in many ways. it is similar graphically, tonally, and gameplay wise - it's the oot they wanted to make in 1998, only with a more powerful engine, and fans loved it - check out this video of its announcement at e3 - it still gives me chills. famously, this game introduced horseback combat, which the devs had really wanted to implement in oot and were forced to give up on due to hardware limitations. the cast and the puzzles are all great on this one, and the world is huge and full of surprises, but of particular note is your partner midna, who comes with a better story and more personality than any partner before or since (sorry, king of red lions). lesbians and their associates will LOVE whatever the hell she has going on with zelda in this game. twilight princess also has the most fleshed-out swordplay of any zelda game - the various techniques you learn from the ghost swordsman are fun as hell, and every single boss battle in this game absolutely fucks.

the bad: despite its high moments, the story in this game is just a little weirdly paced. ganondorf was brought in kind of suddenly, and link's childhood friend from his village, whom the story focuses on a lot, is maybe not the most compelling character (sorry to ilia fans - she's okay, just not my favorite). not everybody liked this game's emulation of oot, and some people felt it was uninspired. personally, my gripes are mostly about the dual-console release; having played both versions multiple times, i think they both suffered from being co-developed. because the wii version uses motion controls and most people are right-handed they switched to a right-handed link for the wii (BLASPHEMY), meaning they actually flipped the entire world horizontally, and there are times when the laziness of this action is very apparent when playing the wii version. while the controls are superior on the wii (there's a mandatory shooting minigame that's all but impossible on gcn connected to a crt tv), the graphics just...look a little aged for a wii game, whereas they look damn good for a gamecube game. the hd remake fixes this, but since it's only on the wii u, fucking nobody has played it, and it remains inaccessible to most players except through emulation.

the verdict: if you can get your hands on this, do it. despite its flaws it's a classic meat-and-potatoes zelda adventure. fans of combat and more serious stories will especially love this one. personally, i preferred the gcn version because of left-handed link, but i do think the motion aiming on the wii (and wii u?) was a great addition, so it's a matter of preference as far as if you want the hd graphics and what controller feels correct in your hands.

Phantom Hourglass (2007)

original console: nintendo ds

available on switch: no :(

also available on: wii u (virtual console), pc (emulation)

average playtime: 17-31 hours

mainline game: no

sequel: a direct sequel to wind waker - not sure if you need to have played that to understand; from what i can tell there are actually a few plotholes

story-heavy: medium, i think?

edge level: low, as far as i know

the premise: after tetra gets sucked into a ghost shiop ad vanishes, link has to set sail on a new ship to find a way to free her. that's all i really know because, okay, up-front, i did not finish it. i did not give it a fair shake. it's got great reviews and they can't all be wrong, but i found controlling link with a stylus (the ds had no control stick) frustrating, the game hard to see (the graphics are trying to emulate ww's style on less capable hardware), and the story uncompelling (tetra? a damsel??). i know a lot of people really love linebeck and i wanna love him too one day, but until then, get your answers from the people who love this game!

Spirit Tracks (2009)

original console: nintendo ds

available on switch: no :(

also available on: wii u (virtual console), pc (emulation)

average playtime: 20-33 hours

mainline game: no

sequel: to wind waker and phantom hourglass, technically, though it takes place 100 years after those games

story-heavy: medium, i think?

edge level: low, as far as i know

the premise: 100 years after wind waker and phantom hourglass, a new hyrule has been founded above the waves and it has TRAINS. for some reason zelda gets zapped out of her body and can now follow you around as a cool ghost who possesses bigass statues to help you out. that's right, your partner for this game IS ZELDA. the main theme for this game is so catchy it's a crime. i never played this since i didn't finish phantom hourglass, but it looks so fucking cool that i wanna power through phantom hourglass despite my initial reservations just so i can take a crack at it.

Skyward Sword (2011)

original console: wii

available on switch: yes, as an hd port

also available on: wii u (virtual console & backwards compatibility), pc (emulation)

average playtime: 30-58

mainline game: yes

sequel: no - in fact, it's the prequel to every zelda, being that it's the very first one in the timeline

story-heavy: yes, very

edge level: mostly low, but it does have its serious moments

the premise: taking place at the very start of zelda's long and complex timeline, this game seeks to explain the origins of hyrule's creation and and some of its mythology. link and the other proto-hylians live in islands high above the clouds and attend the school for flying around on bigass birds, not knowing if there even is a world below, until one day zelda (not a princess but the headmaster's daughter) gets dragged down by a dark force, and link must venture into the land below to save her.

the good: skyward sword is oozing ambiance. a standout area of this game is lanayru desert, in which you can use a timeshift stone to shift the area directly around you back in time by 1000 years or so and watch it come to life with greenery. this soundtrack is fully orchestrated, we get to hear zelda sing (her first voice acting debut!), and when the motion controls are on, they're REALLY on. sometimes the swordfights feel like actual duels. the cast of side-characters all get a lot of development (shoutout to my man groose!), and the villains are creepy and quirky. the dungeons in skyward sword are especially good - the cistern in particular is one of the best in the game, but we can't forget the ghost ship or the sky temple either. minor spoilers for the story, here, but finding out WHY there are so many zelda games and the struggle against evil never ends (it's a literal curse) was really cool and really reframed how a lot of people saw the series and the characters - it's a lot more tragic that they have a fate they can't escape from so long as zelda fans want more games.

the bad: minor spoilers for the story here too. as far as prequels go it did not make a lot of sense. there's nothing about the three goddesses we've come to know and love, only about the minor goddess hylia, and the ancient hyrule features species that don't ever make another appearance mole guys and seahorse dudes. there aren't any zoras or gerudo or koroks/kokiri, there's only one goron, we only see two sheikah...it feels so far removed from the hyrule we know that it doesn't feel like a prequel at all. additionally, when the motion controls aren't good, they're REALLY bad - especially on the switch version, which has less precise controls than the wii. finally, while i personally didn't mind it (puzzles!), a lot of people disliked how linear the overworld was and complained there was no exploration. another common frustration, one which i share, is how much the game holds your hand. (this famously inspired toriel in the game undertale to LITERALLY hold your hand and do the puzzle for you.) this game will present a puzzle and then have the nearest npc (most often fi, poor fi, she undeservedly gets all the blame for this) explain how to do it before giving you even one chance to try for yourself.

the verdict: it has its flaws, but i still enjoy it a lot. i think more experienced players will be very frustrated with it at times, and people who hate motion mechanics or constant alerts/lots of useless dialogue will be miserable. (you can turn motion controls off in the switch version but it feels unnatural because of how sword-swinging works.) on the other hand, the game's linear and hand-holdy nature actually makes it a perfect start for brand new gamers, especially given where it falls on the timeline.

A Link Between Worlds (2013)

original console: 3ds

available on switch: no :(

also available on: pc (emulation)

average playtime: 16-23 hours

mainline game: no

sequel: takes place at least 100 years after a link to the past, and even uses the same overworld! you don't have to play that to understand this though.

story-heavy: medium, about the level you expect for 2d zeldas

edge level: medium-high

the premise: link turns into a little flat guy so he can go more places! this is a sequel involving the inhabitants of lorule, a parallel world to hyrule, one without a triforce. go back and forth between kingdoms to save hyrule from suffering the same fate, all while trying to kick a giant rabbit guy out of your house.

the good: the puzzles in this one are really fun and fresh, the old overworld map feels super nostalgic, the music is charming, and being able to tackle the dungeons in any order is a nice touch. i especially loved getting to know certain inhabitants of lorule.

the bad: the non-linear style won't be for everyone, and i wish i had been able to spend more time getting to know hilda in particular.

the verdict: this in my opinion is one of the best 2D zeldas - if you're a 2D zelda fan, especially a alttp fan, don't miss it!

Hyrule Warriors (2014, 2016, 2018)

original console: wii u

available on switch: yes, as a remake/collection

also available on: this is complicated. the game was originally released on wii u, then ported to the 3ds with new added content but i think mising some other content, and then FINALLY released on the switch with ALL the content. you can also emulate any version on the pc

average playtime: 17-38 hours, though people report up to a whopping 366 hours to 100% it

mainline game: no

sequel: no

story-heavy: medium-ish. there's cool cutscenes but it's not that deep

edge level: low, this shit is just balls to the wall crazy-ass fun

the premise: a crossover between dynasty warriors and zelda. turn zelda into a beat-em-up and add cameos from popular characters doing increasingly batshit anime fighting moves. what's not to like?

the good: this game is insane. the electric guitar soundtrack, the cameos, the nostaliga - it's all here. the gameplay is good mindless fun you can really sink your teeth into, and despite it not being the point i had fun running around and exploring all the maps. there's so, so, SO much to do (366 hours!) you will literally never see the end of it.

the bad: the OCs are maybe not my favorite people. i don't know if they come from other dynasty warriors games but they were a little annoying and truly, uh, underdressed. also, as someone who likes to 100% games, it annoys me that i'll likely never 100% this, just because of the sheer timesink/grinding required.

the verdict: if you like fighting games and combat, this is for you. if you're into zelda for the serious story stuff and the puzzles, give it a pass. completionists beware, 100%ing this game is NOT for the faint-hearted.

Tri Force Heroes (2015)

original console: 3ds

available on switch: no :(

also available on: pc (emulation)

average playtime: 14-26 hours, but up to 56 hours to 100% it

mainline game: no

sequel: takes place a few years after a link between worlds - not sure if you need to play that to understand this, but it seems unlikely

story-heavy: doesn't look like it

edge level: low. oh my god, he's in a little cheerleader outfit. look at him

the premise: i don't really know, i think you crossdress to gain superpowers and then solve puzzles with your buds. i didn't play this one because i didn't have 2 friends with a 3ds and a flexible schedule. apparently there's a one-player mode, but it just doesn't seem as fun, and the lack of a 2-player mode is sad because my brother and i could've rocked it. like the four swords series, this looks like great multiplayer fun, but it's inaccessible to people without the time or coordination to get 3 people together. it looks fun as hell, though.

Breath of the Wild (2017)

original console: dual launch on wii u and switch

available on switch: yes, obviously :)

also available on: pc (emulation)

average playtime: 50-100 hours, though to 100% everything and enjoy the dlc it could take up to 210!

mainline game: yes

sequel: technically, it's a sequel to everything, since it takes place at the end of (somehow) every timeline. but you don't have to have any prior experience to enjoy it

story-heavy: medium-heavy? this is the first zelda game with voice acting, and what cutscenes it does have are amazing, but you can expect to see only a very few of them

edge level: very high (this is once again post-apocalyptic), but not as high as majora's mask or twilight princess

the premise: link wakes after a 100 year sleep with no memory of who he is or what happened to the ruined world around him. explore a completely open world in your own way at your own pace, recover your memories, rescue zelda.

the good: this game hit the industry at a thousand miles per hour and six years later the hype still hasn't slowed down. this redefined the series and the genre in a way we haven't seen since oot in 1998. this game is revolutionary in the way that oot was revolutionary back then, but updated so that newer players find it just as surprising and refreshing as new players in 1998 found oot back then. the exploration, the physics, and the world are all totally unparalleled - three decades later, this zelda truly gets back to the original explorer and adventuring spirit miyamoto tried so hard to capture in the very first legend of zelda game all the way back in 1986.

the bad: as much fun as this world is to play around in, i found that most of my joy came from the exploration and not knowing what i'd find around the next corner. it's still a very, very, VERY good game, but i found that on my replay it just didn't have that same shininess that other games in the series do when i replay them. and, of course, because it's so different it's very divisive - there's no human ganondorf in this game, no dungeons - all your puzzle-solving comes in microdungeons called shrines scattered around hyrule. weapon durability is also a hotly debated feature - even i found it frustrating at times, although in many ways the forced improvisation it brings to the table is more than worth the cost of admission. and overall the enemies are all the same and have no real difference between them, even the bosses, and the boss fights kind of suck. it's a really good game, but it does have its flaws.

the verdict: this is the perfect starting point for anyone new to the series. many people have started with this game and learned about hyrule alongside the amnesiac link - i had an extremely interesting discussion once with someone on tumblr about how the game is different if you've grown up loving hyrule and see it get torn apart, vs if the only hyrule you know IS the one that's torn apart. both ways are wonderful experiences, and i think even non-zelda fans would find something to love in the freedom this game offers.

Cadence of Hyrule (2019)

original console: switch

available on switch: yes, obviously :)

also available on: pc (emulation)

average playtime: 6-11 hours, but you can add up to 12 more if you play the dlc

mainline game: no

sequel: no

story-heavy: not really

edge level: low

the premise: a crossover with crypt of the necrodancer, a roguelike rhythm game. there's no real story here except, notably, a brief cameo of a younger ganondorf, though his back is always turned to you. (if you could go back and kill ganondorf as a baby...)

the good: well, a rhythm game's gotta have good music, right? both the rehashes of the old songs and the new music are absolutely stellar here. i'm normally iffy on rhythm games but i found the gameplay addictive (there's a strong tactical element to moving around) and the exploration fun. getting to play as zelda (!!!) if you want is a great bonus, too. there's really nothing not to love.

the bad: the kind of movement you have in this game doesn't lend itself super well to boss fights most of the time. they weren't bad by any means but definitely one of the weaker parts of the experience.

the verdict: unless you hate rhythm games or hate fun, you'll like this one, especially if you're a crypt of the necrodancer fan or a fan of zelda's music in general. puzzle fans might be disappointed there aren't as many mind-twisters in this one, though.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (2020)

original console: switch

available on switch: yes, obviously :)

also available on: pc (emulation)

average playtime: 25-40 hours, though it can take up to 76 hours to 100% it

mainline game: no

sequel: a direct prequel to breath of the wild and its eventual but as-of-yet unreleased sequel tears of the kingdom

story-heavy: yes

edge level: relatively low, i'm told

the premise: so this is a prequel to botw, taking place during the era just before the apocalypse. i didn't finish it because it came out right around nov 5 2020 (iykyk) and then someone spoiled the ending for me and i thought it sounded stupid, so i was less motivated to play. what little i did play of it was great, though - it was exciting and fun in all the ways the original hyrule warriors was but bigger and badder in every respect, and with a little more of that somber botw flavor. i intend to finish before totk comes out despite my reservations about the story.

The Conclusion

it's a great time to be a zelda fan because out of the 22 games on this list, only 8 of them are unavailable on nintendo switch, and only 2 of those are what i would consider to be mainline games. that means you can access two thirds of the ENTIRE SERIES, spanning almost 4 decades, on a single console! your only limits are your time and your wallet. most of the ones that AREN'T available on the switch can be played on a 3ds, so if you have or buy one, nearly the entire series is at your fingertips. (you can emulate the shit out of your 3ds, btw, and play a lot of these gameboy, gba, and ds games for free - nintendo isn't looking anymore so they don't care.)

sorry i couldn't fully cover all games - i welcome opinions from people who have played games i've missed in the tags. when i do get around to playing them, i will come back and update this guide! expect an entry for totk eventually too. thanks for reading and i hope it was helpful to someone!

#loz posts #the legend of zelda #zelda #breath of the wild #tears of the kingdom #whew!! glad to have THAT off my chest.#liz makes stuff #?? sure #liz's loz stuff #loz meta #anyway. i hope it's useful to at least one person but literally don't even worry about it. i just wanted to talk to myself about zelda

199 notes · View notes

sittingoverheredreaming · 1 year

Text

TOTK is so great but its story mostly doesn’t hit for me so

THINGS I WOULD CHANGE (major spoilers ahead)

Sonia purposely reaches through time for help against Ganondorf and that’s how Zelda ends up specifically in their time

Rather than being the first king and queen of Hyrule, Rauru and Sonia are the Zonai rulers in an unspecified past era prior to the 10,000 years ago of the Calamity legend

Also, instead of being Zelda’s ancestors, they are Link’s

BULLET TIME IS CLEARLY A TIME POWER, ZELDA DIDN’T HAVE TIME POWERS IN BOTW

BotW/TotK Link is more than just an ordinary dude but there’s no sign he’s chosen by the goddesses like in some other games so why not say he’d descended from the Zonai and a magical monster fucker with time powers

This also makes more sense why they think Zelda could make a difference, because her powers wouldn’t just be copies of Rauru and Sonia’s

I think also it would be cool to have her be the Sage of Light while Rauru is the royalty/leader of the sages, basically a role swap from Ocarina of Time

Ganondorf (implied to have been resurrected rather than born into the Gerudo as a new man) originally wanted to ally with the Zonai against Hyrule

Rather than being with the Gerudo, he’s with the beginnings of the Yiga clan (the Yiga are said to have been formed after the first Calamity, but the Shiekah have had a long cycle of being used and then discarded/persecuted by Hyrule’s rulers so I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to have it start before and history has just misattributed it to post-Calamity)

Part of Ganondorf’s argument is that the Sheikah of the time are copying Zonai designs and technology for the Hylian Royal Family’s use, and must be stopped (so much was SO similar I really thought it would be addressed)

The Royal Family already has the blood of the goddess/Triforce/etc, and still they reach for more

Ganondorf blames Sonia, as she is Rauru’s Hylian wife, for the refusal, which is why he targets her specifically

But the Zonai are a fading people, and even if they had the strength and numbers to stand against Hyrule Kingdom, the Sheikah using their technology and building on it is a way their work can survive after they’re gone, and they bear no ill will towards Hyrule

I wish I could have Sonia not die because I love her but that part of the story and the Light Dragon stuff are both solid

BUT before shit starts going down WE SEE HER AND RAURU’S KID. They clearly have one and I’m mad we didn’t see it, why will Nintendo not show us characters’ kids (yes I am still mad Age of Calamity didn’t address if Urbosa had a child/heir)

Bonus points if the kid like, accidentally enters bullet time while playing around and that’s how Zelda starts putting together that she’s with Link’s ancestors

From there the past mostly unfolds the same as in-game, but maybe with a little more individuality from the sages so the moment when they see Zelda fly off as the Light Dragon hits a little harder

Rauru’s final lines about Link also then will have the weight of knowing Link is his descendant, Ganondorf has failed in eliminating their future

The present is mostly the same as well, except Link gains recall from a tear Zelda hid for him that amplifies the time powers he already has, rather than her giving him her own powers

Then in the final fight, once Ganondorf has swallowed the tear, he moves to attack Lookout Landing, and Link does the only thing he can think of to save everyone– he sends Ganon, along with himself and the Light Dragon, back in time

The fight progresses as it does in the game, up until Link breaks open the tear on Ganon’s forehead

Instead of dying, all Ganon’s malice pours out, coating the dragon and making it near invincible

This is the origin of Calamity Ganon

But this is not the time of legend, it is before, while the Shiekah have begun their work based on the Zonai designs, they are not prepared for an attack

Ganon must be sealed until they are ready, and there’s only one person who can do it

Link calls on all the power of the sages through his hand, reaching through time to draw their power and combine it with his own, and uses everything he has to reverse the tear out of Zelda and return her to her original form

His magic arm shatters in the process. He does not get his original arm back

Zelda seals the Calamity, knowing it’s temporary, knowing that even after everything she’s done, she cannot prevent the tragedies that have already happened. The best they can do is know that they’ve paved the way for their future where he can be fully defeated.

We end on her collapsing against Link, silent for a long moment, and then just, “Link, take me home.”

#tears of the kingdom #totk #totk spoilers #tears of the kindom spoilers #the legend of zelda #tloz #also I'm not a Zelink shipped but why the FUCK did they not hug in the last (not-post credits) scene??#Even if Zelda doesn't remember being the dragon she remembers deciding to sacrifice herself AND ALSO SEEING A WOMAN GET MURDERED #but then she's just like lol I have SUCH a good story to tell you Link #NO!! LET THEM COMFORT EACH OTHER #long post

98 notes · View notes

griseldabanks · 1 month

Text

20 Questions for the Writer

Tagged by @rainintheevening

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

131

2. What is your total Ao3 word count?

822,681

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mostly Captain America/MCU and FMA these days, but I also have fics on AO3 for Daredevil, Dororo, Star Wars, Supernatural, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Make Me Whole (Captain America), Back from the Brink (Dororo), of skulls and secrets (FMA), Shards of Me (Captain America), and Your Arms Feel Like Home (Captain America)

Still boggles my mind every time I realize my second-most kudoed fic is the random Dororo fic I wrote for a Christmas present one year @_@

5. Do you respond to comments?

I make a point to reply to every comment I can! ^_^ I just really want to share my stories with other people and talk to them about them!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hmm...of the ones posted on AO3, I'm not sure. Maybe "Rejected?" It's an FMA fic where Ed gives up his life to bring Al's body back, so that's pretty angsty ^^'

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Pretty hard to beat the ending of Make Me Whole ;) Reunions of old friends, heartfelt confessions, sobbing on each other's shoulders, followed by an overjoyed birthday celebration! The "epilogue" of sorts of Shards of Me might be even happier, though, because you get to see how good things turn out for them a few years down the road <3

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I don't think I have on AO3. I did very occasionally on FFNet (mostly from one particularly weird guy who had other issues besides the quality of my fics).

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Nope!

10. Do you write crossovers?

Yes! I love the kind of crossover where, rather than characters from different stories meeting each other, you just replace the characters from one story with the characters from another. My most recent, a FMA/Firefly crossover, is coming to mind - FMA characters replace the Firefly characters and go through the same basic plot as the first episode of Firefly. Another one I'm really proud of is "All We've Got to the End of the Line," where I put the Elric brothers in Steve and Bucky's position, and vice versa.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Years ago, there was one fic of mine that got translated into Spanish, I think.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes, though unfortunately most of the co-written fics I've worked on have not gotten finished before the relationship fell apart :/

But a huge shout-out to @sergeanttomycaptain, who helped me brainstorm my Whole Shards series and even wrote large chunks of it herself, though she's not "officially" a co-writer.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

My longest running OTP is Royai <3 I'll always love them and what the understated subtlety of their relationship has taught me. A very honorable mention goes to Staron - though admittedly, a lot of the stuff I love most is stuff I had to come up with myself because of how the canon ruined Sharon's character -_-

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Years ago, I started writing a Haibane Renmei fic with a full cast of OCs, just because I wanted to explore that world more and try my hand at writing a story even halfway as uplifting and wholesome as that. Unfortunately, there was never really any plot to speak of, so while I really like the characters I came up with, I have no idea where to go with it, and probably never will because I have too many stories to write that I do know what I want to do with. Alas, Kabe the Sin-Bound Haibane will probably be consigned to the dust forever.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I'm good at writing endings, and judging from people's reactions, I'm pretty good at making people cry! But like...in a healing/comforting sort of way. I also think I have the strength of tenacity (or stubbornness, if you'd rather), to finish what I set out to do even if it takes a really long time.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Fights/action scenes. Intentional humor. Differentiating dialogue/thoughts so it really sounds like the character.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I'm always paranoid about doing that, even if I have a decent enough grasp of the language that I'm completely sure I know what they're saying ^^' But then, I'm the kind of person who will write something in English, my native tongue, and then second-guess whether that's actually the way to say it or whether I sound like an idiot. I'm trying to loosen up about such things, though, because more diversity in a fic makes it more fun.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Final Fantasy X. I started writing a novelization of the game before I even knew what I was doing was fanfiction!

20. Favourite fic you've written?

Ohhhh, that's really hard to narrow down. But one of the fics that's nearest and dearest to my heart is the fic I'm currently in the process of posting, Take Me In. Please consider reading it if you like Captain America!

Tagging @dairogo, @x-i-l-verify, and @x-rainflame-x if you'd like to do this!

#tag games

8 notes · View notes

spirit-tracks · 2 months

Text

I just started Hyrule Warriors (the og) for the first time!!! I got the game secondhand and dusted off Ol' Reliable (WiiU) so I can finally see what the fuss is all about. I know it's a Fighting Game about an interdimensional war and watched like one video of gameplay maybe five years ago? But that's all I know going in.

(I also played a little bit of Age of Calamity on my brother's switch back when it came out, but I never could understand what the hell was happening on the screen at any given moment, so this is fairly fresh of an experience for me.)

Some thoughts!:

The game's art style, fighting gimmick, and cutscenes reminds me a LOT of Super Smash Bros for the Wii, specifically story mode

Link is indeed just as Sexy as everyone makes him out to be. His voice is nice to listen to and the Blue Scarf is quite fetching

Shiek is SO FUN TO PLAY AS and I love being in the Know about their identity because Impa keeps going "I sure do hope Zelda is okay :(((" and I'm giving Shiek the eyeballs 👁👁 like "when are you going to tell her"

I only know the barest barest bare minimum about Lana and Cia going in but I am liking Cia as a villain so far, the reality breaking is awesome and also her bird mask is cool as hell

A lot of people consider this the non-canon explanation for the converging of the timelines, and although I'm not really on board with the Timeline Convergence theory, I DO See The Appeal of this explanation because the cutscene where all the different worlds started to collide and Skyloft was on the same map as Twilight Princess's Bridge of Eldin,,, my inner nerd is screaming

The game unloaded a LOT of mechanics on me all at once, which was a little overwhelming, but I think I'm getting the hang of it just by way of spamming the hell out of my attack button and hoping for the best. I'm starting to learn which button patterns make for my favorite attacks and how the item switching and special attacks help in certain areas. I also read through the tutorials like 5 times each. Despite how much STUFF is going on at any given moment, Im getting the hang of it surprisingly quickly.

It's somewhat difficult to keep track of what the other warriors are saying in the corner of the screen while I'm trying to focus on killing enemies, but I really like how they keep you updated on what's going on all over the battlefield, so that you can react and strategize accordingly. Speaking of the battlefield, I'm SO BAD AT NAVIGATING THE MINIMAP

It didn't take me long to catch on about how to reclaim bases and outposts, and I find a lot of satisfaction in taking back land, especially with the variety of monsters we get from across the other games. Bosses will have the same weaknesses from their og games, and I'm having a blast trying to remember how I killed Dodongo or Gohma in Ocarina of Time so that I can kill them in this game too. It's so rewarding when I get it right!

I've just completed the Valley of Seers, and I'm gonna pick it up again tomorrow maybe! I'm actually really surprised with how much fun I'm having so far, since I'm not usually all that big on Fighting Games, but it definitely helps that it's Zelda specifically 😂

#i did indeed pick this game up just so that i can get a better understanding of warriors but that's neither here nor there #it was only like ten bucks #im not sure if it's the definitive edition? it would be a real shame if it wasn't negate id really like to play as young link #but its fine if it isn't ill just watch gameplay on yt now that i actually understand what's going on #i really do love the atmosphere of this game #it hypes you up like crazy and gets the competitive spirit going #i hear all the time that this link is a soldier and a captain and that was all well and good #but when i Play the game i can FEEL it #he's a SOLDIER and he kills monsters in spades and rushes to help other captains and squadrons #he reclaims bases and strategizes with impa and shiek and leads the other soldiers into the fray #it's just really cool is all #hyrule warriors #hyrule warriors definitive edition #maybe?#wicked plays loz

13 notes · View notes

genericpuff · 10 months

Text

Remembering My Roots - Rest in Peace, RateMyDrawings

I've talked about my old art before on here, but never really fully in-depth about the site that hosted it. I was reminded of it today while going through my FB memories and felt like I should actually write a true eulogy towards what once was.

Once upon a time, before LORE | REKINDLED, before Time Gate: [AFTERBIRTH], before I had even started drawing webcomics, I entered the world of digital art through one website - not DeviantArt, not Pixiv, but a little site called RateMyDrawings. Back in the day, it was one of the most popular browser-supported art tools, offering multiple different art tools that were, at the time, revolutionary. A flash drawing tool which could replay the progress of your drawing (but the tradeoff was that you had a limited amount of 'ink' aka recording data), a Java-supported tool that was essentially Photoshop Lite (but didn't come with the recording), and later, a more refined tool supported by HTML5 (?) that offered more 3D-like brush tools. There was also DrawChat, a live drawing flash tool where you could draw with others and chat.

And on that site, I created my first works of digital art. No drawing tablet, just a mouse and a loooot of patience. They'd host contests every now and then to win budget Wacom tablets. Sometimes I'd enter, I'd never win. I did eventually get my first drawing tablet, but by then, I'd moved on from RMD onto actual software such as GIMP and Photoshop Elements.

That site is gone now, one of the first art site deaths I'd ever experience in my teen years. I was around 12-13 when I started using this site and I adored it. When people talk about missing the 'tight-knit communities' of old, I don't think of DA, I think of RMD, my first home. Unfortunately, the site couldn't survive in the 'modern' era of the Internet, overshadowed by more advanced tools and art-sharing sites like Deviantart, Facebook, and Instagram.

But I did manage to backup some of my old art pieces before the site finally became completely shuttered in the early 2020's. For a while the site was awake but lacked any content or features, with a message from the site's creator Mick that it might come back, it might not.

It didn't. The old ratemydrawings.com URL now redirects to the inactive FB page. Any attempt to bypass that kill screen like before leads to an Error 404.

But while the site was in its comatose state - before it was shuttered permanently - I was able to access my old profile and extract some of my art pieces of old. I posted them to my FB about 3 years ago, and today they showed up in my memories.

I share a lot of art pieces from creators like Rachel Smythe in an attempt to preserve media. But I also need to remember to preserve my own. So here are a handful of the 100+ pieces I drew on RMD. Enjoy ( ´ ∀ `)ノ～ ♡

Don't be confused by the '1987' part of the username, I picked that number because I was a huge Zelda weeb and 1987 was the year the first Zelda game was made. Whoof.

What's ironic is I actually didn't have the Featured Artist award last time I was actively on the site, so it clearly happened while I was inactive in its final days. The one award I wanted the most and I wasn't there to witness getting it. RIP.

Unfortunately that's all I really have in the way of high-resolution drawings as I wasn't able to preserve much else (though if I find anything more I'll definitely add it to this post!) That said, I was able to nab some screenshots of my homepage via the Wayback Machine where you can see more of the pieces I did back then:

There are so many dorky ass drawings here, some from Time Gate (because it's that freaking old!!!), some are screenshot recreations from anime that I enjoyed (a very common trend on RMD), some are collaborations. There was a point where I learned how to color with the mouse by using low opacity colors and layering them one at a time. Really upped my game there LMAO That Ocarina of Time Link drawing was the first one I ever did that made it to the front page of RMD and y'all, I was so proud, the site back then I think had 50k users total which is nothing compared to the Internet today, but achieving that was one of the greatest things ever LOL The Skyward Sword drawing that followed was one that really felt like a milestone in terms of my art evolution, I felt like I was finally creating something good. I believe I did that Skyward Sword drawing off another DA piece at the time, it was really common to do redraw challenges on RMD what with the technical limitations of the site - I suppose redrawing stuff I liked back then should have been foreshadowing LMAO

That feeling wouldn't last forever ofc once the art high wore off, but even to this day I look back on the pieces from that era fondly. It's where the mysteries of digital art finally started to 'click' in my brain, and I had still barely gotten started.

I also have a few drawings preserved that were done after I got my first drawing tablet, and you can really tell with the improvement of the lineart LOL That said, I think I was around 18-19 when I did these:

Now, one thing that I really enjoyed doing on RMD were collabs - specifically, trading collabs where users would exchange drawing files through the RMD PM system with one another to do steps of a drawing together. Often times I took the role of coloring other people's lineart pieces, which is probably where I started to really learn digital art coloring and come into my own with it.

A collab with user "lime":

Collab with user "Mikai":

A collab with user "Overik", which I specifically remember struggling with because, at the time, my computer monitor's screen was messed up resulting in the entire thing basically being a fluorescent pink:

A collab with "Mist04" that I don't remember doing lmao:

Collab with "Adzumi" (?). I'm fairly certain that's who it was, I definitely remember the process of painting this one, I had loads of fun with it:

Collab with user "ForgottenArtist", IIRC this one was more of a coloring page where they gave out the file freely for others to color, so this was my version. The forums on RMD were great for that sort of thing, people would literally just upload their drawing files for people to have fun with:

So I guess I drew this next little thing in 2021 when the site was still 'live' but not functional, I completely forgot I did this though LMAO Basically the main URL took you to that kill page I showed above, but if you knew any of the extension slugs, you could bypass that kill page and get into the rest of the site, which I was able to by using my username URL. So I got into the Java drawing tool and made this little thing in the hopes I could upload it. Of course, it didn't work, but hey, it was worth getting a screenshot, I suppose:

It's equal parts nostalgic and bittersweet to go through these drawings. Life back then feels so far away and yet I still remember it so vividly, the hours I'd spend drawing on the family PC, feeling more at home with the friends I made online than the ones I had in real life, listening to music that I still listen to to this day. It's far away now, but it still lives through me, in the work I do today. Even someone like me can go from being a complete noob drawing with a mouse to a professional making their living stabbing ink into other people while still drawing the same stories they drew as a child.

There is one piece I had to dig up outside of FB memories, fortunately it wasn't hard to find because I knew I had shared it ages ago on my FB so the search bar saved my skin. My very first digital art piece, of Sheena Fujibayashi from Tales of Symphonia, one of my favorite games of all time.

My very first digital art drawing:

Recreated in 2019:

Past me went through a lot, and they'd be doomed to go through even more still (they hadn't hit the plague yet). And yet they're going to survive, they're gonna keep getting better and better with each passing year. Thanks past me - you've done a lot of dumb shit in your life, but sticking with your craft wasn't one of them. Thank you for walking - through all the good and the bad that you've had to weather through - so that I could run for us both.

#i have other things i wanna mention about old RMD as well but they're better for another post #self post #old art #media preservation #digital art #ratemydrawings

39 notes · View notes

theoldaeroplane · 6 months

Note

I inbox you the following: I must know what compels you about Link. I trust that he is Good and Excellent, but I simply yearn for an essay on what little niche trait makes you wanna fandom the fuck out of this little guy. 5-10 paragraphs of hyper fixated ramblings preferred, but not required.

ohhh starkid you've given me A GIFT. a GIFT.

So some background first, I think. I've always liked the Zelda games, in the way you play a mainstream game and are like "yeah that was good!" I played Ocarina of Time and Windwaker as a kid. I played Breath of the Wild when it first came out and had a fun time with it. Yeah. Good games! Fun mechanics. Characters seem a little flat, but they aren't why I'm here. What was the story again? Oh, right---yeah, they gave Zelda an actual personality that doesn't start and end with "princess" in the new one! She's a scientist! How neat.

Then Tears of the Kingdom comes out. I've just gotten a Steam Deck for my birthday and wow, turns out you can emulate TOTK already?? I try it out immediately. It's janky, but I love messing with emulators, so I keep going. I certainly don't have the cash to buy TOTK properly.

And in TOTK, for me, it starts with Zelda. It starts with this young woman barely out of her teens being flung into a horrible, frightening situation, and being forced to make an absolutely terrifying choice. And it turns out if you start looking at her more closely, that choice only becomes more and more viscerally upsetting as you incorporate things about her from the previous game.

It got me invested, and I still adore Zelda. I could probably write just as long a deliberation about her. But we're talking about Link.

I read a little bit of BOTW fanfic back when it first came out. It was almost all Sidon/Link stuff, because I liked the ship for a number of reasons, and one evening after another night of mainlining TOTK I decide to go look and see if I can find some that I remembered being good. I did, and they were still mostly good! But there was one in particular, with one line in particular. "You're Always Almost There," by Polyhexian. (On mobile so no link, sorry!)

'One hundred years ago,’ Link signed, 'A Guardian shot me through the chest,’ he grimaced as if in pain from even mentioning it, 'I died with everyone else, and then someone else decided to bring me, and only me, back to life to fix everything, to save everyone. I have to stop the Calamity. I have to save Hyrule. I have to fix the world. I am not a real person. I am everyone’s unfinished business.’

I had read it before. When I read it this time I closed my browser, opened Typora, and started writing. It wasn't more than a random narrative sifting through half collected ideas, and I neither finished nor posted it, but it got me started. A few weeks later I started writing To Be Well, which among other things directly addresses the idea that Link does not think of himself as a "real person"---and that he isn't sure if he wants to.

As I've written him, I've found more and more about him and his setting that fascinates me. Part of this is certainly that Link is intentionally designed as a "placeholder" character (word of God is he was deliberately designed to be androgynous to make it easier for more people to project on him). At first I was really fascinated by his relationship with Zelda, and wanted to look at that through a queerplatonic lens. In doing that I found myself trying to work through some problems of my own, which it turns out is just how I write fanfiction I guess: projecting! Huzzah! I decided to lean into it, and wrote "You do not have to be good," which is a story that takes some liberties with the canon to explore the subject of toxic purity and the toll it takes. Also, the logistics of kissing someone with a beak.

What makes Link compelling to me is ... what do you do, when you aren't allowed to be a person? What do you do when you've been told all your life things are like this and this and this, and that you must behave thusly? What if you learn it was never true? How do you go from "perfect" to "real"? What does it even mean, being a person? How do you start? Is it even worth it?

I feel like I'm only scratching the surface, haha. I also love Link for whatever the hell he's doing with gender, and I've been having an absolute blast writing him as predominantly communicating via sign language. I'm playing fast and loose with a lot of things that only get half-mentioned in canon, and having a good old time playing in the sandbox of Hyrule. They're huge games and there's a lot of space for me to set up shop!

#loz link #tbw link #love that little freak #let him rest

10 notes · View notes

cow-legs · 7 months

Note

What are some of your favorite videogames? ♡ ♡ ♡

(extremely long post incoming lol turns out i have a lot of things to say on this subject)

usually i have too hard of a time trying to remember anything i like to have answers for questions like these but thankfully for this one i have answers prepared since this is something i try to think about a lot

realistically if i had to pick one single "favorite videogame" above the rest itd probably just, like, ocarina of time & majora's mask (i'm considering them to be one videogame because i said so, it;s a package deal), just on account of how much of an impact they had on me from an early age combined with just how often i Still go back to revisit them in one way or another, but this is just about the most basic boring answer a person can have for this question unfortunately

thankfully you asked for some of my favorites instead of just one so i can unveil my Actual list of favorites instead of the one that only holds the top spot by technicality and not because i actually like it "the most". all of my favorite games have such a range in style and quality it's hard to really compare them in any meaningful way

anyway

crypt worlds, space funeral, and off-peak are all pretty different games made by very different people but i usually group them together when talking about stuff like this since collectively finding them all back in the day at roughly the same time kind of shaped my perception of indie games as a whole which probably gave me a very weird and skewed perception of the media but who gives a shit really it's a perception i hold dear. (they weren't the first indie games i ever saw of course but they were the most personally impactful ones that made me go "holy shit, this is awesome, you can do literally whatever you want")

they've pretty heavily influenced my own games, too. there have been multiple times i've started a project and then days later realized "wait shit this is just space funeral again. i'm just making space funeral again but slightly to the left. fuuuck" which is a pretty good problem to have i think.

anyway,

gadget: invention, travel, and adventure is an old point and click game i found a few years ago that struck me by just how unique feeling its atmosphere is. strange looking people turn to you and say even stranger sounding things, the soundtrack feels like its having a nervous breakdown, the main character is given so few meaningful decisions/actions (read: basically none) by the people around them that it can barely be considered a game at all…it is a very fascinating experience, and one that i think back to a lot

i like Your Turn To Die a lot and am very excited to see how it ends, though i feel like i don't have too much to say on it here. one of those games that has me going "oh man i should draw more fanart for that one of these days" every time i'm reminded of it only to then remember that i Can't Fucking Draw right now lmao

myhouse.wad is something that extremely deserves to go on this list but a large part of my brain is telling me not to just because somewhere along the line i fucked up and became allergic to anything that has ever recently become popular & trendy on youtube because i don't want to look like a poser even though literally no one but me cares about where i hear about these things so i can only bring myself to include it if i also state that i played it BEFORE it was cool &all the streamers started covering it like some kind of shameful hipster. but for real though its awesome, very inspiring stuff. i wish my brain did not force me to want to distance myself from it for literally no good reason. fucking ocarina of time is on this list why is this the thing that makes you afraid of looking like a normie

i have a lot of appreciation for myst in a kind of "i've never played more than 5 minutes of this nor have i even bothered to watch a playthrough of it but i understand what you have done for me and the games i love that came after you" kind of way. i have purchased 3 different copies of it over the years as well as a copy of riven and i don't intend on playing any of them anytime soon. great game, probably. i wouldn't know.

i like a lot of kitty horrorshow's games but i don't really know what my favorite would be. lethargy hill is probably the one i think about most often though.

i like (the steam version of) dwarf fortress a lot and have been trying to play it more often. it is very funny having 80 hours in a game and still not feeling like you understand half the mechanics in it. figuring it out as i go along has been fun though. in a similar vein i also like elden ring a lot and despite being at over 160 hours on that one i still haven't beaten it. i need to get back to it before the dlc comes out but i stopped playing for so long that most of my muscle memory is gone…

for something much more recent than all of the above, absolutely perfect specimen is something really incredible that gave me a lot of stuff to think about, though it can be a little hard to recommend since it's extremely 18+ and has a whole big list of content warnings you definitely need to take heed of. extremely interesting work though, i like it a lot.

i'm running out of things to list off and should probably stop just for the sake of time even if there is more shit that deserves mentioning so i'll just end it off with CLONE ON NET YAROZE BABYYYYYY LET'S FUCKIN GO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 💯💪🙌💥💯💯

#asks #i like videogames. huge fan of em

9 notes · View notes

ohlookanothercartoontofallinto · 2 years

Text

Deity Wind

Okay, Idea I've had for almost a year now. That I planned on making into a long fic that never happened (I have one chapter!). However the deity form is newer and was prompted by @socialc1imb so blame her for this.

I thought it be very cool to have Wind be connected to the Sand goddess from Ocarina of Time.

Why? Mainly because of Phantom Hourglass, because what's in the hourglass? SAND! Also, Wind's sword is made from the phantom hourglass which needed sand of hours to freeze time. Also not to mention, her temple is the Spirit Temple. Which if any of you are a fan of medium Wind. Know that word has many different meanings. As well as Spirit tracks being the next game in the timeline I thought it was cool.

And don't get me started on the fact Wind's world is ocean and sand. HE ALL READY MET THE OCEAN KING! Now he needs to meet the sand goddess. (Funny fact, I actually thought about making them husband and wife for lore reasons.)

Another reason I thought she be a good fit for Wind is the final dialogue of Ganon in Windwaker. About how Wind was death to him because it blew sand, and I went, interesting.

So yes, Wind gets the power of the sand goddess, similar to Time and the fierce deity. How he gets the power is the cape similar to the mask for time. Wind has four arms and a tail, and is bigger then time, but probably the same size as fierce.

Also I have to mention orange and orange!

All this actually happened because I listened to the Short of Epic the musically and listened to the Boy and the Boar about a year ago. Which is funny enough very popular now. So funny how time changes.

So yes enjoy!

#Linkeduniverse #lu #linked universe #lu wind #linkeduniverse wind #linked universe wind #linkeduniverse time #linked universe time #lu time #linked universe deity wind #deity wind #lu sand goddess

45 notes · View notes

peardian · 11 months

Text

Here is some behind-the-scenes commentary for my new animation, "Raymond's New (Cat) Groove"! I want to get out all my thoughts here before I forget anything. I'll be covering the entire video, so if you want to avoid spoilers, go watch it first!

First up is The Zoom! Ever since I started planning this animation 2+ years ago, I knew that this would be the first shot. Since zooming in on his eye would produce a mirrored view of the video, a double-zoom-out was necessary.

My original plan was to have the zoom be done purely in 3D. However, when it came time to implement it, I realized the shot did not look good when done realistically. The images distorted due to the curvature of the reflection, and Raymond's glasses got in the way due to how big and round his head is.

Also, even his iris was edited in. I made an HD version of his face texture, which you can see in how smooth the edge of his eye is, but because of the model's texture mapping (UVs), the iris was all distorted. I'm glad I edited in the new iris, though, because I got to make it even higher-resolution.

I already covered all the details on the laptop screen in a separate post, which you can find here.

The first good view of Raymond's room. For the most part, it is a recreation of his default room layout in New Horizons, with a few differences, such as his fax machine being removed. I didn't have all of the furniture models, so all the stuff that isn't shown directly (e.g. safe, water cooler, second desk) are super-low-poly recreations.

The laptop is from Splatoon 2. It is Marina's laptop, with all the stickers removed. If you look closely during the zoom out, you can see that the keys still have the Splatoon language keys.

Also, fun fact, his chair was a Froggy Chair as a placeholder until I got the office chair model. I was planning to keep it, too, if I couldn't get the office chair.

The animation's events really kick off once Raymond begins dreaming. The way his idea lightbulb lights up the room, and how the light persists afterward, is the first sign that things are not normal.

When I first started planning this, I had the New Leaf version of the office wallpaper in mind. While New Horizons has the windows completely obscured by blinds, the New Leaf version has a cityscape visible through the gaps in the blinds. I was originally planning to have the sky change, going from a fake sky to a vibrant real night sky.

Raymond reaches into his desk for the Ocarina of Time, giving the first style shift. This is another scene that I had in mind for years. Originally, I wanted this scene to be super-realistic. Instead of those cartoony leaves from the game, I wanted just a big pile of real-life dried up leaves, with labels written on them. They'd rustle and slide around when the drawer is pulled open just as you'd expect from leaves. I love the idea that, from an outsider's perspective, the villagers are just a bunch of adorably dumb animal children, gathering leaves and pretending they are furniture.

Here are all the leaf types in Raymond's desk. There are two "???" leaves, for a total of 10. Sadly, my favorite ones are completely hidden due to how the physics simulation worked out.

Speaking of physics, I meant to have Raymond pull the Ocarina out. However, every time I ran the simulation, everything freaked out the moment the Ocarina tried to move to his hand, causing the contents to fly out everywhere. Maybe later I'll render out that part for fun.

The Majora's Mask time travel scene. I had the scene ripped from when I was mapping the game, so recreating it was easy. I referenced footage from the game for the animation timing, which is why this and the Ocarina-playing scene are some of the only parts of the video that aren't overly fast-paced. If I had more time, I would have added in the light-blue sparkles that come off the items, just like in the game.

For the anime-esque sequence, the original idea was just to have the hair be flowing smoothly. At some point, I realized that drawing hair on the 3D model would look weird, so I decided to draw the whole thing. I've never really animated like this before, so it was a fun experiment. I posted the raw drawings in another post, here.

For the background, I wanted to reference the time travel scene in the cartoon Samurai Jack. However, the effect there is very intense and hard to look at, so I greatly toned down the flashing effect to the point of being unrecognizable.

Raymond crash-lands in the city from Animal Crossing for the Wii. All the trash that pop up are items from the game, of course. I chose an alleyway so that I didn't have to bother with assembling the city itself. While most of the scene is made from assets from the city, the brick texture is just one of the home wallpaper options.

Did you notice? Before Raymond puts his glasses on, the world is only in 480p, but when he puts them on (stylishly), the screen transitions to full 1080p. The Wii's resolution isn't 480p, but the original Cat Groove's is.

Also, this scene gives a clear example of one of the dream-like effects I used throughout the latter half of the animation. Take a close look at the placement of the bricks relative to the poster. Every time the camera changes, things subtly shift around! It's hard to notice because these are details you normally don't pay much attention to. My favorite use of this effect is in Yoshi's Island, where terrain details are randomized every time you enter a room.

It's not easy to make Raymond look happy when his expressions are normally so serious. Also, did you notice? The floor is entirely different in some shots. It has the same color palette and general design, so it feels the same, but the details and patterns are entirely different.

When the camera points up, you get a brief view of the highly-saturated night sky. Even though it's night, everything is brightly lit, another dream sign. By the way, there's supposed to be a chimney up there, but I guess I didn't put it close enough to the edge to be seen. I completely forgot about it until later.

Here is a closer look at one of the blimps flying in the sky. It's an edit of the Luigi blimp from Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, with Rosie's face added on. This is actually an homage to an anime movie, something I rarely talk about. Specifically, the Madoka Magica movie. Rebellion.

Raymond meets a younger Dr. Shrunk at the club entrance, leading to another style shift. This is another scene I imagined for years. Those hands are actually Pikachu's from Super Smash Bros. for Wii U/Ultimate, with some clothes added on. Also, again, different floor.

While the art style here looks like late-'90s/early 2000s CGI, this wasn't intentional. I didn't realize the resemblance until after I had rendered it. I guess it's just a natural result of using smooth models with super-basic lighting and solid-color materials.

One idea that I'm sad I didn't have time to implement was that the text on the checklist was going to subtly change as Shrunk's hand passed over it. Just like a dream, the text would change every time you read it.

At the bottom there is the rule against allowing OCs in, the explanation for why Raymond can't get in. It continues out of frame, but you can see more of it when he puts the clipboard away. I even included doodles of some YouTuber OCs! Just for clarification, I have nothing against OCs, it just seemed like the funniest option.

The orb appears!

I am not great at special effects, so this was my best attempt at a reality-warping entrance effect. Sure, it's not very dynamic, but I like how it came out. The sound it makes is a distorted, reversed version of one of the Animal Crossing jingles.

I originally had a different ending in mind. Rather than dashing into the door, Raymond would have climbed up on top of the building to look for another way in. There, he would have seen the orb sinking into the roof.

Raymond achieves his dream! For this scene, I originally imagined it ending with that Undertale sound that plays when going through the dramatic exit door to the ruins. You know the one.

Also, darn walk cycles! This was the fifth one I had to animate in a row, using nothing but pure IK. If I wasn't so exhausted by that point, I might have thought to have the camera zoom in or something.

Raymond sleeps soundly while Cat Spin auto-plays. The snoring you hear is a recording of a real cat snoring, which I found on a free sound effect website. The main reason I included it was so that nobody thought Raymond was dead. His tiny arms don't really lend themselves well to a good sleeping pose.

So, why is Rosie there?? Well, originally, my plan was for the camera to look over at the whiteboard, where something like "Happy Anniversary Cat Groove" would be written on it. This is why the whiteboard is at an angle instead of parallel to the wall like normal. However, when I animated the scene, I didn't have the whiteboard yet.

When I finally got the whiteboard model, I realized I had overestimated its size, and sizing it up didn't look good. So, I had to find a way to fill the empty space above the board. I considered a banner or Rosie-shaped balloons, but I eventually settled on the most ridiculous option: having Rosie herself.

The End!

For the credits music, I chose the Smash remix of Bubblegum K.K., not just because of how many people associate it with Raymond (because of those singing videos people made), but because I just really like it. Other songs I considered were K.K. Disco and the Jimmy T. stage intro from WarioWare: Smooth Moves.

You may have noticed that I used very little of the song Catgroove in the video. Back when I made the original Cat Groove video, the video got a copyright claim, blocking it from being viewed by my European friends. I don't know if the company making the claim was legitimate or not, but I appealed and they removed the block.

Fast-forward a number of years, and Cat Groove was at hundrends of thousands of views, eclipsing everything else I've ever made. I decided that, as much as I enjoy his music, I didn't want to be mooching off of Parov Stelar's work. That's part of why I made Cat Spin, using only Nintendo music, to show the direction I wanted to go. Besides, if the video gets claimed, then I can't show it to all my friends. Otherwise, I might have chosen something like Jimmy's Gang for the credits music.

Anyway, that's all I had to say! The end result may be a bit rough, but I'm glad I finally got to bring this idea to life and share it with the world after years of tossing it around in my mind.

A big "Thank you!" to everyone who watched the video from start to finish! I don't know if/when I'll make another big animation like this, but I hope you'll look forward to whatever I make next.

#Animal Crossing #Catgroove #Raymond #cat

12 notes · View notes

thecurioustale · 2 months

Text

After The Hero: A Curious Tale Turns 25 Today! (Plus: Story Excerpt!)

Today, 25 years ago, in the light before dawn, I published the first piece of After The Hero: A Curious Tale. Namely, the Prelude, which I called a prelude even then because it was on a community roleplaying board and I was aiming to do something like a cold open prior to starting the game proper.

In just a few short pages, there passed the final confrontation between Rennem, the eponymous Hero, and Galavar, seemingly a villain bent on ruling the world, who defeated Rennem and with that victory threw all the hackneyed fantasy formulae of the 20th century away. It was my reaction to what I saw as stagnation and degeneracy in the fantasy supergenre, especially in epic high fantasy. And it was also my reaction to the artificiality and wastefulness of the imposition of a boring good vs. evil paradigm onto the narrative, and the corresponding squandering of interesting characters—the villains, who are inevitably the most dynamic, proactive, and ambitious ones in most fantasy stories.

I had just played The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time a couple weeks prior, and it had blown my mind and crystallized something I had been wanting to say for years. Galavar was my Ganondorf, and at first the story as I conceived it was all about him and his Guard of Galavar, and their forces, versus the emergent international Resistance against them, and the key difference was that Galavar was saddled with none of the petty, tacked-on traits of cruelty, vanity, etc. that artificially hobble villains because some storytellers do too good of a job and have to bring their villains down a few pegs, and other storytellers lack a sophisticated ethical faculty and don't know how to do it any other way.

That bold premise is still the main axis of the plot in ATH today, if no longer the thematic core of the narrative. And, in the years since 1999, we have seen the fantasy supergenre change somewhat. Not in a way that I'm particularly satisfied with: There was a broad backlash to the formulaic good vs. evil paradigm, but the way most contemporary storytellers have moved beyond it is to make all the central characters evil, i.e. unlikeable, wrong, "gritty," self-interested, petty. If I may be uncharitable, they came up with the only thing less interesting than black-and-white: pure gray.

And the villains are still villains, and are still treated as such.

After The Hero is nothing like that. My conceit was that it was a story with no villains, except for all of two side characters who weren't even central to the story. I always wanted all of the characters to be likeable, not necessarily in the sunshine-and-rainbows sense, but rather in the sense that a hypothetical reader could theoretically root for any character, any side of a conflict, and be justified in so doing by the text. Characters you can believe in! Characters you're not embarrassed to be unironically proud of. The Galans, the Resistance...everyone! Even the Gods. It's easy to be against a character or a faction, and that is of course also possible, or at least that was always my hope. But to be for them...now that's special.

But I never arrogantly pretended to be above it all. I have my favorites too, and always did. As far as factions go I am with the Galans 100 percent. As for the individual characters...I'm not exaggerating to say that I like the vast majority of my characters. Not just the fat ones. Not just the left-handed ones. Not just the redheads. The vast majority! I have to go out of my way to write characters I don't like. It doesn't come naturally to me, and I decided long ago not to put too much of that sort in the novel.

Of course, it wasn't always a novel. As I mentioned, it began as an RPG. (And if you've an old-timer, you've heard this story a million times.) I will forever be grateful to the other core cast members who got ATH the RPG off the ground and saw it through to its triumphant conclusion. We made a great story together. And even though the RPG era lasted only a little more than one year, and even though the story today is very different from what it originally began as, in substance, tone, and style, I'll always be grateful for their participation, because that's what got the novelization era going.

I have a couple of things in the pipeline in addition to the novel itself, and I had hoped to be able to announce at least one of them today. Sadly, nothing was ready in time—but stay tuned in the months ahead. The ATH 25th Anniversary lasts for a whole year, after all!

In lieu of any of that, I thought about sharing an excerpt from the book itself, but, as I was looking over the candidates, I realized that I didn't want to spoil the carefully-curated experience I'm working to build. So that's a no-go.

Yet I had a thought: If not After The Hero itself, then one of its satellites. One of the Interludes. Something whose publication is so far away in the future that it doesn't really matter who reads it today.

I have just the passage in mind!

Long-timers will remember The Great Galavar, one of the Interludes that I actually began publishing on my website as a weekly serial during the Year of 32. Mostly, I wrote it each week in order, but occasionally I would write scenes that would occur later in the story, and those got saved for later. Even when The Great Galavar went on hiatus when the Troubles began, I still occasionally wrote down scenes as they came to me.

And one of these is a pair of scenes dealing with the splash that Silence Terlais makes in her first year in the City of Sele, the seat of Gala, as a fledgling adult. This is in the past relative to the events of ATH, so In these scenes Silence is roughly 18 years old by our years, or 25 by Relancii years (and Galavar is roughly 36 / 50). Silence has spent most of the year confined to her sickbed recovering from terrible injuries, and now she has recovered to the point where she is "coming alive" as it were.

The first of these two scenes features Silence directly onscreen, and is one of my favorite Silence scenes that I've ever written because it delivers on the premise. It's possibly the favorite Silence scene that I've ever written, at least among those I have put to paper. For my entire adult life I have been wanting to write scenes like this for her, but they are very, very hard, in the same way that trying to describe a paradise is hard. When Silence isn't present onscreen doing stuff, it's a little easier to get away with building up her legend. But to actually, explicitly illustrate the behavior that makes her such a big deal is not easy, and is one of my chief cap-feathers as an author.

And on top of that, because it's in the past, I have to write a Silence who's much younger than the one we see at the start of ATH, and is living in a different era of her life.

I first conceived these scenes in April 2021, and what I am going to share with you today is in a relatively stable, near-finished form. Together they form a mostly self-contained short story.

It's..."a lot." It's ten thousand words of talking about Silence, and there is a certain monotony to such a singular focus on anything. I understand that, and in fact there's supposed to be another scene in between them, in part to help break that up a bit. But that scene isn't written yet. Maybe, when you see the three asterisks (***) in the text at the scene transition, get up and take a break, and come back to read the second scene later.

I hope you enjoy this excerpt! I hope these characters come a little bit more alive. And if you read this and come away feeling like you understand my fascination with Silence a little bit better, that will be the ultimate compliment.

Please do feel free to reshare this post, and I would love to hear any feedback you have. Even the harsh stuff, if it comes to that.

They say you should believe in what you write. You have to commit. You can't get embarrassed or back out, because it ruins the whole thing. And I really believe in Silence in these scenes, and it shows, hopefully it does so in a way that redounds to your interest in future Curious Tale publications. But, either way, I'm proud of it, and there's no better way to celebrate my life's work than to share one of the most sterling and stirring pieces of it.

~ ~ ~

The Secretary

Their fortuitous left-handed arrival stirred a commotion throughout Sele almost immediately.

During the early days of her convalescence, Silence had been downright passive in her manners. It didn’t fit with the fire that Galavar had met in her mind, and he wasn’t sure what to expect from her moving forward. Conation could be deeply confusing for him sometimes, with the appearance of a person’s mind not closely resembling their outward style. Was there something he had failed to comprehend about her?

As it turned out, no. At least not in this regard. Silence had merely been observing, getting a sense of this new society and finding her footing in it. Waiting. And once she was on her feet again, she sprang.

Her first command came over brunch (va variv) one sunny morning at the end of winter. Galavar had joined her in their private little tearoom, where she could carnivorously devour her copious cuts of flesh in peace, free from the distractions of seeing or being seen. Galavar had grown quite fond of these meals with her, and on this morning he noticed there was no wheelchair.

“You walked?”

“I walked.”

“Not two days ago you hadn’t walked under your own power in three seasons gone by. What muscles were left to walk with?”

“The deep ones, of course, that don’t so easily die back from a little neglect. Zeal, and guile.”

“Those are not motor muscles.”

“Oh, I think they are. That’s where the real lifting happened.”

“But—”

“These Galan healers of yours gave me plenty of exercise in bed. More than enough to physically carry me, now that the moment is right for it.” She thrust out her arms to glorify her recovering form, and smiled proudly in her seat. “Here we are.”

The traces of her accent were almost completely gone now. There was no hesitation in her grammatical constructions. It almost scared him how fast she learned things. And now came her command, the first of many:

“I’d like to ask if I could have a secretary.”

Galavar noticed the question and turned it over in his mind. She had a way with her words, he’d learned. She hadn’t actually asked him. She’d said she’d like to ask him. What would have been a flowery turn of respectful phrasing from most people was something altogether different from her.

“A secretary? You want a staff?”

“A desk. An escritoire.”

“Oh! A secretary.” He’d forgotten that usage. “Y-you…I…where did you learn that term?”

“I couldn’t tell you the book that gave me the Galan word for it, but we have them where I come from, and I’ve seen them here.”

“Secretaries, as I recall, are a repository for secrets.”

“Hence the word.”

“What sorts of sinister secrets do you wish to keep?”

This was his first question of the morning that made her think. She darted her eyes off into space a few different ways, and fumbled her hands around a bit, thinking unseen thoughts.

“My power to conceive of things,” she eventually said, “outstrips my power to remember things. I need a place to write down my creations.” She looked up at him, her eyes and narrow lips revealing the only traces of any pleading that might have been mixed in with her otherwise confident imperative, along with these words: “There’s more than enough space in my room.”

And that was true enough. Having come to Sele with no belongings but her sword and the filthy, disintegrated clothes on her back, Silence’s room was quite bare. There was her bed, an armchair for visitors or Silence herself, an armoire for her small allotment of provided clothing, a mess of books whose covers changed by the day, a window, a wall painting of orchids, and little else.

“What would you say to a new accommodation?” he asked. “If you’re walking this well in just a couple of days, I think you’ll be ready to be discharged soon.”

“I’d like that,” she said. “But I’d like the secretary in the meantime.”

“I’ve learned how particular you are—a trait we share. How about I take you to my favorite furniture shop and let you pick out the one you like most? The owner is an old friend of mine. She keeps stock on hand, but you can also commission a piece if you don’t find anything you like.”

She thought it over and grinned at him. “A probing question, Galavar! I like it.” She wagged a playful finger in his face, the left index—the one through which she projected the center of her essence and all her will. “You want to know how hard I’m willing to work. How much I’m willing to do my own lifting to get what I want, versus barking at others to do my bidding. How far I’m actually able to walk, and how much of this confidence is just a façade. Very well! I accept your challenge. I’d love to go furniture shopping with you. Give me three days.”

“Three days?!” He peered at her, then roared a laugh. “Three days till you’re ready to walk halfway across the city! I meant to take you there by carriage and merely have you walk around in the shop.”

The fact that his question had not been the masterpiece of hidden swordplay that she had taken it for weirded her in the face, and the very notion of that incongruity seemed to fall off her consciousness. She replied, “You are graced with an uncommonly powerful, resilient body.”

“Yes,” he said.

“If you were in my position…how long would it take you?”

“Point taken, but…three days? Even with all my willpower, I couldn’t do it in three days. Muscle doesn’t grow like that.”

“You haven’t met my body yet. Only my mind.” She looked down at her dishes of food. “But you will.”

She picked up a long piece of fish in her left hand, held it up at him. The juices ran down her hand and wrist, and forearm, dripping down onto the plate. “This stuff isn’t just to give me something to do, you know.”

And she chomped an enormous bite of it.

“Physician Ieganan mentioned that to me. Your appetite is through the roof recently.”

“Much of me was lost, destroyed.”

“Like a house fire… First, clear and repair the damage. Then, rebuild.”

“You understand.” Her thoughts shifted. “Do they have fires out here? Your aedes are all metal and stone.”

“If not the walls, other things do still catch fire, sometimes.”

She nodded, in a way that told Galavar her thought: In Junction City it would not be so.

“I wouldn’t need the physicians to tell me that my heart was damaged,” she said. “I know it. I could feel it. A heart takes time to heal—and one shouldn’t gain weight with a damaged heart. So time I have paid. Now, I’m going to replenish the flesh I lost. The day will come soon when walking across the half the city is nothing. I walked across half the world to get here. Well, mostly walked. Flew a bit.”

He wondered, briefly, what she would do if he denied her idea of walking to the furniture shop with him. The fact that she had felt confident enough to agree to attempt it, even if he hadn’t meant it that way, implied that she would offer a response to any effort to deny her. Silence Terlais was not the sort of mate who would put herself at the mercy of others if she could help it. The passive, wounded observer lying frail in her sickbed was gone. Yet what sat before Galavar was not exactly a match for her lofty view of herself. What would she do? But he chose not to ask.

By the time the three days had elapsed, Silence was running—running!—up and down the stairs at the Academy. She’d tripped and fallen countless times, and was covered in bruises. She didn’t care. “Supple bones,” she’d explained to him. They met for aleo that morning instead of the later variv. For the outing she wore a gold-embroidered shirt and a handsome pair of slacks loaned to her by one of the teachers, and didn’t eat as much as usual—didn’t eat much at all. Before too long, they set out under a fine morning sun.

And she walked with him to the furniture shop.

It wasn’t actually halfway across the city, like he had told her. In fact the Workshops were quite close to the Academy. Silence was terrifically dismayed at this, telling Galavar that she’d prepared herself for the full measure. So he led them on a detour, up Swan Ridge and around, performing a spiral around the Workshops District. And she was assuaged somewhat, though her spark still missed the idea of walking the Selish radius.

Their exceedingly circuitous route led them by one of Galavar’s favorite cafés, and they popped in for drinks. For its caffeine Silence eschewed the tea which Galavar so highly commended to her, though she did take a sip of it and agree it was delicious. But the caffeine, she said, bothered her heart—and she much preferred milk or lollywater besides. There was only a little new flesh on her bones as yet, and he wondered where all the food went before realizing the obvious: Her energy was unflagging! The piercing winter cold, the mercilessly thin air, the exertion of a body that had barely moved in nearly a year…none of this was evident in Silence Terlais today. She matched Galavar’s pace, so competitively that for her own sake he set a more leisurely one than he would have otherwise—until she called him out on it:

“Don’t go easy on me,” she told him. “I’m prepared to die today, if that’s what my body has in store for me.” And he believed her. This was her test, not his guardianship. She had something to prove to herself today, and he had no right to take that from her. So he walked at his customary clip.

[Verbiage about seeing the city.]Sele was an incredible city: wildly young yet already sprawling. Everything was new and had the shine of dynamism to it. There was zip!; that old-time get-up-and-go. Everyone shared in the spirit of their city. No one was here because the generations had deposited them here mindlessly. They were here because they had come hearkening to Galavar’s call of Galance, or were the children of the same. Everyone here had said yes. And it was extraordinary—to Galavar’s eyes, to Silence’s, and to anyone’s—just how much faith and spirit and loyalty and industry dwelt in the sparks of the people.

And everything here had evolved into a new strain from its ancestors—a new culture. The Halrowns Dumpling House with its stone porches and outdoor heated stone tables that seared a crisp underbelly into the already-boiled dumplings, a restaurant that in some other land would have told some other story, here told a story of dreams pressed into enterprise and hot food at the top of the world. The Hapidanger Belly Theater, which brought the traditions of Imperial belly-dancing to Galavar’s land, was not the pulsating seat of seduction it would have been in Panathar; here it was an electric laughterhouse where they made of their bellies art and sport and humor, and maybe a little seduction too, but only in between the belly laughs. And Findul’s Emporium could not have existed anywhere else in the world, for where else in the world could Findul exist?

It was a very Silence kind of a town, and Galavar listened to her read all the signs out loud with excitement and delight, watched her fall in love with it in real-time…and felt the kind of pride that one would be lucky to encounter twice by the end of their years.

At some length they finally came to a workshop with a beautiful wooden frontage—rare in the city. The wood was heavily varnished to protect it against the growling winds and insufferably dry air, all cut by the carpenter herself to show off her talents. The sign, painted in rich yellow against dark red arjor, read Javelin in Wood.

They walked into a wonderfully lavish showroom. Silence sighed a great breath of romance and inspiration, took in heaps of the fragrant woody air; Galavar was all but forgotten to her as she instantly set her mind upon exploring what she saw. Ravenous, was the word that came to him. He was coming to appreciate that Silence was a ravenous sort of person. Sure enough, it dribbled out in her speech now, directed at no one:

“So much to see. … Every line deliberate, every cut. Every shelf and drawer placed with knowing, with intent. And so well done. … It’s like a city, Galavar. Just in this one aede. My sight has been so bare of late! I love the flowers on the wall in my room but surely they would forgive me for wanting something more. … … Hand-tied coil springs … Yes, this is where it should go. … They knew. They knew!”

There were no other customers or visitors, and no sign of Javelin. Galavar walked into the back to look for her. Her workshop was messy, strewn with projects in various states of construction or repair. He finally found her in a tiny room in the far back, boring pilot holes in an assemblage that looked like it might become a cabinet someday.

She looked up at him, leaving her work behind.

“Galavar.”

It was a strange expression she wore. She wasn’t happy to see him. She wasn’t sad or angry. She wasn’t indifferent either. It was unmistakable: the look of someone who’d loved him, and been rejected and kept at a distance by him, but couldn’t bring herself to let go of how much she cared for him.

“I got your note.”

“I didn’t want to drop in on you unannounced.”

“This new friend of yours, she’s in the front?”

“Yes. Quite approving of your work, if I may say so.”

“And…?”

“It’s complicated.”

“It always is with you. Never simplicity. Let me guess: You dig her, and you screw her, but you’re not ‘with’ her.”

“Javelin, she’s a kid.”

“She’s older than we were when you turned me down.”

“That’s…well…to answer your question, Silence and I shared a conation together in the spring.”

“Ah, a Galavar groupie, then.”

“No. At least, not like anyone else. She kept herself, most of herself. More than a match for me. I think I changed more than she did. No groupie. We’re very close. Resh and I found her in a sorry state. She’s been too weak even to walk until very recently. But she seems to be on the mend.” He chuckled. “She asked for a desk. I figured it would be the perfect excuse to step away from ruling the Universe for a few hours, and come visit you.”

“In my little woodshop. It’s been three years.”

“I know. I just…wanted to give you your space.”

Javelin seemed to be on the cusp of a quick retort, but she stopped herself and closed her eyes, and breathed. When she opened them, there was something different.

“Part of me is very happy to see you,” she said. “If you can overlook the rest, I’m going to try to give that part of me the speaking role today.”

“How have you been?”

“The shop’s doing well. I can’t get enough wood in to keep up with demand, so I’m focusing on high-end pieces that take longer. As for me personally…what would you expect? Same as always.” She found the words pouring out of her. “I’m lonely. I don’t feel pleasure the way I used to. Not in my friends, not in my work. I miss Ieik. I miss being young. Better times. I miss home. I don’t know where I am anymore.” She looked around at the tiny room, tools hanging everywhere. “I’ve lost something. Lost myself. Not quite sure what part.” Her face turned to his, eyes locked. “I have everything I said I wanted…everything but you…but as I get older I realize that I don’t know if you could have made me happy in the long run. Maybe nothing could. But you definitely succeeded in making me sad. I’ve tried to reclaim that power from you, for many years now…but I never could.”

“Sometimes,” he said, “I dream of that simpler world, where I married you and we lived out our lives in peace and quiet in the Village of Ieik. You’d have your shop, much like this. Maybe I’d be the River or something.”

“Wouldn’t that have been good enough? To be the River of Ignorance, with a loving mate to share your life with, in the paradise that God made for us?”

“Sometimes I dream of it,” he repeated. “But my spark could never have fit in Ieik. I had to go.”

“And take all of us with you.”

“We’ve had this talk before.”

“I just…I just…I’ll never understand. That’s all. I’ll never understand. But!” She clapped her hands, forcing energy and a smile that were neither false nor true. “I’m partly happy to see you. Let’s go meet your friend, shall we?”

They walked back to the showroom, where Silence was nowhere to be seen.

“Silence?” he called.

“Over here!”

They found her underneath a sofa, her head hidden beneath the front skirt, beyond which she was presumably studying the joints—but with her hands only, since the skirts blocked out all the light. Javelin shot him a quick look that said something to the effect of you always find the weirdos, and Galavar laughed.

Silence had enough social tact to pull herself out rather than waiting to be summoned, and was on her feet surprisingly quickly, shooting Galavar a quick grin before immediately turning her full gaze on the shopkeep.

“Silence, this is Javelin, the owner of this shop, and a childhood friend of mine from Ieik. Once an incredible athlete, now an incredible carpenter and furniture wright. Javelin, this is Silence Terlais, a new citizen of Gala and a consummate would-be knower-of-everything.”

“‘Everything,’ eh?” asked Javelin. “What’s five times three?”

Silence laughed, and gave Javelin a small salute. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said. And then, still smiling, she added: “I didn’t realize what I was stepping into. Are you okay with me being here?”

Javelin seemed pleased by that, but it took Galavar completely by surprise. Silence by his own experiences was stunted, even borderline deficient in her social skills, almost childlike, yet…in this moment she was smooth as butter. What was this devilry?

“I’m okay,” Javelin said. “I’m guessing he didn’t tell you about us.”

“No, he didn’t even mention your name. Now I see why. I apologize if I’ve brought you any discomfort today. But he does have good taste in furniture!”

“Hah! Yes he does! Where are you from? Galavar says there was a conation—and that he came out short for a change..”

“I’m from the Middemesne,” Silence replied, “including several years in Junction City.”

“Inside the city?”

“Yes.”

“Inside-inside?”

“Yes.”

“Can you do that? Just…move to Junction City?”

“It worked out that way for me.”

“How old are you?”

“[AGE ~ 25].”

“You really are, aren’t you! Galavar, this borders on indecency!”

Galavar began to fumble something about conation, but Silence saved him:

“We’re not actually having sex. It’s that the joining of minds is even more intimate than sex. So to say that we’re not having sex is one of those things that’s factually correct but diametrically opposite the deeper truth of intimacy.”

“I see,” she said, with a visible sign of relief in the upward turn of her lips. “I thought he’d found another mate he couldn’t commit to.”

“Maybe it’ll come to that someday,” said Silence, “but I prefer fat males who know everything there is to know about me—and, though he’s been a good friend so far, he fails on both counts. And, what’s more, there’s an old flame of mine whom I’m not truly ready to move on from yet.”

“Fat, eh? Not many of those around here. It’s not really an Ieikili fashion.”

“Give it time!” Silence merrily exclaimed. “I will teach this whole society how to grow fat.”

Galavar, for his part, found himself quite disoriented. Old flame? Who was this flame of hers? It was a glaring, glaring thing for Silence to say: Their conation had shown him no “flame” at all. When had she had the opportunity? Was she lying to Javelin now, or had there been parts of her life that he really hadn’t seen when their minds touched? He instantly realized it had to be the latter: She’d just said as much: males who know everything there is to know about me.

Silence, all while talking to Javelin, was telling Galavar that he didn’t know her as well as he’d thought.

Galavar began to appreciate DeLatia’s disdain for Silence a little bit better. Silence was…what was this? Not passive-aggression. More like…what?

Silence, for her part, continued talking as though all were level and blithe:

“But in the meantime I’ve asked—and Galavar has charitably agreed—for a secretary. I plan to begin keeping a lot of papers in the very near future, and I am viciously scatterbrained when it comes to remembering objective details. I’m also building up my worldly possessions almost from scratch, and a secretary would help me with small-item storage in the coming year.”

“A good piece of furniture is a real wealth,” replied Javelin, seemingly oblivious to the subtext. “It can stand you in good stead should times ever turn lean. At your age, it’s an excellent gift. You should see [NAME] on [STREET] for the best ink pens, [ETC.] for brushes, [ETC.] for stationery…”

Then Galavar figured it out: Silence was resetting the terms of their relationship. Up till this point she had been docile, and almost completely helpless. But that had only been a survival mechanism for a bedridden wreck of viutari ruin. The real Silence was beginning to emerge, and she didn’t intend to be subservient to Galavar in any way.

She was declaring her independence from him, and it hurt like ripping off a piece of sticky bandage. It was a strange way for her to explain it to him, yet it had worked: It got his attention, and left him with no doubt as to where they stood. That was the disorientation he was feeling: He had painted a mental image of her, and she was ripping it up—deliberately, as though they were still conating now.

And one thing more: She was embarrassed; embarrassed that their minds had touched at the darkest moment of her life. And their conation, contrary to what he’d thought, hadn’t resolved that humiliation.

“I’ll be sure to visit them all,” Silence told Javelin gladly. “You clearly know your stuff. Just from the look of your showroom I can tell you’re busy.”

“I sure am!” Curiosity got the better of Javelin. “How can you tell I’m busy just from the showroom? There’s no one else here!”

“Most of these sticks have sale tags on them; they’re already sold. If I had to guess, you’re holding most of them pending delivery while people’s homes and businesses are still under construction—with maybe a few more on deferred delivery so that your showroom doesn’t go too empty.”

“…That’s exactly right.”

“You’re also prospering enough to have more than a bare staff. I take it as a given that you have one or two striplings to handle the worst of the drudgery. They’re not here right now because they’re on deliveries, but I can smell what’s left of their scent. Blends into the oils here.”

Javelin stared at her wide-eyed.

“On top of that, you have at least three proper employees besides yourself: the one who writes the stickers and whom I presume is your bookkeeper, whose handwriting is different from yours; and two more people implied by the presence of two different carpentry styles in addition to your own. At least one is a full journeymate, and maybe both.”

“That’s also exactly right. All of it. To the letter. Yes, two journeymates. Second one is new.”

Galavar could tell that Silence was underlining her point for him. Whatever he had previously estimated her powers of perception to be, they would need to be revised upward. And she would have known his next thought: She had possessed these powers all along, and had assuredly been using them right from the beginning, on her sickbed. This was more than a display of independence. It bordered on the sociopathic. She was using Javelin as a toy to play with Galavar.

For a moment Galavar felt the world fall away beneath his feet. Had her kindness and kindred spirit been insincere? No…surely not. She was too pleasant, too wonderful. But what…what was she doing?

Silence continued:

“I recognize the provenance of most of your materials, but”—Silence walked over to a large table in very pink wood—“I don’t recognize where this came from. The wood is stove hawk, but I only know them to grow in the western hills of [NAME], and none of those have the kinds of annual rings I’m seeing here. They don’t live that long; they don’t get this big.”

“Ah, because it’s not stove hawk! It’s pink stove. They grow in the high altitudes of the Howl Riada, and nowhere else.”

“I don’t remember seeing any when I was there!” Silence seemed genuinely surprised.

“You weren’t yourself at the time,” said Galavar, whose voice reminded the other two of his presence.

“I suppose I wasn’t,” she said. Then, back to Javelin: “I’ve seen more than enough to know I’d love to have you build my secretary. Would you be willing to do it?”

“For a friend of Galavar’s, I’ll put you at the front of the line. I take it you have something different in mind from the two in here that aren’t already sold?”

“Quite. Since you’re busy, what would the timetable be on a delivery?”

“It depends on your specifications, but I would anticipate the Equinox, or midway through spring at the latest.”

It must have ached at Silence to face such a delay in the realization of her first, imperious declaration of arrival and self in this new Galan city of hers. But she gave no sign of it.

“Very good! Shall we get into the technical details now?”

“Let’s step into my drafting office. You want to tag along, Galavar?”

“I think I’m going to make my rounds up and down the block; talk to people. See how things are going. It’ll give you two a chance to talk without me getting in the way. How long do you think you’ll need?”

“Come back in four hours,” said Silence.

“Four hours?!” Galavar’s jaw dropped. Even Javelin raised an eyebrow.

“I have very specific technical requirements.”

“You do, don’t you?” said Javelin. “I’m beginning to get a sense of that.”

Galavar peered at Silence, not sure what to make of it all.

“Four hours, then.”

He turned around to leave. The last words he heard as he stepped out into the street were Javelin’s: “I think you scare him a little…”

* * *

Back at his home late that evening, there came a knock at the door.

Galavar was in his element: dressed in his most comfortable robe, sitting on his living room sofa, reading the evening paper. The work of day never ended, but day itself did end, and Galavar had grown better over the years at giving the evenings—his most beloved hours—back to himself. There was nothing so uniquely relaxing for him as being done with the day’s work and meetings, done with any errands or chores, done eating, done with everything and free to go to bed at any time, and free till then simply to recline upon the sofa’s softness and read about the day’s comings and goings in his cherished city.

A proud luminary, Galavar paid a special attention to the lighting in his living room at this quiet wind-down hour. Most of the main lamps were not in use, but a few well-placed ones created spots of splendid brightness, while the space as a whole bathed in their pleasant, dim glow. The drapes were all still drawn open, creating black pools of darkness into the outdoors upon his windows, and in the living room there were many windows, including a whole bank of them on the main face. Galavar loved the contrast, and he didn’t mind that others could, from the modest distance of the street, turn their gaze up the gentle slope toward his house and look in on him. His whole life was a fishbowl anyway, and he rather fancied a passerby looking in through those windows and saying “Ah, now there’s Galavar in his robe, reading the paper before bed; all’s right with the world!”

At the sound of the unexpected knocking at his door, Galavar’s eyes and brows rose first. The knock was a gentle one, clear but unhurried. Someone authoritative, someone decisive, stood on the other side of that door. This pleased him.

Generally speaking, it was a well-known faux pas in Sele to call upon folks unexpectedly at a late hour for any matter that wasn’t both urgent and important, but it happened sometimes anyway, and Galavar got a sense this was one of those, which led to the good humor in his comment, proffered to himself:

“I had better answer it, then!”

He picked himself up out of the softness and went to the foyer, opening the door with genuinely no idea who it might be. As it turned out, it was Javelin.

“Javelin! Come in.”

“Thank you.” She availed herself.

“Take your coat?”

“Please.”

Javelin had a strange look on her face, an echo of that old competitive ferocity of hers. It took him back many years.

“Some tea?”

“You know it.”

He led her to the kitchen, pouring fresh water into the kettle. The rays of light fell softly from the living room upon them as Javelin sat at a stool along the bar.

“Did the design work with Silence go well?”

“You never came back to pick her up.”

“I don’t think she wants a chaperone.”

“Yes, but…” Javelin chuckled softly. “You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“She’s only a child, Galavar.”

“I told you that! Remember? Besides, had you said that to us when we were her age, I don’t think either of us would have taken kindly to it.”

“True, but we know better now. Demonstration and majority confer autonomy, not experience. Not wisdom.” She rapped his counter and pointed a finger at him. “And apparently experience doesn’t confer wisdom either. You should know better by now.”

“What did I do?”

“She couldn’t walk five days ago. She told me all about how hard she worked to be able to go out today. You shouldn’t have left her to walk home by herself. Let her deny your escort if she wants; don’t deny it on her behalf.”

Galavar set out a pair of teacups and saucers.

“She misjudged her energy, I take it?”

“Yes. I took her home in a carriage. We spent so many hours working on the secretary. You know how exhausting matters of the brain are! Back in school I could run any race, but sitting down with books and paper…that really takes it out of you. Silence didn’t leave herself enough strength to get back to the Academy.”

“Did she admit it? Or did she collapse first?”

“Of course she admitted it. She’s proud, not stupid. We both thought you’d be coming back, but you never did and we lost track of time. Talked for hours. By the time it became clear you weren’t coming, she was tuckered out. Walked as far as the front of the shop, turned around, and asked me for help. Poor thing had a wide look in her eyes, like the world had run out of matter ahead of her and she was staring at the void.”

As he shuffled some tea into the teapot, Galavar cracked a smile. That was a very un-Javelin way to have put that idea. But her Galavar mask always picked up such mannerisms.

“I know that place,” he mused. “I’ve been there. That moment when you realize you’re not in control.”

“Yes.”

“Those are good, balancing moments,” he said. “Humbling moments. I think she needs them.”

“You’re probably right about that. But, still.”

“What?”

“Context.”

“She’s an adult, Javelin. And what she needs from me is not a mother hen but a peer. She needs peers. A kindred intellect. Someone who’ll push her, upward and forward. If she wants supporters, she’ll seek them out.”

He sat down on a raised stool in the kitchen to wait for the water, and found Javelin’s fierce gaze meeting him.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I think she’ll neglect that whole dimension of life if it isn’t foisted on her. Children need parenting.”

“She’s an adult.”

“You’re lost in her intellect…her ambition. You’re not seeing the viutar who contains it. Yes, she is an ‘adult.’ What does that even mean? I’m saying she needs mentors, guiding figures, helpers, even a matrix. She’s stunted. She doesn’t know how to interact with people. She only knows how to mimic it. She doesn’t know what she needs. Doesn’t know how to go about getting it. She’s trying to interpolate a whole new Universe into this one, but what she really needs is someone to tell her how to put her pants on forward.”

The kettle began to boil. Galavar got up to pour the water into the teapot.

“I think you make a fair point,” said Galavar. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Thank you.”

“Are you going to be able to build her secretary?”

“Yes!” Javelin sucked in some air and smiled. “She was so deliberate. We drew blueprints down I swear to a hair’s width. Every grain of wood in the whole design is put to her purpose. Ideas that I’ve never seen before. The actual blueprint we drew is a complete mess; no one but she or I could read it.”

“Grand,” he grinned. “Most pleasing.”

“You’ve found a special one, Galavar. She is the smartest person I have ever met.”

“Yeah?”

“I learned things about carpentry from her, today. And she’s never done carpentry.”

“She did some woodworking in Junction City.”

“A little. But she picks up things instantly. You only have to explain something once—usually not even once! She’ll pick it up before you finish talking. And it’s not just the concepts. It’s the work. I let her do a little practice work in the shop. Everything she did…there was summary competency to it. A few strokes of the hammer, and she knows the hammer. A few turns of the lathe, and she knows the lathe. A mixture of absolute proprioception, rapid comprehension, transfer of knowledge from other applications, and deduction from first principles. It was brilliant…” Javelin looked up at him “…and frightening.”

“Frightening? Ah, so that’s why you’re here. I couldn’t believe that you’d come here at this hour just to scold me.”

“I’m concerned.”

“What better place for a precocious young mind is there than the City of Sele?”

“That’s only the smallest part of what I mean. Yes, the raw potential of her intelligence should be scary to anyone in their right mind. She’s not one of us. Not even you. She’s on her own echelon. That is scary, yes, but it’s the kind of scariness I can set aside. But…Galavar: You said you found her wandering through the desert?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t that strike you as an extraordinary coincidence?”

That caught his attention.

“What do you mean?”

“There she is, this brilliant young thing from Junction City—from the Forbidden City—who shows up just in time for you to encounter her. Any other day, any other hillside…and she’d have died.”

“You think she was supposed to die?”

“The other way around. What if she was meant to be found? What if she’s an agent of the Sorcerers?”

“She’s not.”

“Not consciously, no—I take you at your word on that. But what if she doesn’t realize that she’s serving their will?”

“How?”

“We’ve kept Gala a secret from the world, but the Sorcerers are not of this world. They have eyes in far places. Here’s this newcomer, this child, who instantaneously has unfettered access to the mind and daily agenda of the Great Galavar. How do you think the Sorcerers enforce their balance on the world? Subtly. Never with armies of might.”

Galavar rose again to pour the tea.

“This smells wonderful,” she told him. “Thank you.”

“It has a blend of lesca hips. I know caffeine doesn’t always agree with you. You share that in common with Silence.”

“It’s amazing how thoughtful you can be when you put your mind to it. And how easily it goes away the rest of the time.”

He sat down again, this time pulling up the stool to the other side of the bar straight across from Javelin.

“It’s a dire accusation to call Silence a spy.”

“No…not a spy.” Javelin gave a sort of frustrated sigh as she tried to find her words. “I don’t think she’s knowingly working for them. But they may be using her in some way. Her intellect is obviously real. If the Sorcerers wanted to shape the direction of Gala, how would they do it?”

“Are you asking?”

“What about taking a bona fide genius—like Silence—and subtly shaping the direction of her growth as a person? And then she shapes our growth as a society. You’re going to come to rely on her, Galavar, and soon. The fruits of her mind are going to be irresistible. She’s going to become one of the controllers of Gala. And…”

“And if the Sorcerers control her…”

“You see my worry. This secretary I’m building could be the first component of a dreadful weapon. A sorcerous weapon. Not steel, not fire…but something…more.”

Galavar sipped his tea in silence for a long time. Finally, he blinked heavily and shook his head.

“It’s not fair to Silence to act on that kind of an accusation, or even to harbor it in our thoughts. She deserves a chance.”

“I agree with you on that,” Javelin said. “I just think it’s worth acknowledging the possibility.”

Galavar stared out into the distance of worlds, patiently finding his words:

“When our minds were together, in the conation, I saw the reasons she left Junction City. I don’t think the Sorcerers could have designed those events. She…it wasn’t pretty. She’s very much her own, strong-willed self. I didn’t see anything in her whole psyche to suggest that she’s a puppet of a concealed plot.”

“Are you sure of that? Are you sure that this power of Sourros to join minds as one, which you have only of late begun to wield, is so clear in its vision?”

“Actually, now that you mention it, Silence spoke of an old flame of hers today.”

“I remember.”

“I didn’t see any person like that in her memory. I didn’t feel any lingering love in her for him.”

“So either she was lying, or you don’t know her as well as you think.”

“Exactly.”

Javelin frowned thoughtfully. “Supposing it’s a lie, do you know, from your intimate knowledge of her, what might cause her to tell it?”

“She might have just been saying things to be sociable. You had implied that she and I were having sex. Maybe she was uncomfortable.”

“That’s certainly possible,” Javelin conceded. “I shouldn’t have said that. When you mentioned her in your note, I assumed she was older. So! At least we do have a plausible alternative to my scary idea. But still: I’d think twice before assuming that you know the full measure of her thoughts and history.”

Galavar wasn’t about to tell Javelin the details that might have explained his judgment. He wasn’t going to tell her that he’d put a gesh on Silence. He wasn’t going to sink Silence’s reputation and trustworthiness with that terrible onus. The dark regions of her mind, the gaping tear in her psyche that he hadn’t been able to repair…they were a secret between Silence and himself, and no one else. But…he couldn’t deny Javelin’s point.

“I’ll agree, there is at least the possibility that there is something more to Silence than is apparent to me,” said Galavar. “But I maintain that she deserves a fair chance.”

“That’s all I would ask of you.”

“Tell me…if you’re so suspicious, why build the desk?”

Javelin laughed, not entirely charitably.

“I’m not going to stop her, Galavar. She’ll get her secretary regardless of what I do. The fate of all Gala and the Galance Ideal and bick it let’s add the world! does not hinge on me building a piece of furniture. I’m nothing to her, do you understand? Nothing. Do you see it? I don’t mean she doesn’t care about me, though for all I know she doesn’t. I mean I have no power that could possibly interdict her. Short of murdering her in her sleep. She’s bigger than me.”

“Not that much bigger.”

“Not physically. God, you’re obtuse sometimes. She’s bigger than me in the spark.”

That gave Galavar a sudden, unexpected chill, as he thought back to what he had seen in her mind…

Javelin continued: “She’s going to become bigger than all of your friends and everyone else in your government. She’s a polestar. And I didn’t say that I am ‘so’ suspicious of her. I just think it warrants a mention. She’s going to become exquisitely dangerous. You’re the only one who could possibly hope to check her power. With Sourros at your side, you alone can check her.”

“There’s that sadness in your voice again.”

Javelin agreed with a sigh, and drank tea, and a long silence passed between them. It was good to be with Javelin again, yet aching. Happy and sad. Familiar and guarded. He had loved her back. He’d just…he’d been too young…and he’d never had enough spark to wrap it all around everything he wanted.

Javelin eventually turned her eyes onto his face. Studied him. There was a new melancholy on her scent as she said:

“This isn’t easy for me to say, and I don’t want you to take it as an attack on her. This ‘Daughter from Illar’ you’ve given us represents the living incarnation of the antithesis of everything I lost when the Ieikili became the Galans. I wanted a simple life. I wanted to die out there, in Ieik, at a ripe old age, having lived a humble, peaceful journey under the Sheer. This new friend of yours is the opposite of that. She’s going to complicate everything. You’ve already ripped my world away from me and replaced it with something unbearably grander. Now I fear she’ll do the same. One day.”

He sipped his tea; it was getting down to the bottom of the cup and had cooled off.

“You’re so certain,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“What all did you two talk about today—besides the desk? What makes you think so?”

“Many things. Our personal lives, for sure. But mostly other topics. Weather. Culture. Philosophy. Food. Art. There’s a common theme in all of it.”

“Oh?”

“Power. She’s obsessed with power. Not…political power. Not physical power. But you know what I mean.”

“Yes.”

“Power complicates life.”

“It does indeed.” He raised his brows. “That’s a good thing.”

“I…guess we disagree.” She smacked her lips and tilted her head, tried to explain it to him: “She’s especially interested in rare forms of power that have been forgotten in time or that no one has mastered or discovered or invented yet. Subtle powers. Forbidden powers. Knowledge that shapes the Kindred behavior. Data and science that describe the world. Old books. New books. And it all comes down to control. She wants to control…everything: people, society, technology, nature, Junction…and most of all herself. I didn’t go into her head like you did, and she was kind of evasive talking about her past, but I’ve met plenty of newcomers to Sele who’ve walked that same road. Silence was powerless when she was young, and now she wants to never endure that again. She wants to become.”

“Well spotted,” Galavar replied. “Yes, she has a lifetime of helplessness that she wants to make up for.”

“Perhaps to our communal peril, is all I’m saying. Everything we talked about led to her ambition.”

“Everything?”

“Well…no. It’s not like her ambitions are the only things she can think about. Like I was saying earlier, she’s a viutar like us. And she’s young. She sees the world with young eyes. She’s filled with young emotions. There’s a lot that goes on in a young mind. But there’s just about nothing she talked about that didn’t at least tangentially regress to some passionate desire for control.”

“Give me an example.”

“Like…well…food, for instance.”

“Food?”

“She loves food, but not purely for its own sake the way I might love biting into a tookalook soup dumpling. It’s about control. She loves all things flesh. Meat and sex and corpulence and athleticism…. She’s a very carnal person. A very…I guess I would call it lust. Not for sex per se. A lust for life, and the power that comes from living. Like a predator who knows she’s the predator, and loves everything about being a predator. Food makes her powerful; that’s why she wants it.”

“Okay, yeah. That’s fair.”

“And she wants…everything. Always the wanting with her.” Javelin laughed. “Not an easy person to chitchat with! But I won’t say it wasn’t a gratifying talk! She’s very interesting.”

“I’m aware,” Galavar replied. “She really made an impression on you, hasn’t she?”

“We talked about something else, too.”

“Oh?”

“She wanted to know all about me, my life, my desires…and my history with you.”

“She never struck me as the jealous type.”

“No, not jealousy. Not like that at all. She looks for greatness in others. I think she was expecting to find a plentitude of it in me, because of my long friendship with you. Greatness by association. You impress her. But I think I disappointed her. She wasn’t impressed by my lack of ambition and desire for simplicity.”

“Who at that age is?”

“I was. Don’t you remember?”

“Well…I suppose I do. I guess it’s harder for me to see back to it, given that I look at your past self through my eyes. My vision of you.”

“And you’re like Silence in that you notice the greatness and not so much the humbler bits.”

“Aye. More tea?”

“Ah…” he could see her wanting to say yes “…I should probably go.”

Then she gave him a strange look. There was part of a smile, but also frustration…and something else. Her next words gave it away:

“God, you’re handsome. All this talk of power and flesh. Twenty years later and you’re more attractive than ever.”

Galavar gave a distant sigh.

“I wish I could show you that a peaceful, unassuming life inside Gala is entirely possible,” he said. “It’s what I want for most people! I wish I could make you happy here. But…my body’s not going to make up for that.”

“I know. I’m not propositioning you. I’m just…just imagining. ‘What if?’ What if things had turned out differently.”

“The road not taken. We’ll never know.”

Suddenly a dark thought occurred to him. Javelin’s comment about Silence’s interest in forbidden powers stirred in him. He saw in his mind the image of Silence, and something she had said to him last year:

I know all twelve Powers. Not from the Sorcerers. I know them like the hours of the day.

And there was, in fact, an answer to Javelin’s question. Out there, beyond all that was natural and proper, there was an answer.

The road not taken…the world that could have been…

“Did you tell Silence that?” he asked her.

“Tell her what?”

“That you wish things had turned out differently? Your life? Our lives?”

“I did, in fact. She has a way of cutting to the center of things. There’s no point concealing information from someone like her.”

“What did she say?”

“I don’t recall exactly. I think she said it was an interesting thought. We didn’t dwell on it.”

“Good.”

“Good?”

He let it go, and smiled a honeyed sort of thing:

“Well, I for one think we’re already living in the best possible world.”

“Hah, the old Galavarian optimism!” she laughed, then finished the dregs of her tea. “Never change.”

The two of them rose in unison.

“Thank you for hearing me out,” she told him.

“Thank you for coming by. You’re always welcome, you know.”

“I wouldn’t feel right, calling on the Meretange Individual just to chitchat. But you are always welcome down at the shop. I’ll build you a secretary, too. Even if it’s hard for us…please don’t be a stranger.”

They returned to the foyer, where they exchanged valedictions. Galavar gave Javelin her coat and showed her out into the frigid night.

She walked away into the darkness, with little puffs of mist for breath.

Galavar’s eyes followed her for a bit, indulging, just for a moment, the “What if?”

The life he’d given up to have this one.

Then he closed the door, gave a long sigh, and returned to his sofa. The cushions were still just as nice, and the lamps just as warm, but on the whole his posh little living room seemed a lot less peaceful and comfy in that moment.

Sourros, he spoke in his mind, if I could give Javelin a measure of my own happiness, I would.

To his mild surprise there came a reply:

No, Galavar, you would not—for you did not. You have walked the path I opened for you. Happiness has never been your intent. For now, it accompanies you even so; you would be wise to enjoy it while you can.

This Silence Terlais…is she an agent of the Sorcerers?

That question assumes a great many things. You must first seek to understand what you are truly asking. Then you may pursue your query as a luminous being of logical knowing.

How about a straight answer for once?

To Galavar’s even greater surprise, Sourros actually gave a pretty straight one:

She is no minion of the Desolate Forsaken by their doing, though one supposes their interests could be served by her all the same.

How?

Read your newspaper.

And then the God’s presence was gone, nearly as suddenly as it had appeared.

Galavar shook his head, redid his robe’s belt, and sat down at the sofa.

With a curmudgeonly harrumph, Galavar picked up his newspaper, rustled it for effect, and returned to the article he’d left...

#After The Hero #The Curious Tale #After The Hero Anniversary #The Great Galavar #Silence Terlais

3 notes · View notes