#cubus sisters

[astralkepeire]

Shadow Linktober day 4: Ominous/Suspicious

These gals were my first "something isn't right here" escort mission. I also thank them for their service in coining the term "Dead Man's Volley" which I use on the regular to describe that type of battle

[good-advice-ganondorf]

[catastrophicarts]

dump of pages related to my villainbeck au so they’re all in one place aha,, the gist is that Linebeck makes a deal with Bellum out of a desperation for power. He’s not fully possessed, but Bellum acts more like a parasite that drains his life force in exchange for greater strength and courage. Unfortunately that means that in order to keep Bellum from killing him, he has to find…replacement sources of life force to keep him satisfied.

More art + explanation under the cut

He’s the captain of the ghost ship, and the Cubus Sisters treat him as their “father” and force sailors to bring them back to him after they “rescue” them. If they don’t perish in the dungeon, then Linebeck finishes the job himself, though he prefers it doesn’t come to that. When Tetra boards the ghost ship, Linebeck and Link both fall overboard, and he accompanies Link on his adventure under the guise of a cowardly sailor that escaped from the ghost ship. In reality, he’s trying to lure Link back to the ship so he can give both him and Tetra to Bellum. In the end, he can’t bring himself to kill Link, and Bellum possesses him fully in order to try to kill him himself.

Link of course wins, though, and Linebeck is left barely alive (Bellum tries to fully drain his life force in a last ditch effort to defeat Link), with severe nerve damage from Bellum attaching himself to his spine, and incredibly poor vision. Link decides to give him a second chance and helps nurse him back to health, though Linebeck doesn’t feel like he deserves it.

[elstreem]

Some things I just found funny on my latest playthrough of Phantom Hourglass. Honestly, playing this game is a gem as an adult.

There's our boy, right there <3

The fact that Oshus's neighbor tasks Link, a small boy, to get the rocks out of his garden, with said rocks which seem to be around Link's size....and then pay him a measly one Rupee for doing it.

Link should be giving more than a dirty look lol.

The fact that Oshus has an anti-theft security set-up

And Link goes ahead and steals his sword anyway

Peak gremlin behavior, if the old man doesn't want you going into danger, enter his storehouse and steal his sword. And Ciela helps you do it lol.

Nothing is there.

Honestly, everything about Link and Linebeck's first meeting, from the sprained ankle to getting the life shaken out of him and Linebeck booking it to let the small child handle the cursed temple that, you know...sucks the life out of people.

But the cherry on top is the fact that Link is still dizzy when he gets the key, to the point he totters around, and Linebeck fans his face for a few seconds after to help him...after manhandling Link.

Jolene, I know you're mad at Linebeck, but I really don't think you've been chasing him for a hundred years, have you?

And add Jolene to the list of people who will attempt to kill, again, the smol child despite the fact that as she lets on in the last fight you have with her...she always knew Linebeck was hiding in the crate.

Cubus Sister: Are you Link?

LInk: No

Cubus Sister: ....listen here you little sh-

Maybe it's because she's currently a stone statue, Linebeck.

The fact that Oshus came prepared with his own papercut illustrations of his backstory

And the developers putting in this skeleton just to make a jab at all the people who complained about the touch screen controls.

(I actually do love the touch screen controls for both PH and ST, and it's a crying shame that the game was meant to work so well for the DS it makes it difficult to port it to other systems or even play it on emulator...)

Something I failed to take a picture of was Zauz sheepishly admitting he lost the Phantom Blade. Just...how? How do you lose a magical sword??? Though you can do some headcanon-ing that Zauz is probably a fighter as well and possibly lost the sword to another monster.

And the funniest cutscene of all, is when Link hands the blade over to Oshus to complete the Phantom Sword. Link presenting the blade in the Item Get! pose and Oshus casually swiping it away cracks me up, every time.

[legendary-pancakes]

Linktober Day 23 - Child/Children

the cubus sisters!

[waywardsalt]

thinking abt bellum v hard. (fyi there are 1658 words under this cut)

there's not a lot of concrete stuff to think abt but there ideas. he's kind of already won by the time link shows up on the scene. he's not really actively antagonizing the world of the ocean king, he mostly just has the ghost ship to go around collecting prey for him while he has the yook and anouki turned against each other and seems to have infested the different temples and whatever with monsters to delay any opposition. is he the one who destroyed the cobble kingdom? they're meant to be supporters of the ocean king so i think we can guess that bellum is the one who tried to eradicate them.

maybe he was the one who... mind controlled? or otherwise meddled with the yook to keep them from checking out the ice temple and keeping the anouki occupied with dealing with them. (tbh theres some untapped potential in the relationship between the yook and anouki) he doesn't really do anything to the gorons but maybe he doesn't see them as a worthwhile threat since they see the crimsonine as more of an artifact and not something they should really do anything with, and link has to pass a test to even be allowed to go to the temple. the cobble kingdom is already destroyed, and it can be assumed that he mightve mimicked their engineering based on eox being the hostile boss of the last temple and turning into sand, suggesting a relationship to bellum, and maybe that he's trying to hide the fact that he's the one fucking with everyone. i'm not even sure if characters (besides the main group) even know that bellum exists until link's quest is more known.

taking a note from the manga, where bellum says something along the lines of feelings of love and friendship creating more worthwhile life force for him, so taking that into account with stuff in the game suggests that he maybe doesnt make his presence well-known to avoid something like a mass panic or a persistent fear in people, which could downplay positive emotions that makes their life forces more worth taking to him along with other worthwhile forces maybe being ones connected to divine power (like his taking of tetra and seeming desperation to keep her specifically, since she's most likely a descendant of hylia's mortal form), so he likely is very hands-off with how he's affected the world in order to preserve the value of his prey, somehow. idk why he turns people into statues maybe its a preservation method. maybe hes saving tetra for some reason or maybe trying to bait link in as well. maybe he wants to grab link, too, but failed to catch him the first time and resorted to allowing him to go down the path of dismantling bellum's work all so that bellum can try and capture him himself.

the spirits he does manage to capture and left alive and instead just sealed away within their temples, which i believe is because spirits and gods and whatever in loz can't really die unless they explicitly permanently become mortal (hylia) and can only really be sealed away temporarily in some form, mostly due to a lot of them being a sort of representation of some part of the world (i like to imagine that demise is the god or whatever who created monsters, he's the father of monsters and opposes hylia due to the way her favored creatures [hylians ig] attack and kill monsters and he wants the world to be habitable and safe only for his creations)

it's probably safe to say that the ghost ship (like. the whole thing) was created by bellum, and in some form is perhaps some kind of living being, hence why bellum is capable of effectively possessing it the way he does, since it's an extension of himself like the boss monsters, it just maybe takes parts from some existing ships, or maybe it's not alive and bellum is capable of creating large structures like that he is compatible with.

bellum himself turns to sand when he is defeated, as well as most of the other boss monsters, but the cubus sisters (who certainly have a relationship with bellum due to having the same eyes and being connected to the ghost ship) do not turn into sand, which makes me think that bellum didn't actually create them; maybe they're corpses or something being remotely puppeted by bellum.

bellum is clearly made up of the sand of hours, a crystallization of life force, and oshus is said to have used those sands to create the phantom hourglass, and the sands are also mentioned to have been created from the force gems connected back to oshus himself, so bellum was probably created from those force gems and therefore those sands of hours at some point somehow (i enjoy the idea that oshus was the one who created bellum; with oshus being our main source of info on bellum, i think it'd be interesting if he was the one who originally made bellum but obscures this fact by just talking about how he 'appeared' and whatnot).

bellum seems to have a weird sort of... inverted? perverted? ability to create life (perhaps a sort of parallel to the one we can assume the ocean king has if we assume that he created the three spirits as well as bellum maybe) but only in a hivemind or derivative sort of way, only able to create things that follow simple commands and when he possesses something else he takes it over. (i like to take him in a more biological or physiological way rather than magical, when he is removed so is the control, but there might be little remnants, but his influence is gone. i take bellumbeck aftereffects to be terrible sickness rather than others going with the idea of taking on some bellum-like traits or residual controls. the things bellum creates can only follow simple rules unless he is directly in control therefore he can use it as he wishes, but if he takes control of something he did not create, it's a bit more of a battle, he has to contend with that other being's subconscious or whatnot and has no effect unless he is physically connected. his control is more limited and ends up incorporating some of the hosts' subconscious desires with some guiding from bellum himself to achieve a favorable outcome.)

with the world of the ocean king being a sort of parallel/separate world to link n tetra's great sea, it's interesting that the ghost ship can be physically present outside the world in which it was created. definitely there can be contact between different worlds in loz (like hyrule and the dark world/lorule in alttp/albw and a little bit with termina if you take that as a literal place and a little bit with koholint and then the twili realm and whatever i'm missing) but it's interesting to see bellum as a villain capable of (in some way) contact and interact within other worlds and drag inhabitants of those other worlds into his own (oshus can send people out of his world, so i assume he can also bring them in, maybe that's how link gets in despite falling off of the ghost ship, unless somehow the ghost ship is still within the world of the ocean king but is also present in the great sea but the area around it is a fragment of whatever part of the world of the ocean king its in superimposed over the great sea... idk) so it's interesting that bellum could bc considered a villain able to tamper with or at least interact with world boundaries to let things in and out, maybe it's something that he is only capable of with whatever power he's attained by the start of the game.

whatever relationship he may have to oshus and the other spirits is not at all a part of the game, but at the same time we don't learn a whole lot about them anyways. there's also stuff with the chief of the golden frogs as another ally of oshus, but i imagine bellum didn't bother with him because he has no relation to the spirits' locations and the pure metals, and zuaz was left alone perhaps because his location is secret, while astrid and kayo were maybe found due to living on a more populated island (more prey for bellum to go after, more people to know about astrid and kayo). a lot of the monsters in the dungeons were probably already there, while the bosses were specifically made to protect what was hidden there, or maybe the bosses came first and their presences attracted other monsters.

i think bellum created the two monsters you fight overseas on the spot; they existed specifically to try and kill link because at those two times (link going to get the final spirit and link going to get the first pure metal) bellum suddenly panics and decides to try and eliminate link at the cost of the loss of a possible worthwhile piece of prey. bellum was probably also the one to begin the rumor of the ghost ship; i imagine he can take a sort of human form the same way oshus can, and spent a bit of time after defeating oshus and creating the ghost ship integrating him within some pirate crew and using them to grow and spread the rumor of the ghost ship, eventaully leading them towards it and taking them has his first victims (and along the way taking the time to foster good relationships with them in the hopes that their positive emotions and feelings would make them more worthwhile prey, back to the manga snippet idea of feelings of friendship and love [and probably positive emotions in general] being another form of better life force).

bellum's cool

[friendlybatteringram]

Cubus Sisters: Oh my gosh, Link! You’ve saved all of us!! How can we ever repay you??

Link: Don’t turn out to be bad guys…?

Cubus Sisters: Money? Would you like money??

Link: Please don’t be bad guys…

Cubus Sisters: Would you like this cool black Rupee??

[articsystem]

Welcome to our blog

We are the Artic System, an undiagnosed DID system, though we are preparing for talks with a professional about it, we are on the spectrum (Diagnosed) and diagnosed with Depression.

Below is a list of alters we hold, alongside emojis we will sign off with whenever we post here

Raven/Maddie - she/her - 23 - 👩

Aelita - she/her - 15 - 💻

Angela -Any - Ageless - 🔬

Bronya Ursama - she/her - doesn't tell in years - 💖

Brooke - she/her - 19 - 👻

Cubus Sisters - they/them - ??? - 4️⃣

Dana - They/Them - 20 - 🛴

Demi-Fiend - any - unknown - 👿

Dr. Coomer - He/Him - 35 - 🩺

Ember - He/Him - 10 - 🐎

Empress - She/Her - 23 - 👑

Fluttershy - She/Them - 18 - 🦋

Hayley - Any - 20 - ⚖

Helene - he/her - 22 - ☯

Jace - they/them - 19 - 🎈

Janie - She/Her - 22 - ☯

Jess - she/her - 25 - ✒

Kale - he/him - 12 - 🎠

Karkles - She/Her - not in years - ♋

Lab - it/its - 18 - 🤖

London/Natasha - they/them (both) - 19 (both) - ✨

Luckie - She/Her - Not in years - 🌠

Luna - She/Her - 21 - 👓

Maddie - She/Her - 19 - 🛒

Madotsuki - She/Her - 20 - 🛌

Mari - She/Her - 15 - 🏠

Mikan - She/her - 16 - 💉

Mitsuru - she/her - 18 - 🔫

Nellie - She/He - 17 - 👠

Reverant - he/him - 20 - 🎨

Roxy Wolf - she/her, the/best - 19 - 🐺

Sadie - Mirror - 20 - 🌌

Sigurd - Any - Unknown - ❓

Siren Sara - She/Her - Ageless - 🧜‍♀️

Terezi - SH3/H3R - Not in years - ♎

The Torn - Mirror - Ageless - 💔

Wanda - She/Her - 18 - 🥙

Gio - He/Him - 15 - 🥇

Jolyne - She/Her - 19 - 🧵

Tragedy - She/Her - 24 - 🐲

[namuneulbo]

week ninety-six

ill tell u ab my bday in detail and then the rest is up to interpretation uwu!!

i picked up me, c and l from school at around 14:30. apparently w was there too? i saw his iconic orange car but but i was talking to l while he was walking outside so i didnt see him :c all of them knew but me TT

we listened to bangers in the car and we parked a bit outside of the central part of vasa so we walked a tiny bit. we walked around some stores. carlings, bikbok, cubus... we went to normal so i could get ear plugs bc i forgot mine at home but then we decided to go to tiger instead bc the queue was so long. they were cheaper there anyways. i looked at calendars for sooo long until i just decided on a pretty sage one. i think the layouts even better than my current calendar so its all good. it was worth the struggle of looking through all of the different calendars. its so good and it was so cheap compared to other stores. i also got some fake blood for halloween.

then we struggled to find a place to eat. l was stubborn ab wanting sushi. c and i wanted pizza. i was craving sushi more between those two so we decided to just split into pairs so i went for sushi w l. it was so good!!!!!!!

then we went for coffee and then i left to go to the cinema to watch oppenheimer w her brother. me, c and l waited outside of the club, right outside the fast food restaurant. the clock was 19 so doors were open but we decided to wait before entering to not seem,,, too excited. since yk,,, we know the ppl playing.

i just realized i never mentioned who we went to see. we went to see a the police cover band. its made up of three guys from our school, d, n and w (yes, that w).

well, as we were waiting outside, n and w walk out the fast food place... it was so funny bc we were just talking and c was facing the other way and me and l react at the exact way like we just make a lil "omg"-face at c and turn a lil quiet for a second. i got eye contact w william literally the second he opened the door but like we didnt wave at each other until him and n had gone a bit further away and c decided to turn around and wave at both of them. they took a further route to get to the club which was funny bc we like realized a bit later that like,,, they took the longer route??? why would they do that??? to avoid us??? it was just a bit silly TT

later on we get inside, we pay the entrance fee and buy alcohol. i got a beer. we sit down and our seat seemed pretty good until more ppl came lol. first set i saw mainly w bicep and second set i switched places w l and saw more face and neck/jaw action. during the interlude i realized his mom and his sister were sitting like.... right in front of us and i got a little nervous they mightve heard me saying something ab him at some point ...... like what if his mom has heard me go like "LOOK AT WS BICEP!!!"... :(

after the show im like "okay, lets go say something to them" but c refused to take the lead at first (w good intention i think, probs to push me to talk to them and not just stand awkwardly behind c as they talked w them). i was a bit scared at first but then i just yoloed and stood up from our seat as like a "lets fucking do this!" and we all collectively went to d first. hes the least scary and n had like,,, already left. d was SO nice TT it was like mainly me talking w him (and i think that was kind of like planned by c and l bc otherwise i wont really take the lead or initaitive). he greeted us first since he probably saw us standing there as he was talking to some others. he greeted us all w a fist bump each and then went like "okay now lets do one w all of us!!" and we shared a foursome fist bump. i love fist bumps theyre so friendly and nice TT then he was like "yeah so cool u guys came all the way here to see us!! i saw u guys singing along in the crowd and it felt so awesome!". THEN he turned to me was like "congratulations btw!" (WHICH IS SO CUTE STOP HE REMEMBERED IT FROM MY STORY I POSTED EARLIER TT) and i was like "omg! thank u! thank u! it was like perfect timing for u guys to play here tonight since like i like the police!" and i also told him they played my fav two songs. then he asked me a bit ab when we got to town and stuff. hes so nice TT

then the scary part. he left to road. ws standing like,, a two meters away MAX. hes talking to some others so i told c and l like "okay but lets just wait until they finish talking!!!" but they talked for so long and c was like "okay, either we talk or we leave" and i just come up w excuses for a bit and then cs like "l, yk he can hear us, right?" and i was like "yeah but im sure hed appreciate us waiting for our turn!!". after a while c once again threatens to leave so i just yolo it and walk up, i stand for like two seconds waiting for him to notice me and when he does i did a lil thumbs up and was like "u played well!!" and he was like "thanks" and then i told him they played my two fav songs and did like a lil pray/thank thing w my hands and he got a little intrigued and asked me which ones and i was like "invisble sun and dont stand so close to me!" and he did a lil confirming nod and i decided to end it there and just like told him it was really good. i also like,, had to think for the title for dssctm bc in my head i said the songs in the other order and bro my mind just goes blank when i talk to him.

anyways we leave, we walk up the stairs and i say a quiet "well played rizz" w a lil hand sign. then continue the bit a little more comfortably as we walked out and continue on ab how im such a rizz god (i am delusional, as u can tell).

we get home and i eat quickly before heading out to the bar to meet some friends. it was a short meeting and like everyone left but i got some sweet "happy bdays" and shugged a beer.

my mom messaged me in the car from vasa and says she talked to a guy who knew me named f (she misspelled his name, it starts w a p). she put a lil sus emoji too, the blushy one w a hand covering its mouth... anyways it was the drummer guy from my grade who works at the bar and apparently they talked for so long and i asked her like what they talked ab and she never answered but just continued saying how nice he was and how he knew i was in vasa earlier... idk if she was hinting something TT

sotw: lorna shore - ...and i return to nothingness

[syntheticspades]

the cubus sisters can go fuck themselves

[onefey]

by popular demand, more of this au !!! i've decided it needs a snazzy name so i'm calling it the "pirate hourglass au"!

local pirate captain nerfed by having to use a regular sword instead of a cutlass and pistol, more at 11

[sendingstone]

i just finished phantom hourglass and i am OBSESSED with this game. so have doodles for an au affectionately dubbed “two of them” i made with my friend @greyedart​ ! there are two linebecks and this makes several things needlessly complicated.

bonus commemoration of the best room in the game under the cut:

[good-advice-ganondorf]

(Winners of the best boss polls are not included)

[stupidzeldaaus]

PH AU where Tetra isn't turned to stone. She instead defeats the Cubus sisters and makes her presence known by taking over the SS Linebeck with Jolene.

[elstreem]

I don't really do challenge runs in Zelda, but on my most recent play through of Phantom Hourglass, I decided to limit myself to five hearts...and found out the game accounts for if you left behind the Heart Container after the Cubus Sisters boss fight on the Ghost Ship!

Which is very neat, because the Ghost Ship is the only dungeon you can never return to.

So if you decided not to pick up the Heart Container, the postman will read this letter once you've set on an island:

I forgot to take a picture, but the Postman also says there was no name for the person(s) who sent the letter, but it's pretty obvious who it is, isn't it?

The Cubus Sisters are literal demonic brats, but it is kind of nice of them to send the Heart Container to Link via letter, even after they're dead. Deader? But I do like that they gained villain respect for Link after he beat them and their tricks fair and square. The compliments are very backhanded, but they still acknowledge his skill.

I still had to refuse it since I already have five hearts, so this is what happens if you turn it down:

The game will give up giving the Heart Container after you turn this one down, but it's still neat that there is another chance for you to get it.

I played Phantom Hourglass so many times already but a limited hearts challenge is genuinely tough. I'll try to do a three hearts only next time. Oh, and very, very embarrassing, but I never knew you could counter Phantom Linebeck's spin attack with Link's own spin attack in the final boss fight until I read it in TV Tropes...even after having this game for so many years.

[dreamerkitty]

The diabolical cubus sisters