#gonna be honest i like riju a lot. shes an interesting character. also she was like.. leading the gerudo sinse she was a child??? oof

[hollypies]

Second one done 💀

My back and hands hurt oouuuughghh

Anyway I! Hate the rito set pants. Green on tan is very hard to get right and I am not super happy about this. Also if some parts look lazy it's because I was actively falling asleep while drawing. As soon as I post this I will pass out for at least 10 hours

So! Here's Tulin and Zelda! I've never properly drawn a Rito before so uhmmm?? Hopefully he doesn't look to bad. Changed his design judt a bit :]. Also Zelda rito set 👍

[only-by-the-stars]

the annotated Tome of the Wild

Part four: Into the Night!

- The cart driver is, of course, the ubiquitous Beedle.

- Aryll is now calling the frog Ravio, after the character from Link Between Worlds.

- Mipha does indeed call Link reckless, in the “Mipha’s Touch” memory in BOTW as well as in her diary.

- Telma runs a bar in Hyrule Castle Town in TP, so naturally she’s got one here too.

- “No imps in my establishment! You're all bad luck! Harbingers of calamity!” Foreshadowing that Midna is unknowingly leading Link and Aryll to a servant of the Beast.

- “The Scholar” is Shad, a member of the Resistance in TP, who gathered at Telma’s bar. The Bean Seller is... the Bean Seller from OOT. And the Fortune Teller is of course Astrid from PH.

- Oh hey, Astrid drew the Two of Cups from her deck! A water card that, when upright, is a great portent for romantic relationships. Hmmm...

- The Highwayman, of course, is one of the Gorman Brothers, who try to rob Cremia’s cart and steal her milk in a memorable sidequest in MM. Now, in the show it’s implied, and confirmed in the comics, that the horse the brothers abscond with belongs to the Highwayman, which explains the desire to steal. So, too, is Epona the Highwayman’s horse here.

- Her eyes narrowed. “Rhoam... of course.” And we have a name drop for the woodsman, who up until now was only seen through Link’s eyes, and of course he doesn’t know the guy’s name, which means I didn’t use it. This little moment confirms that Midna and Rhoam have some past connection that isn’t friendly, to say the least.

- “You have the strangest life line I've ever seen, young man... I cannot seem to get a read on it at all.” Because he is, again, hovering between life and death in the river as this is happening.

- “On the bright side, your heart line is very promising. All signs indicate that you are a devoted and intensely passionate lover.” His love for Mipha is indeed very deep and intense, which just flusters him and reminds him again that he’s not courting her (yet) because of his fears.

- The Happy Mask Salesman, Rhondson, and Bolson, all have their services offered to him.

- She held up a card with a depiction of a bearded old man, peering out of a cave. The Hermit card, which often is depicted as an old man with a lantern. Not to mention that in the original Legend of Zelda, Link goes into a cave and gets a sword from an old man. Its meaning of isolating oneself is also a neat bonus that alludes to Link isolating himself from Mipha and all his other friends, and in a love context the card can also mean coming out of the other side of such a period of loneliness and being ready for a fresh start. It’s the reference that keeps on giving, folks.

- “So you think.” Telma shook her head slowly. “The Beast's lies are insidious, child, and will lead you down the wrong path before you realize what's happening. Listen not to him—he preys on lost, hopeless children, seeking to turn them into dekuwood trees for his lantern. Beware!” Link is gonna remember this all later during his decisive encounter with the Beast.

- “Midna?” The old man's eyes darted over to where Midna lay on the ground. “Is that—” He knows that name! But he took off before Midna got transformed, so he’s more than a little startled to hear it in this context.

- And of course, Epona is the beloved horse belonging to Link, that was first introduced in OOT.

- Cap’n and Ambi are from the Oracle games; you meet Cap’n in Oracle of Seasons, and Ambi in Oracle of Ages, and you only see them interact and learn of their love for each other in a linked game. The OTGW character that Cap’n takes the role of implies that he’s done some pretty shady stuff to get all his money, and a background of piracy would fit into that, eh?

- In the show, their goal is to steal two pennies, which is a reference to the toll required to pay Charon, ferryman of the dead in Greek myth. So here it’s two rupees.

- Fun with paintings! The three Aryll takes an interest in are of course references to other series entries. The egg atop the mountain is the Wind Fish’s egg from LA, the creepy path through dead trees is the painting that Phantom Ganon erupts from in the Forest Temple in OOT, and the painting of the broken automatons is the one on Impa’s wall in BOTW, depicting where Link fell in Blatchery Plain. You can put those all together for a double, linked meaning too: Link and Aryll are in a sort of dream they must awaken from, a deadly phantom is stalking them through this forest, and Link is having a near-death experience at the moment.

- “You haven't been any worse than this jerk I know back home.” He’s talking about Revali, of course.

- “I was in the middle of my search, wandering the woods, when I came upon a old beggar woman.” I mentioned Koume’s full title, “Good Woman of the Woods”, earlier in the tavern, and now we have Midna talking about meeting an old beggar woman in the woods. A subtle hint as to who cursed her. She is being mostly honest with Link here, she’s just omitting key information like that. Further, if you’ve read enough fairy tales, you know just HOW bad an idea it is to refuse to help the random strangers you meet by the side of the road. Bad things happen when you do that. Midna fucked around and found out, in the tradition of many unfortunate souls in the old stories.

- Link confides in Midna about his love for Mipha and what he’s been doing, revealing the existence of the mixtape that was hinted at back in chapter one, what he heard from Riju and Medli about Revali planning to ask her out, and just generally wallows in his own guilt. She gives him great advice about the situation, but sadly her own betrayal is about to temporarily undercut its effectiveness and set back his progress.

- “Detective Aryll is on the case, but you gotta give me something to work with here! Where were you on the night of—” The first appearance of her calling herself a detective, which came from Riju thanking her for helping her and Medli solve the mystery of Link’s hurtful behavior recently.

- He uncovered a plaque of his own, that read 'Captain Misko's Tea Company'. Misko is the bandit mentioned but never seen in BOTW. I felt it an appropriate first name to give Cap’n.

- “You will have to collect many of them, but I think you will find yourselves up to the task.” A reference to the message that you’ll have to collect a lot of them that pops up when you grab a green rupee in some of the games.

and that does it for part four!

[nannycanes]

I just beat BOTW and I’m gonna yell about it for a minute here we go spoilers ahoy.

Overall, I think it deserved like a 9, perhaps 9.5, but then again I tend to give a lotta unloved games some rather high ratings so idk how much merit my input has (after all I love the hell outta Spirit Tracks and like 95% of the Zelda fandom seems to hate that game.) The gameplay mechanics are amazing, and in my personal experience I was finding decent weapons faster than I was breaking them, so I never had to worry about running into a camp with something like a badly damaged boko club or something to that effect lol.

The tilt puzzle in Myahm Agana in Hateno Village can suck an egg but otherwise I loved the shrine puzzles. For the beasts themselves I went Rudania>Medoh>Ruta>Naboris but if I were to replay I’d just do Vah Ruta first and get it out of the way (and get my free ‘fairy’ lol)

Pretty sure people clicked this to see opinions on specific characters though and that’s what I really wanted to talk about so, in no particular order, my thoughts on:

Sidon: This character was so corny I referred to him as the Ham and Cheese sandwich during my entire Vah Ruta playthrough (which I did 3rd) I get why people like him (conventional attraction and ??british?? accent are big factors I think) but honestly the first time I heard him I thought his accent was Jamaican and tbh that would’ve been more interesting. That or the Skid McMarx voice Game Grumps gave him)

Mipha: uuuuuugh shut up please. Her VA was obviously straining very hard to sound super soft and feminine, esp right before shooting at Ganon. As a person she’s alright but I gotta wonder why she’s totally ok with her relationship with Link consisting of just her running around healing him every time he does something stupid. What’d he do for her? What’s the relationship like outside of her healing? Kudos for Link actually getting engaged (by choice unlike OOT lol) but I’m scratching my head over his choice, there’s lacking context I think.

Revali: What a dickhead, I’m glad he and his terrible bird puns are dead. Kudos to the VA for getting his smugness in every single little line, including the one where he tells you the Revali’s Gale power is charged up again. The writers knew exactly what they were going for with him and fuckin’ nailed it.

Teba: Aka the bird whose name is never remembered. I think he suffered from the rushed writing of the entire Rito segment because it seems the only investment he has in taking down Vah Medoh is that the village chief/elder told him to. Felt kinda flat, but very determined at least.

Urbosa: my favorite champion because she was confident without being downright arrogant, it strongly felt like she knew exactly what she was capable of and likely took a long time to get there. She definitely cared about Zelda, and I bet out of all the champions, she was likely closest to her. It felt more like a personal relationship than professional.

Riju: Surprisingly mature for a kid, I gotta wonder why they didn’t think to just pad the inside of the thunder helm to keep it from slipping lol. She wasn’t a bad character in any way, but at the same time she didn’t stick out beyond being a good basic lead-up to Vah Naboris. Also someone on tungle dot hell is overly-obsessed with sand seal puns and mentioned her room being packed with seal dolls, so naturally I went in to investigate and damn those things’re bigger than she is.

Daruk: second-favorite champion, I love how he’s all about big displays (Zelda coronating Link, his enthusiasm with Vah Rudania, major gestures, etc) His voice acting was good and his characterization was as well, but despite his clearly honest concerns for Zelda in the flashbacks, it still sorta felt more like a business-based relationship than personal. Makes me wonder how much any of the champions actually hung out with Zelda.

Yunobo: MY BOY. MY SON. Would’ve been ‘crush’ but his title is ‘goron youth’ and I’m not about that in the slightest so SON IT IS. A lot of people complain about his voice acting, but I think his voice fits him perfectly. Sure, a couple of lines were a little weird (idk if they had to do his tired panting in the initial introduction, for example) but I especially love how being a descendant of Daruk didn’t make him special beyond, “hey you’re the only thing we can shoot at this damn robot to make it go away”. No special treatment and no ego to follow. Kinda felt like they struggled to find a balance of whether or not he was cowardly, so that kinda took away from it, but by far and away he’s my favorite character in the game.

Zelda: I 100% don’t blame her for being an emotional wreck and I’m really glad Link doesn’t seem to either. Her British accent seemed sorta fake or exaggerated here and there (I don’t think Patricia Summersett herself is British) but she had a really well written story, there was a lot of focus on her struggle to awaken her power, and I think it’s a shame that there isn’t more emphasis on getting those memories (of course, to be fair, it would feel forced if there were, so I guess finding them is both a reward AND incentive.) I wonder how she even got started on rebuilding Hyrule?

Link: This poor, anxious, screaming, naked child. I want to know more about him and am sad that the game tries to keep him blank for player projection. TELL ME BOUT THE BOY. I legit expected him to speak up at some point near the end given it’s a voice-acted Zelda game, but sadly it didn’t happen. Also me wearing the Guardian Helmet kinda sucked the mood out of the final cutscenes, it literally looks like an overturned jomon pot was just jammed on my head.

Ganon: holy fuck what happened to his face. Ok in all seriousness though I didn’t expect something that unsettling waiting for me in The Pit™ given the four blight Ganons were pretty uniform, so if you have a thing about like... spiders or centipedes or things with long spindly limbs I would advise for that, I guess. As always, boar Ganon is hella and personally I’m pleased with the final shot being taken from like 200ft off the ground.

I still have stuff I gotta do, sidequests to finish n’ all that junk, but I’m glad I beat the game in the timeframe that I did (the copy I’ve been playing belongs to my sister’s friend who leaves tomorrow)