#i /think/ when she /does/ play a different character she uses sheik

[aparticularbandit]

Viv mains Samus in Smash Bros. and you cannot tell me any different.

America sometimes grumbles and tells her to pick a different character.

Viv picks Dark Samus.

"That's the same thing!" "No, it is not. Dark Samus is a separate character I can choose. She is not only a skin of--" "UGH."

[bahbahhh]

Congrats again on the milestone!!! For prompt requests how about OoT Zelink cuddling?

Again, you think I won’t make this angsty?

Thank you! Hope you enjoy- first time writing oot! This is offered up to @zeldaelmo who wrote one of the most beautiful fics I’ve ever read - Someone That I Used to Know which I read to actually try and prepare for this request. Having never written OoT and many years gone by since I last played the game all the way through, I wanted to lean on an author I trust to help get me get in the right headspace for OoT. I remember seeing this fic during zelink week last year and it had long waited in my Ao3 queue. 

And when I say writer I trust, I mean because I have such a soft spot for the literal children in OoT and how traumatic their lives are...it is hard for a writer to capture all that. Cut to Zelmo…this fic is beautiful. A work that reminds me WHY I read fan fiction. Zelmo does such an amazing job honoring these characters and a thoughtful handling of their healing. I hope you don’t mind Zelmo-this is meant to be a heavily influenced unofficial prequel scene of sorts, 5 years before the events of Somebody That I Used to Know. What got her started on her journey to step away from the throne and find Link? Here's what I think....

Word Count: 418

(I teased it down from 650+ because I'm trying to be better about sticking to the word limit.) 

Zelda jolts upright in her bed. It's happened so many times, she shouldn’t be this rattled, but these dreams shatter any piece of her that dares to begin healing. It's like someone reaches inside her and shakes her soul. 

A reminder, that after all these years, she is inescapably broken.

She’s come to realize her dreams have deeper roots; that she’s become a bit like the Lost Woods herself. When she closes her eyes, she sees the same scenes, over and over again, snapshots of lives that are hers but not, pathways and turns she doesn’t remember taking, only to wake up in a swirl of misty sleep, transported back into the misery of now. Twenty-five years since they saved Hyrule. Twenty-five years since she gave him the Ocarina and said goodbye. 

He left with a promise she still waits for him to keep. Twenty-five years.

She’d seen him since, but only in her dreams—no, remember they are visions, she tells herself, brushing her fingers across the dagger tucked into her garter. 

But this had been different. It is why her heart thunders still, untamed by the cool steel that's become an anchor in her panic. In the vision, her fingers, ungloved and weathered, weaved into golden hair and pushed his face back from hers. And he, fatigued by age and trial, scarred like she’d never seen—close, impossibly close—smiled at her. And then he hugs her, his body fully pressed against hers, hands splayed across her back. All of him. He holds her for a long moment and then he whispers:

Maybe time is finally on our side,

But it can’t be a vision. It can’t be a memory. Goddesses, was she finally dreaming again? Could she drop back into that moment if she closed her eyes now? 

It feels too real to be fantasy, but again, every path in the Lost Woods looks like the right one. 

She gets a crazy swirl of spirit, energy she hasn’t felt in, well, twenty-five years, and glances down at the mark of Wisdom burned into her hand.  In five years her son will be of age. She could relinquish the throne, disappear over the hills...only if... Zelda throws her sheets off and scrambles over to her mirror. She finds an angle where she can see her shadow in the moonlight. It shifts for a second, the shoulders broader, a flash of red where her eyes should be. Sheik’s still there. After all this time.

And he’s been waiting.

[talenlee]

The How To Be Covers of 2022

New Post has been published on PRESS.exe: The How To Be Covers of 2022

Once more we make our way to an end of a year, and I take an opportunity to reflect on my monthly How To Be articles. Or really, I show you all the covers again because I’m really proud of them, in part because they’re funny and in part because I worked hard on little details and you will appreciate them.

In January, I looked at the sprawling leviathan of media culture known as Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, and how to create a character who had the vibe of a Jojo character, rather than trying to replicate single, specific characters in that space. What I think, the most, about this kind of article is that I’m not trying to replicate a character as much as I’m trying to replicate, like, the vibe of the advertising and promotional material.

In February, I looked at another Ranma 1/2 character and I am already thinking about the next time I visit that universe. It was Akane Tendo, the second most important character in a story full of big dumb idiots who fight things rather than talk to them. She’s a really cool character – I know, I know, it’s amazing to hear that, right? – but her whole vibe is just being the most normal thing in a world of weirdoes.

In March I looked at Zelgadis, a character made for a D&D game in a different generation and edition and cultural background. I had to look at how you could take a character like Zelgadis and reconstruct him in a different (also old) game system.

Uh, this was just a joke, like last year’s Sonic The Hedgehog cover.

Then in April, when I outed myself as a person who’s been playing Final Fantasy XIV, I did a special article to focus on a character that Kate loves a lot. Since Kate loves Minfilia, I thought I’d do a special article focusing on Minfilia, as a character, and that got to be a fun exercise in creating a character build to reflect a negative space. There’s nothing about Minfilia that exists, really – there’s almost no positive ‘Minfilia does this’ or ‘Minfilia does that’ but you can tell there’s some stuff Minfilia doesn’t do, and can’t do – so you have to create a character build that doesn’t violate that experience. Interesting article!

Then there was May, where I continued my quest to find a How To Be Article about a melee fire character who could actually use the fire support in the game. Weird. But this is another fight game character and opened the conversation around ways to do something that mixed fire and not magic melee combat. It was about Kyo Kusanagi!

Each June I ask Fox what she’d like to see, because I pick characters she likes in the month with her birthday. I also got to see some truly beautiful fanart of Sheik here, and that made it a perfect opportunity to do a piece on that character.

Huh, this was a fun chain of characters with heavily queer themes or from queer-media darling shows. I don’t think there was any reason to pick up Scorpia, but she was a fun, interesting character to build.

Oh man, remember how absolutely ridiculous things were around August? When Bridget Guiltygear was on everyone’s mind and there were all these high resolution pictures of her for the first time in years and also I was doing a theme of tricks and she did this whole thing with a like, yoyo and stuff.

Man.

Man.

August, man.

That was a time.

But okay, at this point the How To Be articles are all building around kind of a consistent core of a single, specific idea space. And like, 4th ed D&D is already pretty much an anime game, what with the way that people with swords can actually do things and the way healers can shout your arms back on, it’s great, I love it. Using it to represent anime characters and fight game characters is kind of just what the engine can do.

I had to branch out, I wanted to pick something that would leave people going ‘huh?’ or at least maybe trick Kilo into clicking the link. And that’s why I did one on Lalo Salamanca.

Much like the Jojo article, I made a Meguca article because I wanted something for looking at a larger variety of things in a more shallow way. There are a bunch of characters in this space who we see more in terms of their trauma than their problem solving, so this was more about ‘how do I make a character who can wear this vibe?’

Then finally, I did a piece examining pets, and ways to have a lot or a few of them. This one stuck with me as something I kind of thing I’d want to do going forward – like maybe a character could benefit from picking up a Cool Monster Pet.

Oh hey, what’s that? Of course I made a spreadsheet to examine this kind of thing! I was curious if there was a bias in the types of characters I was drawing inspiration from, and it seems that since its inception, roughly half the articles have been women, and the rest haven’t been. This is useless data that means nothing but I like charts.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#HowToBe

[blueskittlesart]

what’s your thoughts on people’s tendencies to see sheik and zelda as different people? i dont really know the lore of the franchise too well but is that like. supported by canon bc i see it a TON

hmm. well i obv personally don't like to go that route because i like the transgenderness of it all. and i wouldn't say the lore itself supports that notion but certain aspects of the way sheik is handled as a character in oot and in other games he appears in can kind of lead someone down that path. the fact that you can switch between zelda and sheik in smash, for example. if you don't know the lore they could easily be two different people. the obvious differences in appearance (especially in the official art for oot) don't help this. sheik and zelda have different skin tones, hair colors, and eye colors which. well we can say magic or whatever but it was a weird choice. when i draw oot zelda/sheik i like to take away their shapeshifting powers as im sure some of you have noticed. I do kinda get the feeling that nintendo has kind of been trying to seperate sheik and zelda in some capacity for a while now and i think that it does definitely have something to do with how obviously transgender the original sheik storyline reads. in the original hyrule warriors, for example, they kept sheik but never made the gender swap, with sheik referred to as female for the entire game. im not really sure why this choice would have been made other than the fact that they realized that zelda had no reason to become a boy except that she wanted to.

my best guess as to why the phenomenon is so popular is a combination of people who havent played oot not realizing that (oot)sheik and zelda are the same character, and also that weird thing people used to do (or maybe still do? idk) in fandom where if there was a canon or semi-canon genderbent version of a character they would draw that character interacting with themself as the opposite gender like they were seperate people just for funzies or whatever. i think a lot of it comes down to just. general fandom shit. people liking the idea of sheik and not knowing the lore or not wanting to go into it that much. the fact that the transness has kind of been buried in recent years and that the two models look so different definitely doesnt help tho

[science-lings]

LU Headcanons: Smash Ultimate Mains

There are multiple for each one because there are over 80 smash characters and more than one fit each of their vibes and I personally have a whole team of characters that I like to fight as.

Wind: Young Link, Meta Knight, Minecraft Steve, Sonic, he is a child, he plays characters that a gamer kid would play, also he hero worships Time so of course he’d play as baby Time because it’s funny. He prefers fast characters to ones that are super strong and has different moves that he spams constantly. Aside from Young Link he refuses to play children. But when they go for an all Zelda character round, he’s Toon Link. 

Four: Tends to go for characters that are multiples in one, like the ice climbers or duck hunt or Banjo and Kazooie or Rosalina and Luma. He gets bullied into playing Hero because of their matching haircuts, He also occasionally plays as Olimar because he’s just a little nature alien that uses throws little alien plant people at everyone else. He draws the line at being bullied into playing Little Mac. 

Hyrule: Likes cute cartoon characters like Yoshi and Megaman and Sora, also tends to go for a lot of Pokemon like Pikachu and the Pokemon trainer, he also sometimes plays as Lucas because he’s just a scared little kid with magic and that Hyrule identifies with a little bit. He also goes for that one Fire Emblem character that does magic and turns into a dragon, I literally cannnot tell those bitches apart. 

Sky: Likes little characters that can fly, like Kirby and Pit and Bowser Jr. but he couldn’t not main Cloud. I mean seriously, his name and big sword is the perfect fit for Sky. I also think that he would play Peach because he likes how cutesy and nonviolent she is despite being in a fighting game. I mean seriously her main weapons are her ass and her parasol and a golf club.  

Warriors: Okay he only plays as those Fire Emblem sword bitches, Ike and Marth and Lucina and all that shit. He plays as any prettyboy sword bitch in the game, including Shulk and Cloud and Sepheroth, though he only plays as Sepheroth when Sky plays as Cloud. When he’s not a typical swordsmen character, he plays as Toon Link. He loves Toon Link for obvious reasons. 

Legend: Either goes for girls but especially magic girls... and that’s it. He plays as Zelda and Zero Suit Samus and Palutena and Bayonetta and Pyra/Mythra, but absolutely refuses to play as a Fire Emblem Character specifically out of spite for Warriors. He does play as Ness when Hyrule is Lucas. 

Time: Has not type, sure he has preferences but they don’t follow a pattern. Like he plays as Bowser and Sheik and Pac-Man and Min Min and there’s no similarities, he just likes them. Though he does like Bowser only because Malon has the little scarf clip that looks suspiciously similar... He likes Pac-Man because he’s old, and Sheik because he’s bisexual and Min Min because she has dragons and noodles and just perfect vibes. He will play as Young Link when it’s that wario stage that forces you to taunt because his taunts have him chugging milk and saying hi to Navi and that is pretty cute.

Twilight: Whatever vibes the Belmont's and Solid Snake have is Twilight’s theme, like buff bounty hunter/monster killer types, but also dogs, like Duck Hunt and Isabelle, and he has been bullied into playing as Wolf. Idk he either goes for the edgy buff dudes or puppies. He likes the living room stage but gets distracted by the animals in the background.  

Wild: He likes a bunch of the robot-y sci-fi characters, Like Samus and Dark Samus and R.O.B. He also thinks Ridley is cool. Sometimes he goes for the Fire Emblem character that comes in different genders (I think it’s Byleth but idk), He also plays as himself because he thinks its cool that he can. He likes that he can use bombs. Also his final smash is with a bow and arrow and that’s very Wild.  

[bluesclves]

I'm working my way through all the Legend of Zelda games I can get my hands on. Oddly enough, it's Skyward Sword that got me invested in the rest of the series, haha. I played BotW and loved it, tried to play Link's Awakening and got frustrated so I quit, then I played Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity and had fun just demolishing the enemies that used to kick my ass in botw, but still I wasn't like, invested in the series. Pretty much I just liked the botw stuff.

Then Skyward Sword HD came out and I went "sure why not?" Because I remember the game grumps hating it but I liked Sonic and the Black Knight for wii, and the switch has way better motion controls, so I figured I'd give it a go. (Plus I really wanted the themed joy-cons bc they're so pretty and it felt silly to get the joy-cons without having the actual game they're attached to.)

Anyways, I loved it. I don't see why people complain so much about the motion controls even on switch? I thought they were fine and I actually loved how engaging it made the combat, plus there's just an indescribable sort of joy involved in using the motion controls to draw the master sword and hold it over your head, okay? It's just fun.

Anyways, that's the first I guess 'standard' LoZ game I've played to completion. I got frustrated a few times with the puzzles, but I was invested enough to keep going until I figured it out. The final fight against Demise-Ganon had me cursing at my screen but when I finally beat him it was so satisfying, totally worth it imo.

And now that I have the story of the last Link (so far) and the first Link in the timeline, I'm curious enough about the space in between to take another shot at the other LoZ games I've given up on before. I just finished Ocarina of Time 3D, which was a lot easier than I remember now that I'm actually familiar with how a Zelda game is structured (basically find temple, solve puzzles, get new item, boss fight featuring new item, find the next temple-- ad nauseum).

I'm going into Hyrule Warriors: Definitive edition now (Warriors Link is so pretty haha, I see why people call him 'pretty boy' in LU fics/fanart lol). This is another game I tried before but I just wasn't invested enough in the characters to get into it? It also seemed too easy at the time, so I'm playing it on the higher difficulty, but I also know that if it's anything like Age of Calamity, it gives us a lot more story and interesting missions.

I have A Link Between Worlds to play next, assuming I can't get ahold of Majora's Mask for 3DS. Then I'll take another shot at Link's Awakening, I guess.

Any other suggestions for what I can play? I have a Switch and a 3DS, and my brother has a Wii but we don't have a Wii U.

Also, what I'm realizing about Legend of Zelda games, is that most of them are kinda like Fanfiction. They don't really do a good job of introducing their central Characters because they expect us to already recognize them. That's what's different about BotW and Skyward Sword; they do a really good job of setup, because for both of them, the hero is just as knowledgeless as the player. SS!Link knows nothing about great evil demons or the triforce, he's just a sleepyhead skyboy. They don't even have a kingdom yet, they just have a floating island with a school and some big-ass birds.

BotW does a GREAT job of introducing the world of Hyrule and everything in it because Link literally has no memories at the start of it. We learn everything that's going on as he does. And if you're interested in learning more, you can seek out his forgotten memories as an optional side quest. You don't have to, but you can if you're curious.

Comparatively, Age of Calamity relies heavily on you having played BotW, and the dramatic irony they can create from the player knowing one future as they help divert it from that path.

And Ocarina of Time doesn't really explain much about their characters. The Great Deku Tree's death is heartbreaking to me now, knowing that SS!Link planted him, and knowing the tree from BotW. But in OoT, it just kinda... happens? And didn't mean much of anything to me the first time I played the game. You know the Deku tree is supposed to be important, but not why. You see Zelda a grand total of one time before she runs away from the castle with Impa, and it's clearly supposed to be a dramatic scene, but we don't know her at all. Then Sheik shows up when you're an adult, shows up to teach you songs and then just leaves, and it's kinda clunky and doesn't really help us form an attachment to the character at all. Really, the only character besides link that is recurring enough and actually has speaking lines with personality is like... Navi, and maybe Malon, if you seek her out for Epona. Everyone else shows up like two or three times at most, and either has an instant crush on Link, or is just grateful for his help.

I enjoyed the game, playing it now, but I definitely had to care about the characters first-- I wouldn't have been able to get into this game if I wasn't already invested in Link's journey and kicking Ganon's ass.

So like, it suffers from fanfiction-syndrome, I think.

Anyways, this post is all over the place. Hope that made sense?

[nolongerapileofashprobably]

I think about Zelink in each game and I seriously give Nintendo props for creating a compelling dynamic between the two no matter if it’s purely platonic or has romantic undertones or is just blantantly spelled out as soulmates.

OoT Zelink has romantic undertones. Don’t even try to argue with me if ya feel differently. It isn’t spelled out plainly enough that we could say it’s practically canon, but it does have that bond between them that’s undeniable.

In the game, you can literally go back into the castle as Young Link and show Zelda the different masks Link acquires through the side quests. And the entire idea of Link sneaking pst all those guards to show Zelda some mask is hilarious and adorable.

After the time jump, Sheik then accompanies Link and it’s 10000% obvious that he’s fascinated with them. Link wants to spend as much time with Sheik as he possibly can. Water Temple aftermath scene anyone? That made it obvious (for me) that OoT Zelink are soulmates, because it’s their souls pulling them together and creating this attraction. Gender has no say. (It’s also makes Link 10000% bi in this game since Sheik is considered a “guy” to everyone else and I live for this headcanon). No matter who they’re disguised as, the chemistry and attraction is THERE. Plus, in Kakariko when they’re attacked by the Shadow. Staying by the others side. Trying to protect each other. Please let me live.

And the final battle. Oh this poor bby. He sticks his arm out to protect her. He’s so loyal to this girl. He found out she was this person guiding him the entire time and she’s separated from him as soon as she reveals her identity. Foolishly banging on a crystal to free her? Desperate boy wanting to save the girl he cares so much about. Link’s entire life ends up revolving around Zelda in this game. She is the one person he truly truly cares about on a deep level.

I love Malon and all, but I never saw the connection. I’ve always headcanoned the idea that Link comes back from MM’s events and goes straight to Zelda and legitimately just grows up in Castle Town under Zelda’s orders and is trained for the Guard and eventually becomes the head of the entire Hyrulian Army. I also headcanon that OoT Zelink both die young, but not before they have a child who is then given to their trusted friend Malon to raise. (I know it’s a dark headcanon but hey I think it makes sense)

Twilight Princess, on the other hand, gives off much more platonic vibes. Partly because Zelda is barely in this game. I do love Midlink in this game too, but as an endgame, nope. The thing about Twilight Princess Zelink is that it could POSSIBLY happen after the game’s events. But during the actual gameplay? This Zelda and Link play their respective roles to ultimately defeat Ganon. It’s more professional.

People can debate about this one, with Link’s attention whenever Zelda is in the room being solely on her and all, but I see that more as a ranch hand meeting royalty for the first time and being awed by the regal and natural beauty she exudes. I have said that I can see them happening through a friends with benefits type of situation, but only after.

In game, the story pretty much implied that Ilia is the love interest and not Midna or Zelda. Tbh, I didn’t love her character but I knew for a fact that Link did so I went with it. But I’m replaying the game now and BOYYY it seriously points to Ilia and Link being an item. And it makes perfect sense too. But after everything, I’d see Link sticking around Zelda more because she at least understands. But again, in game and from the canon events, Zelink is more platonic than anything.

Skyward Sword is completely platonic. Idk how y’all got “soulmates” from this Zelda and Link, I mean-

Yeah no do I even have to talk about how this game is blatantly romantic? Its not even UNDERTONES like it’s full out “I’m doing this to save the girl that I love”. They’re literal soulmates and started the kingdom of Hyrule and I couldn’t be MORE PROUD! The first Zelda and Link happen to be in love and they managed to get cursed so in every incarnation they’re bound to meet each other and I think that’s beautiful (despite the angry third wheel that reincarnates with them). But otherwise, this game is legit a love story between Link and Zelda with a bit of action and adventure sprinkled in. Good quality and excellent eyeliner.

Breath of the Fucking Wild people. I know I already did romantic undertones but would I be me if I DIDNT go on a little rant about the beauty of this Zelink??? Didn’t think so. It’s also not even undertones. It’s also not blatantly romantic. It’s heavily implied.

So, you get the hate to love trope, the princess and her knight trope, AND the amnesia trope. All three in this very special pair. The memories play these two very well. The actual story to the game may have been a bit underwhelming, but Zelink’s story is MASSIVE. The memories show us a very complex Zelda, a mute Link who is loyal to a fault, and an epic love story between the two. This isn’t even a theory. It’s actually canon. (Thank you Kass, ily bby)

Now Link’s perspective isn’t fully fleshed out, but that’s the thing. It’s not supposed to be. But what we do get is a few pieces of information that makes you go “oh so he does have feelings for Zelda”. First being the Journal Entries. He wants to save Zelda ASAP so he can see her smile. He wonders if she will be pleased with how far he’s come. He is determined to save her after gaining all his memories of their relationship back. This Link only truly remembers Zelda. The Champion’s have some place in his mind, but he doesn’t remember like like he remembers Zelda.

Second being the little moments in the memories, like him staying by Zelda’s side in the castle to just hang out with her, listening to her ramble on about science things, being Extra Asf when the ground shakes and he immediately goes to make sure Zelda doesn’t stumble, turning around when Zelda begins to doubt herself, sheathing his sword despite being chased by murder bots. It’s just all those little things that makes you THINK.

Third being the flowers. The symbolism. It’s all too real and I won’t even get STARTED on how Nintendo gave us a canon ship name for BotW Zelink and we had the audacity to IGNORE IT!!!

Fourth being the fact that they practically debunk Miphlink after giving it the potential to become official. Stay with me. They painted Mipha as the typical childhood friend that falls in love with the protagonist. Except, I can say with certainty that it’s 1000% one sided. In the game, Link goes to Zora’s Domain as a kid and Mipha heals kid Link’s wounds because she a kind and gentle soul. There’s nothing romantic about that given the fact Mipha writes about it before she writes about the feelings she develops.

When Link goes back, she writes about how he looks past her, doesn’t open up to her, but still remains the kind soul she knows him to be. This in and of itself tells us that Link has no feelings for her whatsoever. He’s a knight and he does his best to protect whoever is in need. But he doesn’t truly reconnect with Mipha as a teenager because he remains closed off and in her diary, Mipha confirms the fact that he doesnt give her the same attention that she gives him. She makes the Zora Armor, yeah, but she didn’t present it to Link AND she prayed to Ruto. Ruto being the Zora that fell for Link but that relationship never happened because Link didn’t have feelings for her whatsoever. That in and of itself gives the impression that this relationship is also one sided. The thing that always stood out to me was how Mipha never presented the Zora Armor and how she realized Link and Zelda would grow closer because all the time they had was spent with each other. My theory is that Mipha saw Link and how he seemed a bit less weighed down. And it hit her that the Zelda is also more carefree at this point. And she puts two and two together and realizes that Link and Zelda have opened up to each other and gotten much closer as a result. Hence, why she didn’t give him the Zora Armor since she saw where Link’s heart truly lies. That’s just my own personal idea and theory on her not giving him the armor, so don’t judge lol.

But BoTW Zelink is so COMPLEX and is heavily implied to be canon after the events that I cannot wait to see how the sequel treats their relationship. It’s definitely going to be fun to watch and play.

OKAY SO MY POINT WAS

Nintendo provided all thes unique takes on two characters yet never gave them a toxic relationship, but always one where they can rely on the other when they needed to. And I think that’s beautiful.

*please take note that these are more of my personal opinions and how I view the relationships which may differ from others but that’s okay since LoZ is supposed to be a franchise where you are Link and so whatever you love, he loves. I’m just a slut for Zelink 🤷🏻‍♀️

[talesfantastic]

Mun Things and Fandom Notes

about the mun. fill this out  &  tag a few people you’d like to get to know better !

tagged by the lovely @vetlanwrites tysm tagging some people I haven’t tagged before: @amalgammuses, @animus-inspire​, @kychchc​, @rotinthedark, @warofthebeasts & YOU!

name: my name is [ loud music interrupts ] nickname:  you can call me Kat or KF! preferred pronouns: she/her age range:  30+ favorite animal:  cats pets: cat and a dog tattoos/piercings: I had my ears pierced several times and they won’t stay pierced so I gave up on anything -shrug- star sign: virgo! I’m an August bby how long have you been in this fandom?: doing just the ones I currently have muses for, and not the ones I’ve only talked about -

Dragonball(Z) - I’ve been writing in DBZ since... oh geez, the late 90′s? I think the first fic I ever posted was DBZ and it was around that time. I didn’t start rping it until like, early 00′s though.

Final Fantasy - I actually dabbled in 9 a little bit around the time it came out in ‘00 (my friend had it!) but I wouldn’t say I really did much until I really got into 7, and that was around... geez, ‘05? I rped it a little with a friend around then but I didn’t really start writing it much until nearly ‘10. #latetotheparty Yet I do consider it my “home” fandom - I always come back to it.

Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons - early ‘00s! My first HM/SoS game was Friends of Mineral Town on my trusty GBA and I love it so much to this day. SO excited for the remake!

Legend of Zelda - I really, really loved Ocarina of Time from the get-go when I got it on the N64 in ‘98 (I got it again for the GameCube and the 3DS and would totally buy it for the Switch, just sayin.) Majora’s Mask creeped me out a bit and was stressful but I liked it, too. And then of course later titles like Twilight Princess were just... -chef’s kiss- but I didn’t really dig into the fandom until ‘10-’11 when I started rping Link with a friend and briefly tried joining a forum rp group (shoutout to ZRPG!) with an OC

Marvel Cinematic Universe - I want to say around ‘12, when Avengers came out? Like, I’d seen Iron Man but I didn’t really dig into it until then.

Pokémon - late 90′s / early 00′s because I first started my Pkmn journey playing Gold and Crystal. While I didn’t write fanfic or rp it, I definitely had headcanons and a lot of feels.

Sailor Moon - early 90′s! I first watched the anime as it came out, though I’ve since forgotten most of that and only have the manga/crystal in my head to run interpretations off of. It was so pretty tho.

Stardew Valley - a newer fandom for me, I really only started getting “into” it about a year ago, but man... I love it, I really do

Star Wars - despite early access to the OT as a kidlet, I didn’t actually get “into” Star Wars until the Prequels in ‘99 (fite me) when I fell in love with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan and promptly, voraciously, dove into fixit and timetravel fanfic. By the time KOTOR came out in ‘03 I was hooked.

Threads of Fate - I think I got into this one on the ground floor, so to speak. My friend had just gotten it and I borrowed it from her and my brother’s PS1 in ‘00 and that was it, I was in love.

why did you choose this specific character/s?:  under a cut bc I have like... nearly 30 muses now

I’m doing alphabetical order (by fandom / first name) bc it’s just easier to go down my list:

tl;dr I picked them all because I love them. Read on to find out why. Click their names to read their bios!

Dragonball Z

Vegeta - oh man, actually one of the first characters I ever rp’d or wrote in fic, and that’s saying something. I picked him because I love him. He’s an absolute ass, but he grows so much throughout Z. (I have yet to see Super, hoping to one day remedy that but we’ll see!) I guess I picked him up for nostalgia’s sake? I really love the character and think there’s a lot of growth yet to see buried under that pride and ego. If you can unearth it.

Final Fantasy

Angeal Hewley (FF7) - actually my first muse on Tumblr, back in... oh, 2013? The blog has been deleted, but he was the first muse I ever played seriously out of FF7. There’s parts of Angeal that really resonate with me, enough that - when I was a less experienced writer - I got tangled up in him a bit too much, made him a bit too personal, and I realized I had to take a step back from writing him. But I love Angeal, and after some time had passed, having written him in various fics, I’ve felt confident adding him... even if I haven’t done anything with him here yet.

Cait Sith (FF7) - I know a lot of people see Cait Sith as all sorts of negative things, but frankly I adore the little guy. And I guess I took him on partially because I couldn’t take Reeve on and not take Cait on, but partially because I see so much in him that could be interesting to explore and would really, really love to. (Any Reeve’s or AVALANCHE - or Turks! - come at me!)

Chaos (FF7) - I picked Chaos up on a whim, as far as Tumblr goes. I really enjoy rping him/Vincent off Tumblr and writing him in fics, and I suppose I just wanted to present a different side of him than I usually see. I’ve even had a thread that has a great deal of promise so I think it was worth it.

Genesis Rhapsodos (FF7) - my third FF7 blog, I think? It’s still up, though obviously not in use, just because I’d put so much work into it. I really adore Genesis, and love writing him. I love his sass and flare, but I love that he’s deeper than all the fire and flamboyance, if you’re willing to look past that. I’m lucky that I’ve had some lovely partners to explore him with, though I’d still kill for an Angeal to throw him at. XD Or a Sephiroth, for that matter.

Lazard Deusericus (FF7) - Lazard, my second FF7 blog and an unexpected love. I picked him up because I had recently started writing him in earnest with an off-Tumblr rp partner ( @thegeeksqueaks ) and was really enjoying him, and hadn’t seen him on Tumblr yet so thought I might get more partners that way. (It turned out there were a couple but they were inactive.) His first blog was accidentally deleted - over five years worth of character development and relationships - so after briefly working him up again solo I brought him over here. He’s not getting the same level of attention but it’s worth it not to be juggling blogs.

Reeve Tuesti (FF7) - pre-Remake, most of the Reeve rpers had gone inactive (shoutout to the fabulous @engineering-robotics and @animus-inspire for coming back!) and just... I love the character too much not to see him in the RPC. Of course, I love to write him period myself so I’d love more threads there but regardless he’s so much fun.

Tristan Pierce (FF7 OC) - Triiiiiiiiiis. Tristan was actually born as an NPC off of Lazard’s blog, who took a life on his own because he was just... so full of life. He actually had his own blog, too! I’ve barely done anything with him here, but I still keep him just because he gives me feels and he’s just neat. (He does still appear in the background of Lazard’s threads though.)

Harvest Moon / Story of Seasons

Iris (SoS) - I actually picked up Iris as a muse first for a fantastic HM/SoS/SDV/etc rp group I’m in a couple years ago, and liked playing her so much I thought I’d bring her here. Elegant lady novelist? Yes please.

Neil (ANB) - unlike Iris and Trent, I haven’t written Neil anywhere else, but he’s my love from A New Beginning and just... he seems like he’d be fun to write? I’d love to flesh him out.

Doctor/Trent (FoMT/MFoMT; DS/CUTE) - Trent, like Iris, is one I write for the rp group and I legit picked him up because of the opportunity for h/c I am not sorry. But seriously though, he’s grown on me so much and I love my awkward doctor.

Legend of Zelda

Midna (Twilight Princess) - TP is one of my absolute favorite Zelda games, and Midna a favorite character. There’s just so much to her you don’t get to see that I was really hoping to get to dig into, still hope one day to. We’ll see. Worth keeping on roster.

Revali (Breath of the Wild) - my newest addition! I keep saying in complete seriousness “Genesis with more feathers” but seriously, I may have a type? I love him so much and wanted to see more of him, and by god if I have to do it myself so be it. (I have been playing a ton of BOTW lately which probably has a lot to do with it. XD)

Sheik (Ocarina of Time) - I love them so much. OoT didn’t have a ton of character building, but the sheer implications of the character speaks volumes that I want to explore. I’m lucky enough to be getting the chance to, too.

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Tony Stark - did I mention I have a type? I feel he makes a good argument for it. I originally picked Tony up because I just fell head over heels for the character in the first couple Iron Man movies + Avengers. I... am less in love with him in the later movies, not gonna lie, and am so far behind on lore that I’m considering dropping him. But yeah, originally picked him up just because he had so much potential. Thx Disney, great job there.

Pokémon (gameverse)

Lily Hart (HG/SS OC) - another OC of mine, this time for a fandom that... I only really know through the games, as opposed to manga/anime. I picked her up because I really liked the idea of doing events or little ask things with her, and still may try to initiate some more of those. We’ll see?

Sailor Moon (manga/Crystal)

Ami Mizuno/Sailor Mercury - I actually picked Ami up because of a plot with @magicalxgirlsxrp where we were splitting up the Inners and the Shitennou for some mega threads. XD But yeah, I do like her. Even if she’s a challenge to write sometimes because she’s very much not like me, and very much smarter.

Kunzite - Kunzite I have always loved, always, and I’ve had him on here because I really wanted to explore him more. I love him even more after the teasing in Crystal of what might have been, be still my shippy heart.

Mamoru Chiba/Endymion/Tuxedo Mask - super fond of Mamoru, too; I didn’t care for him so much in the 90′s anime, but in the manga and Crystal I really became more fond. I do a few things differently, I think, but don’t we all? I picked him up for that very reason, in fact.

Minako Aino/Sailor Venus - Minako is really interesting to me because there’s so much more to her than her airheaded, bubbly persona that fits her like a glove... but is just as superficial. I mean, she’s sunny and happy but she’s also the OG Senshi, the leader of the Inners, a powerful, commanding fighter - she’s complex, and I really wanted to explore that + getting to have fun with her bubbliness.

Nephrite - another picked up from @magicalxgirlsxrp‘s enabling. But I do find him really interesting so it works out well. Haven’t done a lot with him, but we have plans. Plans I’m looking forward to.

Stardew Valley

M. Rasmodius - I knew I really wanted to do something with SDV, once I got to playing it, but I wasn’t sure who. I thought about Sebastian and Elliot, but already had interacted with a couple who were just fantastic. So instead, I did a good fallback of mine - because I never, ever get tired of playing mages. Ever. XD

Star Wars

HK-47 (KOTOR) - the attitude. I wanted to write HK entirely because of the scorching levels of sass from this droid.

Liana Raine (SWTOR f!JC) - the Jedi Consular storyline is one of my favorites out of all of SWTOR (tied with the Inquisitor, but I’m revamping her) and I really just wanted to keep playing with it even once I’d done the dedicated storyline.

Revan (KOTOR LS!F) - give me female Revan you cowards. -ahem- I have feels about Revan, okay? I love her so, so much - she even had her own blog, I love her that much. I would absolutely love to do something more with her but I will hold on to her if for no other reason than to make sure at least one black, female Revan exists in the world. (I want all the timetravel and crossover threads, hit me up.)

Tharan Cedrax (SWTOR) - another for attitude, really, and also definitely my type. XD He’s charming, he’s snarky, he’s sassy, he’s brilliant... I very much like Tharan and really felt he, like most of the companions, deserved more screentime. So, I’m here to give it to him.

Threads of Fate (Dewprism)

Duke - he’s so cool. I mean, he’s a dork, but his powers are amazing and he’s just a fun, incredibly upbeat character to play. And well, anything to spread my love of that teeny fandom.

Fancy Mel - Mel hits all the sweet spots for a mage character. She’s got flavor, she’s got amazing powers, and she had room to create a fantastic backstory with amazing crossover potential. Is she a bit OP? Yes. But she has no intention of using it for anything but her amusement/whimsy.

Rod the Bladestar - I love Rod. I love his oddly genteel manners, I love how he’s unwittingly sexist but quickly cleans up his act when put straight, I love how driven and passionate he is. Could do without such a typically-Square-outfit, but you can’t have everything. (In the right artists’ hands, he might even be pretty amazing, actually.)

Did you read all of that? Amazing. Any of them strike your interest? Hmu and maybe we could plot a thread! :eyes:

Also I sincerely apologize to mobile users who had to read all that because Tumblr can’t get it’s act together.

[xb-squaredx]

Sword Characters in Smash: Unraveling the Hate

The Super Smash Bros. franchise has a plethora of fighters, especially in the latest release, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. With the announcement of more DLC fighters at E3 2019, most fans seem quite happy with the announcement of Banjo and Kazooie though many are quite split on the Hero from Dragon Quest joining the roster. Paired with all of the overjoyed and hyped reactions, there are plenty of people that are displeased, and I hear a common refrain from the mouths of those people: “Ugh, not another sword character.” For years now, I hear this repeated again and again, and the complaints only seem to get louder as time goes on. So I’d like to take the time to weigh both side of this argument here. Are sword-based fighters in Smash worth of all this hate, or are people over-reacting? The answer might surprise you.

From what I gather, there are about three common arguments against sword-based fighters. There are too many of them as-it-is, they all play the same, and they’re annoying to fight, dominating the tier lists. That last one is really the only one that I think has much merit, so let’s talk about that one first.

TOP TIER SWORDS

Throughout most of the Smash games, sword-based characters tend to be pretty good in the grand scheme of things. If not the best character, they’re still pretty high up there. Keep in mind, character viability is always going to be a subjective thing. That said, I can see why people would say sword characters are pretty good. They tend to be fast, they have great range, and because of that range, it can be hard for opponents to get in on them. Sword attacks have what you would call a “disjointed hitbox.” That is to say, their attacks have no hurtbox connected to them. So if, say, Donkey Kong throws out a punch and it collides with Lucina’s sword…DK will end up getting hurt while Lucina won’t feel a thing. This means sword attacks have a greater priority when attacks clash, sword characters largely avoid trading blows (on average anyway), and there are indeed a good amount of characters that can struggle when faced with a sword character.

Of course, that goes both ways. Sword characters have range on their side, but get past that range and they’re in trouble. Look at some of the better characters across the games and we see plenty of other characters facing off against sword characters. Fox, Inkling, Snake, Bayonetta, and so on, they all can take on the swordies, so it’s not like they’re an almighty match-up. And again, just because you have a hill to climb against a sword character, that doesn’t mean victory is impossible. I can totally understand not liking fighting against sword characters or not enjoying how they play, and at that point it’s just a preference. But I often don’t see people frame their dislike of sword characters like this, and instead they latch on to the two other narratives I illustrated above.

TOO MANY SWORDS

“We already have like fifty sword characters!” “Oh great, another Fire Emblem rep, cuz we needed twenty of them!” Hyperbole it may be, there seems to be a common argument that we already have “too many” sword characters in Smash and we don’t need any more. The way some people talk, the vast majority of the roster wields a sword. I was curious on the exact ratio, so I did some math.

Starting from the very first Smash game, Smash 64, we have a grand total of ONE sword character, Link, in a roster of 12. You get to Melee, and we gain Young Link, Marth and Roy, for a ratio of 4 to 26. Brawl, assuming we count Zero Suit Samus and Sheik as separate characters, has 37 characters, and only 6 sword-based fighters. We lost Roy and Young Link, though we gained Ike and Toon Link, alongside Pit and Meta Knight. Perhaps coincidentally, Meta Knight’s also considered to be so good as to be broken and low-and-behold, he has a sword. I hear murmurings of sword hate around this point, but it really doesn’t get into high gear until we get to Smash 4.

Alongside the returning six swordies, we gained eight more sword-based characters, with a grand total of 14 sword characters out of the game’s 58 character roster. So that’s Mii Swordfighter, Robin and Shulk in the base game, Roy returning as DLC, as well as Corrin and Cloud as DLC, alongside the “Echo Fighters” Lucina and Dark Pit. Those last two got quite a bit of hate, as they were seen as “wasted slots,” slightly altered versions of Marth and Pit, respectively. That nearly half of the DLC were sword characters wasn’t a fact lost on many. This is where the narrative really got into high gear and complaints started to flood in about there being too many sword-based characters. For all the complaints though, said characters are still just shy of being a fourth of the roster overall. Also keep in mind, Smash 4 introduced us to a LOT of newcomers that were quite unique. Wii Fit Trainer used Yoga, Villager used…anything it could get its hands on, the likes of Mega Man, Pac-Man, Ryu and Bayonetta got in with extremely faithful movesets, and yet people focus on the small handful of characters added in with a bladed weapon. It seems especially weird to hone in on Dark Pit and Lucina, as they were made full-fledged characters late into development, long after the roster was already decided, so it’s not like they were actively taking slots from some other requested character. Concerning the DLC fighters too, Roy was a fan-favorite that many wanted back, while Cloud was a popular fan request that many felt would never happen, and yet many people were hyped when he was revealed. But the hate persisted, and then we get to Smash Ultimate…

Since Ultimate has EVERY character that’s ever been in the series, we see all of the previous swordies back, even in cases where they’re kinda redundant like Young Link. Ganondorf finally gets to use a sword now, so I begrudgingly count him as a sword character, and I’m counting Joker as a swordy as well, even if it is a dagger. While we still don’t know the final two DLC fighters for the Fighters Pass, assuming they’re BOTH sword characters, and counting all the various Echoes as their own fighters, at most we’ll have a ratio of 21 sword characters to a staggering 80 total fighters. At this point I really have to question why people complain about a glut of sword characters, when you have nearly 60 other choices! Most fighting games don’t even have rosters half this large! Looking at all the newcomers for Ultimate too, there’s not a sword in sight until you get to the DLC. Incineroar is our first wrestling-themed fighter, Simon and Richter Belmont give us our first whip-users, while Ridley and King K. Rool are interesting twists on the heavy character archetype, and Inkling can be a kid OR a squid! Super unique overall…with the exception of Isabelle I suppose, but even then, she’s only the second fighter that uses and abuses hammer space, so she’s still contributing to a niche. Now, there IS Chrom as an Echo fighter of Roy, but again…it’s not like adding him in took substantial time and resources away from making sure we got some long-requested fighters that were made more-or-less from scratch.

(An image I’ve seen floating around on this topic gives a pretty good picture of the ratio, circa Smash 4 at least. Can’t seem to find it’s creator though!)

Overall I’d think that with the numbers all laid out, we can see that sword fighters only make up roughly a fourth of the roster on the whole, hardly a majority and plenty of other completely unique fighters available for people tired of clanging swords. So that leaves us with one other issue.

“THEY ALL GOT A COUNTER”

Behind the argument of there being too many swordies, the next most frequent argument I see is that they all “play the same,” and as such, people find them boring. To be fair, there ARE a fair amount of characters that are virtually identical. All the Links, and roughly half the Fire Emblem cast. At least in those cases, it does make sense. Every Link in all of his games uses a sword, and usually has bows and arrows, a boomerang and bombs, so I see no reason to get rid of those moves. Would I like them to be more distinct? Sure, but it makes sense why they play similarly.

When it comes to the Fire Emblem characters, there’s also at least some basis for similarities, from a development standpoint. Roy, and thus Chrom, as well as Lucina, were “bonus” characters added in due to either popularity or to promote a game, and made with Marth as a base to cut costs and make development deadlines. While, again, I’d rather all of them were completely distinct, they’re lucky to be in at all. For what it’s worth too, all of these examples DO have some differences between them, certainly more differences than, say, Peach vs. Daisy or Simon vs. Richter. Young Link’s speed gives him a totally different combo game than the other two Links, for one, whereas with Marth and Roy, they favor hitting from range, or from close-up respectively, with Lucina and Chrom serving as “easier” versions of each. It’s also not as if they can just give them different weapons either, as then their portrayals wouldn’t be faithful. Like it or not, the main characters of Fire Emblem games use swords, so you can’t fault the Smash games when they only have so much to work with. Overall, yes, there are a number of sword characters that are quite similar to each other, but there’s usually a reason behind it, and even then, that’s not to say there aren’t plenty of exceptions.

(via Smash Wiki)

From Brawl onward, it feels as if Sakurai and the developers tried to make any and all sword fighters as distinct as possible, almost like they saw this kind of complaint coming. Ike hits like an absolute truck, Robin and Hero are proficient mages alongside using swords (and have resource management systems to boot), while Corrin has their whole dragon shapeshifting thing going on. The list goes on when it comes to uniqueness to the swordies: Shulk’s Monado Arts, Cloud’s Limit Breaks, and Joker’s Persona...need I say more here? If people are calling all the sword characters clones of each other, then they’re just not paying attention.

Really, it seems more so that people have problems with all of the Fire Emblem reps than anything else. Smash 4 got some flak for giving us four characters from that series, while older franchises like Metroid or Donkey Kong gained no new representation. There’s honestly a weird blind-spot when it comes to people complaining about only certain swordies. Link gets a free pass for the most part (outside of people being annoyed that there’s a Toon Link AND a Young Link in Ultimate), and few complained when Cloud was added but with Shulk or Hero, everyone loses their minds. At times I’ve heard people say “Not another anime sword man,” in which there seems to be emphasis on the anime part of the equation. That tells me that perhaps it’s just a bias against anime, or overly Japanese characters than their weapon of choice. On top of this, the complaints mainly seem to come from Western fans, and with that in mind, the blind hate makes a bit more sense.

(via Reddit)

Up until Awakening, Fire Emblem was fairly niche outside of Japan, while it was rather popular in its native country. Then there’s the inclusion of Dragon Quest’s Hero, a series that is ridiculously popular in Japan, but never really got much play outside of it. It stands to reason that people would be more dismissive of characters from series they don’t have a long history with then, and would help explain why Cloud somehow escapes this unscathed. Final Fantasy VII is essentially THE JRPG that broke into the mainstream in the West, and the Persona series isn’t too far behind in popularity abroad, explaining Joker’s own hype reveal. But let’s go deeper here: the Zelda series is more popular in the West than in Japan, so Link being held in high regard makes sense. Now, am I generalizing a bit here, acting as if all Westerners think alike? Sure. There’s going to definitely be people that don’t subscribe to that notion, and there are certainly people happy to see Hero in Smash or Shulk or Chrom from the West. But this goes a long way towards explaining the somewhat inconsistent hate directed at these characters, and at this point, it feels less like hate and more like indifference or ignorance than anything else.

The Super Smash Bros. games are huge, filled with all kinds of fans, young and old, hardcore or casual. When you get that big, you’re not going to be able to please everyone, and I’m in no way suggesting with this post that people CAN’T dislike a certain character in the game. Everyone has their own tastes and reasons for thinking what they do, but I began writing this post as a way to try to figure out where this somewhat venomous reaction came from. Smash is a series I absolutely adore, and it saddens me to see negativity surrounding it in cases where it doesn’t seem just. It’s really more a case of ignorance than outright malice in most cases I think, and I think the majority of fans are really appreciative, with a small (if vocal) minority giving off the impression that we’re all ungrateful, when it’s simply not true. There will always be some bad apples that try to sour the bunch, but hopefully anyone that reads this comes away with a greater appreciation for what goes into these games, and maybe, just maybe, if the next big Smash reveal involves a sword, there’ll be just a bit less dismissal directed towards it.

-B

[destiny-smasher]

Always Gotta Don’t Stop (speculating about Smash)

So with Byleth incoming in just a few days, we also got other noteworth announcements that got me pretty excited about the possibilities for what could come to Smash Bros. Ultimate over the next two years. I felt like having some fun and came up with multiple lists using this template by Matthew Lovenzka, and I tried to find a balance between various factors -- perceived popularity (not just with Western Smash fans but that’s part of it), moveset potential (they CAN make a moveset out of anything but Sakurai specifically focuses lately on bringing new mechanics), and also a twist of marketing (since that IS part of it, as Byleth demonstrates).

Long post is LONG, I’m goin’ ham.

First up, just some general predictions for Fighters Pass Volume 2:

Now, I don’t believe we will get Sora AND Geno, but it DOES feel likely we will get another Square character, and those two feel like the most popular picks with people from Square. I could Nintendo trying to get Sora in first and foremost, but if legal complications (or Square just being fussy) got in the way, they might compromise on Geno. I feel like with how big Activision/Blizzard is, they’d want a character in, and if Nintendo likewise WANTED to parley with that, and go for another western-themed pick, Bandicoot makes the most sense. Crash didn’t get into Playstation All-Stars but everyone still inherently associates Crash with the Playstation One, so it’d be a great pick and feel similar to Banjo-Kazooie in a lot of ways. I could see moveset being a little standard but they could probably come up with some fun elements. Given how much emphasis the Crash franchise has put on Coco more recently (made her fully playable in the Crash Trilogy, given her lots of attention in CTR Nitro-Fueled), it would feel in-character and also just be neat if she was added as an alt costume. Capcom: I feel like we’re all expecting a new Capcom rep, and that by no means entails we will get a new Capcom rep, buuut it feels pretty likely. Capcom is on good terms with Nintendo, Ultimate already has plenty of content from them, they even pitched in plenty of new music tracks to Ultimate. The real question is, who would Nintendo want from Capcom, and who would Capcom give their approval on? I would’ve thought Resident Evil a couple months ago, but since we just got RE spirits added, I’m starting to think that if a new Capcom rep got chosen, it must’ve been from somewhere else. (Maybe RE was considered first and they did spirits and all that but then it got cancelled or switched, I dunno). There’s plenty of possibilities, including multiple desired characters who have already been in Marvel vs Capcom. Personally, my money is on a Monster Hunter rep just because the game is so huge in Japan, and recently finally broke through to worldwide popularity. Next, a Bandai/Namco rep. Given that the company works on the series, it’s actually strange to me that B/N costumes from Smash 4 were removed, and we have yet to get anyone new added in. Pac-Man is still the only Bandai-Namco fighter in the game. As for who they’d add, most of the obvious picks might feel redundant (Tekken? Soul Calibur?) but if they went with something like Dark Souls, they could incorporate a stamina managing mechanic, as well as that grim-dark aesthetic (I feel like ONE of these six newcomers will be from a grim-dark game.

A year ago, you wanna know who EVERYONE was expecting to get into Smash? When it was revealed that NINTENDO was deciding the DLC, not Sakurai? Wanna know who everyone expected? ‘The new Fire Emblem protag.’ Which is...exactly what we got. I would say that at this point, we can’t really expect anyone or anything from Smash, but the exception to that rule is to expect a first party, corporate overlords pick. Could be a Gen 8 rep, could be Travis Touchdown to promo NMH3, could be a new Zelda rep to promo BotW2, I dunno, could be a new Splatoon character to promo that series (and whatever is coming next from it) but I feel it in my bones that one of these six will be first party, from a more recent game, basically to just be Nintendo flexing their own brands.

But something we learned over the past year is that they are actively trying to add more franchises and characters via Mii Costumes. So here’s some theories as to what we might get from 1st/3rd party Mii costumes in the couple years to come. It feels like we’ll prolly get more Nintendo themed Mii costumes, and tbh I just feel like with more Pokemon DLC coming, they will want to push that here. Especially if we get a new Pokemon fighter/stage, it would feel natural for them to throw in a trainer-oriented costume.

If we get a new Square rep, which feels likely because Square is just THAT big, then I would suspect we’d get one or two more Square costumes, but I’d expect them to be underwhelming. So, like, bring back the Chocobo hat. Bare minimum, that’s been Square’s creed when it comes to Smash.

While Resident Evil feels like it didn’t make the cut, I could totally see them adding in one or two RE themed costumes as kind of a peace offering for the franchise. Leon/Claire would make sense with the RE2 remake being such a hit, and Leon’s history with Nintendo hardware.

TBH it feels kind of criminal that Chun-Li isn’t in the game in some way outside of a spirit and a music track. At least give that lady a costume, for Din’s sake.

2B is also technically Square, but her creator has been very open about being interested in just...selling her likeness all around. I feel like 2B could be a fighter, of course, like she already is in Soul Calibur 6, but I also feel like if Nintendo was going to aim for a Square character, they’d have their sights set on bigger fish. She would please plenty by appearing as a costume, at least.

OK, so, I have played a Minecraft or two over the years. Hell, I played it WAY back before it was even officially finished/released. I can definitely see the appeal of Minecraft coming to Smash, though more as a stage than as a fighter. I could easily see a Minecraft SOMETHING making its way in, and it is very possible to show up as a fighter, but a Mii Fighter skin feels more likely imo.

So something else that hasn’t officially become a pattern yet but has definitely set up an anticipation is indie games getting their dues with ‘premium’ Mii costumes. So here’s my picks for those. I think three of these are actually still quite possible to be fighters, if IF IF Nintendo is willing to truly throw an indie a bone. But it feels more plausible that that bone would be much smaller, and we’d get popular indie reps in the form of these premium skins with music tracks. I feel like I don’t even need to really explain most of these, but VA11 HALLA is here more because I personally like it a lot, it’s a popular enough visual novel internationally, and it has a banging OST. But tbh if I could decide on a Stardew Valley skin that would’ve gone there instead, just because of how prominent the game is. You could likewise replace Cave Story with Stardew, except I feel like Cave Story was THE indie game that kind of kickstarted this whole ‘indie revolution.’ Tricky part there is the complicated and unfortunate nature of the series’ ownership (essentially taken away from its creator).

The other four, though, I could easily see them as fighters with their own unique gimmicks/mechanics and stages with cool music and aesthetics. The only other indie game/character I could envision more than them is coming up. I feel like if this indie trend continues, one of these is bound to show up.

So Sakurai made a weirdly big deal about the concept of ‘echo fighters’ only to like...add three and call it a day? There’s so much more you could get out of the concept, and as many have discussed, doing an ‘Echo Fighter pass’ (or just piecemeal adding in Echo Fighters) over the course of the next two years would make extra bank, please lots of folks, and not actually take up more resources. The trick is they’d all have to be first party characters from already establishes franchises in Smash, otherwise I just don’t see them happening. To be a proper echo fighter, they would need to be slightly different than another fighter, but different in some way. This usually entails at least one special move being totally different, but it also often entails changing the characters’ properties in some way. To be clear: Tetra - Toon Link, Medusa - Palutena, Octoling - Inkling, Gooigi - Luigi, Impa- Sheik, Dixie - Diddy.

Personally, I think Impa would make the most sense of these to be her own fighter, and she has many forms she could take (pictured above is the Hyrule Warriors version), which tbh could just mean an entirely original, new adaptation, like they’ve already done with Sheik and, arguably, Zelda. But she could totally get away with being a Sheik echo, as well. You can probably imagine differences on your own, but if we were to get more echo fighters added, these are some of the more popular and perhaps plausible picks that might possibly please the higher proportion of people.

So I don’t think any of these feel specifically likely outside of a Monster Hunter rep, and even then, I feel like Byleth essentially got the ‘gimmick’ you’d give to a Hunter fighter (like they got in MvCI), so you could swap the Hunter for a Palico or even a Monster or something, I dunno. I want someone from Monster Hunter, and I want a Monster Hunter stage/music. But I do feel like at this point, anyone feels possible for Smash, so these are picks I would personally DIE OVER, like I did with Mega Man, Lucina, Banjo-Kazooie, and Joker before them. Ones that I personally have great affection for and would main regardless of play style, but which also feel prominent enough and appropriate enough where you imagine them in Smash, imagine many people knowing who they are, etc etc.

ARMS was such a lovingly made game that just didn’t have mechanics deep enough to hold people’s attention in the long run. Which is a shame, because the characters, the world, the aesthetic, it’s all so well done and I adore it. I do feel like we’re bound to get at least one more Ninty rep (probably two or even three depending on how much Nintendo wants to dabble with third parties this go-around), and I feel like ARMS is a franchise worth inspiring interest in. The game did well, it just didn’t do SPLATOON well, and I don’t want Nintendo to abandon it. Give us the four most prominent characters from the game as different skins, use colors to reference the ones who are shaped differently from them, give them a unique mechanic with their arms and the swapping-fists element.

I do think we may very well get an Activision/Blizzard rep, and while I ain’t happy with that company right now, I do think they’re one of the biggest western companies who’s not in the game (Bethesda being another one, who I am also not happy with atm but who has much less defined characters). Tracer would tick many boxes in terms of what I want from a newcomer in Smash. She has lots of personality, she’s a woman (a thing sorely lacking in new Smash characters lately), she has what could be a VERY unique gimmick, and she would help advertise Overwatch 2 and other Blizzard games that have been coming to Switch. Make it so she doesn’t have a Final Smash but has an Ultimate that charges over time (and the Smash Ball just insta-fills it), but make it not as powerful AS a normal Final Smash. Give her Blinks and a Rewind but no traditional recovery, so you have a real intriguing balance between managing her cooldowns to either maximize offense at great risk, or grant very safe recovery but then lack ways to overcome neutral. Tracer’s kit could encapsulate just about everything interesting about competetive Smash gameplay. The only real downside is that Overwatch doesn’t have much in the way of music -- so incorporate other Blizzard stuff to make up the difference. Overwatch already crosses other Blizzard content into it, anyway.

Undertale may have gotten a nod in Smash already, and arguably in the form of one of the most desired characters/tracks added, but I also think the game is big enough of a deal that a full-on fighter/stage as the first indie properly added would feel...I dunno, fulfilling. Appropriate. Not to mention the moveset potential. Whereas Sans is already repped well enough tbh (even the nature of him being a costume FITS his too-lazy-to-actually-show-up-in-person mood), a concept for the actual player character of Undertale has way more potential imo. Not to mention that Sakurai/Nintendo seem much more keen on adding the primary/player character to rep a game before anyone else. Frisk could be played in a dual style: either a hyper defensive passive style that relies on turning the opponent’s strength against them, OR a hyper aggressive rush-down style that is fast and fierce but easily punishable if you make mistakes. The key to creating a truly fitting Undertale rep for Smash would be finding that balance of player choice between peace and violence and working it directly into the character’s kit. HOW you would implement it would be tricky -- ideally, you’d want to reward players for actually committing to ‘Frisk’ style or ‘Chara’ style, and punish them for middling between the two. Not only this, but an Undertale stage would bring with it one of the decade’s most beloved gaming OSTs, and you could probably get people in the gaming world who’d be JUMPING to arrange those tracks for Smash. The stage itself could take many forms but I think one that plays with the various characters and their attack styles would maximize the creativity of the team. If I had to pick one single character/stage to get added to Smash, I’d vouch for this one, probably, and I’d make it either the first of this pass, or the last; it’d have the biggest impact on either end but would be a big deal regardless.

Kat from Gravity Rush is, arguably THE least likely out of everyone here to show up in Smash, mainly because she is a Sony character. Unlike Joker or Crash, she isn’t a third party character who is associated with Sony, she is a Sony-owned character, to my knowledge. But out of every first party Sony character, she makes the most sense to me as a Smash character. She’s cute, cartoony, she has a primary gimmick that a PLATFORMING fighter could take full advantage of (imagine managing a gravity charge to go sideways or underneath the stage for kills, BUT dooming yourself if you mess up), and she would be a real “oh whoa wtf” moment in terms of bringing Sony into the fold. Main problem is, if Sony was to let of their characters in, it would probably be someone else, just because it seems they’ve lost sight of value in this series, unfortunately. Though, tbh, I’d be pretty damn down for Aloy, as well, I just think the stage/moveset wouldn’t be nearly as exciting or new.

Lastly, I want more Splatoon. We all want more Splatoon. I don’t know if the series has gone into hibernation until the next Nintendo hardware, or if a spinoff is coming sooner than we think, or what. But Nintendo knows how big Splatoon is. And the series FEELS big enough over the past decade to warrant more representation. I feel like we’re getting a new Ninty rep or two, anyway, and I’d much rather it be Splatoon than more Pokemon or Fire Emblem or JRPG etc. (nothing against those things, we just HAVE plenty of them). The pop idols of Splatoon have won the hearts of many, and you could definitely come up with a new moveset for them in many ways. It could be a tag-team moveset where the player swaps between them (maybe even on time intervals like a musical performance), it could be music-themed instead of ink-themed, it could be Ice Climbers -esque, I dunno, there’s a lot of possibilities. A Splatfest themed stage with multiple variations could keep things tied to the actual gameplay of Splatoon, as well (or they could do a Salmon Run based one, that mode is INSANE). It would drive up appeal in the brand even further, it would capitalize on the fanservice angle, it would highlight just how much the series has accomplished these past ten years -- for fuck’s sake, there are PHYSICAL CONCERTS YOU CAN GO TO to watch these characters perform. Who the hell else in Nintendo history can you say that for? And these characters are still pretty recent! That speaks a lot. If I had to rally for any first party add, it would be this, honestly. And yet, we already have Splatoon, but I think the brand is fresh enough and fun enough to warrant a whole new fighter.

So that’s my hopes, some predictions, and some shots in the dark.

The past year has been a WILD ride. The next two years will hopefully follow suit.

[mrauthor3ds]

This is my SSBU tier list of the fighters’ canon power!

Just a quick note: just because some characters are in a lower tier doesn’t mean they can’t compete with the tier above. Well...except for the Normal Human and Penny-Sized tiers. But Peak-Human and up, they can still find a way to battle with the tier just above themselves.

-= GODLY =- - Dark Samus: The single most dangerous entity in the Metroidverse. Teleportation, intangibility, possession, power absorption, Phazon corruption, illusions, fast regeneration, and everything that the Power Suit can do...It took the death of the planet Phaaze to put her down, and even that required some strange circumstances! - Kirby: Already confirmed to hold infinite power. And regularly dukes it out with cosmic horrors, anyway. - Ganondorf: Holds the godly might of the Triforce of Power, and nigh limitless magic with it. Unless you have a divine weapon/power, you stand no chance of slaying him. - Mewtwo: Can conjure a global mega-storm, and that’s BEFORE Mega Evolution (which it can potentially do on its own). - Rosalina & Luma: Rosie can pilot the whole Comet Observatory swiftly throughout the cosmos, and the Lumas are capable of undoing a powerful black hole. - Palutena: Even if she’s not the strongest god in the Kid Icarus world, she’s still VERY powerful. She’s also the source of many of the Powers that Pit used, including the finishing shot to Hades. - Shulk: Even if his Monado III alone isn’t the True Monado, but rather a third of it (alongside Zanza’s and Meyneth’s Monados, which it combined with to remake the world), it still allows Shulk to be a godslayer. - Bayonetta: Again, a godslayer. And one that can bend time and space.

-= HIGH SUPERHUMAN =- - Mario: As one of the seven Star Children, it makes sense. He’s also incredibly strong, tough, quick, and can adapt to just about anything. - Donkey Kong: Another Star Child, and one that can punch his world’s moon down to the surface! - Link: Not just for his Master Sword, but his high adaptability to different powers in each incarnation. The Champion here even harnesses the powerful magic of his four comrades! - Samus: Even if she alone isn’t planet-busting, her Power Suit still makes her a one-woman army against all sorts of biological and mechanical horrors that overshadow the whole Federation. - Yoshi: Another Star Child. While all Yoshis pretty much have the same capabilities, they’re still generally strong, fast, and tough enough to handle all sorts of things - even getting kicked to the moon and hurling gigantic Eggdozers! - Luigi: Another Star Child. Being similar enough to Mario means his strength is practically on-par with him - moreso, if you consider his great potential. - Ness: By the end of EarthBound, Ness harnesses the power of the Earth itself, allowing him and his friends to withstand even Giygas’s powers. - Peach: Another Star Child. She may not look it, but she’s quite powerful when she must be - likely due to her great magic, which can even overpower and shatter the reality-bending Dream Stone! - Bowser: Another Star Child. And a darn stubborn one at that. Besides his super-strength, his greatest claim to fame is a grand combination of tenacity and durability. Still mortal, but it takes a lot (or just circumstances) to end him. - Zelda: While she doesn’t have Link’s physical prowess, she still wields great divine magic. Only thing keeping her in this tier is that she’s as mortal as Link. - Meta Knight: Clearly not on the same ground as Kirby, but he’s able to keep up by repeatedly defeating the planetary threat, Galacta Knight. - Wario: Another Star Child. His strength, defense, and speed are practically on-par with the other Star Children. - Charizard: Being a high-stage Pokemon, this is a fitting place to put Charizard. Mega Evolution aside, it’s quite fast and can melt stone with its fire breath (which is better than how it performs in the main games’ battle system, but official lore counts in canon power). - Lucas: He holds a PSI that resonates with the Dark Dragon that practically holds the remaining world together - something that even the powerful Magypsies can’t harness. - Sonic: There are limitations to the Super/Hyper Transformations (mainly Ring Energy), but it’s enough to let him duke it out with immense threats time and time again. That or the power of teamwork after Unleashed. Eh, still a high tier. - King Dedede: Again, not on the same level as Kirby, but close enough. The Dedede Clones’ flavor text did say they were cloned from “one of the strongest life-forms on the planet“. And he’s still capable of standing up to cosmic threats. - Lucario: High-stage Pokemon. Also has a versatile skillset, Aura senses, and Mega Evolution. - Greninja: High-stage Pokemon. Besides ninjutsu and high power, it can potentially Battle Bond and turn into Ash-Greninja, which is even faster and stronger than before. - Robin: He’s a step above the divine sword wielders because he holds the power of Grima. And in gameplay, he’s one of the strongest units in terms of max stats and Skill variety, AND confirmed that he can size up other units at a glance. - Ryu: It’s not just the power of Ansatsuken that puts him here, but also the Power of Nothingness (Mu no Ken), which gives him much, MUCH more influence over his ki and his surroundings. It’s also practically confirmed to be stronger than the Satsui no Hado alone. - Corrin: Like Robin, Corrin has greater power than most humans in his world, being half-dragon, holding power over Dragon Veins, and access to a wide variety of Skills. And that’s before accounting Omega Yato, a sword with enough power to destroy the world! - Ridley: Not as dangerous as Dark Samus, but still a massive threat (no pun intended). Swift, strong, and able to heal himself quickly through metabolism alone...not to mention his smarts and HUGE sadism (again, no pun intended)! - Incineroar: High-stage Pokemon. Besides its high durability and strength, it can resonate with its own unique Z-Power.

-= SUPERHUMAN =- - Pikachu: Put here as a mid-stage Pokemon. General Pikachu are fast and have lightning-grade electric power, but are otherwise physically vulnerable. - Daisy: Nothing hints that Daisy has magical power on par with Peach, but she’s still capable enough to keep up with the others in all the (really dangerous) sports they play. - Sheik: This is pretty much Zelda, but keep in mind that she used this persona to hide from Ganondorf’s notice. That means her magical power is purposefully handicapped in this form. - Marth: Having a dragon-slaying sword isn’t enough to make Marth demi-godly, but it is just enough for him to stand up to such foes. Being able to heal is definitely a nice touch. - Lucina: Same as Marth. Wields the same dragon-slaying sword, but she went through comparatively more dangerous situations than Marth did (essentially being close to an apocalypse). - Young Link: Not quite as powerful as an adult Link, but still much stronger than most adult warriors in his world. Not sure just how high the Fierce Deity Mask would take him...but then again, it can only be used when fighting bosses. - Roy: Same deal as Marth and Lucina. Though the Binding Blade is the source of most of his incredible might, his keen mind is nothing to sneeze at. - Chrom: While he didn’t go through Lucina’s harrowing experiences, he still managed to complete his Falchion’s Awakening. - Pit: Yes, Pit can battle with gods, but let’s be honest - most of his strength was lent by Palutena and Viridi, especially in the final battle against Hades. - Dark Pit: Same as Pit. - Ike: I will admit that Ike was capable of standing up to a more literal goddess (since other gods were just really strong dragons)...but he DID have the direct blessing of that goddess’s counterpart, so... - Ivysaur: Mid-stage Pokemon. Being able to cut through trees and induce sleep, paralysis, and poison alone is pretty scary. It’s like a Poison Ivy in the making... - Diddy Kong: Not quite as powerful as DK, but able to keep up with his gadgets. Which he made himself. From LOGS and BARRELS. How does he do it?? - R.O.B.: ...Really not sure where to put this. Really, I’m gauging R.O.B. by his World of Trophies incarnation (the Ancient Minister). Yeah, he has rocket thrusters and eye lasers, but not much indicating him to directly match the High Superhumans. - Toon Link: Same deal as Young Link, though this one has wielded both the Master Sword (which Young Link himself couldn’t) and the Phantom Sword (which holds the power of the Phantom Hourglass). - Mega Man: I probably should put Mega Man in High Superhuman, but I did consider that the Reploids made 100 years later were all made to be stronger than this one (somehow)...Still! With the right weapons, he can handle just about anything! - Mii Fighters: Again, not sure where to put these, since Miis’ power varies based on the game they’re in. Their strongest instance I can think of is Miitopia, but that’s still general RPG adventurers. - PAC-MAN: Might be higher, might be lower...He’s so underused, it’s hard to tell. - Bowser Jr.: Only here because he’s not yet on Bowser’s level, but still capable of giving Mario and friends a hard time. Same with the Koopalings, also being bosses. - Ken: Only thing keeping Ken a tier below Ryu is that he hasn’t harnessed the Power of Nothingness. But being an Ansatsuken practitioner, he’s still far above the average fighter. - Cloud: ...Could be higher, but it REALLY feels like Aerith played the biggest part in the team’s victory against Sephiroth (especially when you consider the mind-boggling Super Nova). Still, he’s far stronger and tougher than even actual SOLDIERs. - Inkling: Certainly not city-busting types, but their bizarre ink powers make them really hard to take out. And the fact that Inklings are brave fighters by nature makes it hard to make them surrender. - Simon: He’s capable of using weapons that are strong against demons and vampires and the like. Doesn’t make HIM godly, but it’s still something. - Richter: Same deal as Simon. (Though he did get brainwashed at one point...) - King K. Rool: I’m not sure how K. Rool compares to Donkey Kong, since he’s been absent before DK was shown in his prime. Still, his crazy gear and trickery does at least let him keep up with the ape.

-= PEAK-HUMAN =- - Fox: He may be a threat in Smash, but in the Star Fox games, he’s mostly just a pilot. Still, it did take a lot of training to be capable of flying fast interstellar spaceships. Not enough to directly compete with supernatural powers himself, but it makes him quite strong. - Captain Falcon: Similar deal with F-Zero racers like Captain Falcon. And before you try to bring up the anime scene, it wasn’t his Falcon Punch that blew up Black Shadow’s base. That was thanks to the Dark Reactor malfunctioning (thanks to the full Boost on Rick Wheeler’s vehicle). Falcon was just keeping Black Shadow from getting away from the Reactor before it exploded. - Jigglypuff: Lower-stage Pokemon. Well, its natural skillset wouldn’t quite compare to Pikachu’s in realistic power, but it’s still much stronger than most normal people. Quite a lot of low-stage Pokemon are. - Ice Climbers: They may be small and cute, but they’re still trained to scale tall icy mountains and battle with hot pants-clad polar bears. - Pichu: Low-stage Pokemon. While it’s a GOD in Smash, it’s very weak in the Pokemon world. It IS one of the “baby Pokemon”, after all. - Falco: Just like with Fox. - Zero Suit Samus: Without her Power Suit, she doesn’t have much besides a Paralyzer. Still, she is more fit than other humans, thanks to her Chozo training (and splicing). - Snake: Being a super-clone makes him very strong by human standards. How much higher he goes from there depends on what weapons he salvages, since he begins all his missions with the bare essentials. - Pokemon Trainer: Yeah, I know. These Trainers are all children, ages 11-15. But they’re still capable of trekking across regions, going through dangerous climates and areas, and can fall quite far without a scratch. Heck, being able to hang onto a fast-flying Pokemon doesn’t sound like something an ordinary kid can do! - Squirtle: Low-stage Pokemon. While its water attacks ARE high-pressure and capable of sending foes flying, they still pale in comparison to its higher stages. - Wolf: Just like with Fox. - Little Mac: Just a boxer, sure. But a very resilient boxer able to easily take down opponents far higher than his own weight class - even when they use their stranger skills (like Great Tiger and Soda Popinski). - Piranha Plant: Yes, these man-eating plants are a threat to most people, but to the lead characters like Mario, these are just common enemies.

-= NORMAL HUMAN =- - Dr. Mario: This Mario comes from a reality where he only battles diseases with vitamin pills. Not much to prove himself on par with the usual Mario, but I could be wrong here. - Mr. Game & Watch: Let’s face it - the usual lead roles of the Game & Watch games are ordinary people. - Villager: Probably one of the most pacifistic characters to ever join Smash. The worst he ever had to deal with in Animal Crossing were tiny scorpions and spiders. - Wii Fit Trainer: Certainly a fit individual, but not one that engages in combat frequently in Wii Fit. Pretty sure she can’t even conjure solar power there... - Duck Hunt: They’re just a normal hunting dog and a normal duck. Yup. - Isabelle: Same deal as Villager, really.

-= PENNY-SIZED =- - Olimar: I made this tier. SPECIFICALLY. For Olimar and the Pikmin. Also applies to Alph, because same size.

[guynamedultimax]

Smash Characters and people who main them

So, I was thinking about who mains certain Smash characters. Aaaand I got these ideas.

Mario: Probably Mickey Mouse. Or Emmet from the Lego Movie franchise idk

DK: Surely not King Kong because he has big hands and would break a Joy-Con just by touching it, not even a GameCube controller is safe. 100% Winston from Overwatch is the candidate, even better if he takes the blue DK skin lol

Link: Sora. This one is easy as hell.

Samus: Tony Stark is the first option that comes to mind.

Dark Samus: And since Rhodes can’t use Samus, might as well use the OTHER Samus lol

Yoshi: It is canonically stated in Deltarune that Asriel Dreemurr mains him and loves him to death.

Fox: I’m not sure how a red pirate fox animatronic holds a Joy-Con or two but probably Foxy from FNAF is the perfect main here.

Pikachu: It’s either Agumon or Jibanyan, too easy. Also put Jibanyan in Smash Sakurai pls

Luigi: Probably Donald Duck to parallel Mickey, the only difference between the two would be that Donald has a short temper while Luigi is a cowardly lion (and the plumber-sailor thing)

Ness: *MEGALOVANIA AND GAME THEORY INTRO INTENSIFIES* Ok jokes aside I think John Egbert and/or Sans are good candidates as Smash main.

Captain Falcon: Raphael, the red turtle from the Teena- wait why am I explaining an obvious character. His bros collectively main another character.

Jigglypuff: D.Va, full stop. She is a bunny person but may also love a Jigglypuff (now I want a drawing of Hana hugging the Puff help me)

Peach: Sooo, let’s see...Mickey has Mario... Donald has Luigi... I think you know where I’m going with this one.

Daisy: OH GOD I JUST REALIZED THAT DAISY DUCK MAINS PRINCESS DAISY, IT’S A “HI I’M-DAISY-CEPTION!”

Bowser: Is there any drawing of Bowser cosplaying as Peg-Leg Pete and viceversa? I’d die for that, it would be hella funny, especially with Mario and Mick dying from laughter in the distance.

Ice Climbers: Hmmm...twins...you can use them to make icy puns...I KNOW! IT’S GEORGE AND FRED

Sheik: Literally any of the ninjas from Lego Ninjago, bonus points for Lloyd.

Zelda: I have literally no damn ide-oh wait. I can use literally any blonde Disney princess lol

Dr. Mario: Undecided between Sorcerer Apprentice!Mickey and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

Pichu: Shogunyan makes the most sense to me. I don’t know a lot about any other Digimon so I’m sorry if I don’t have Digimon ideas for Pichu.

Falco: I don’t know why but the thought of Chica maining Falco makes me laugh. Not that I ship Fox and Falco, of course, but seeing my FNAF OTP using two best pals looks funny enough to me

Any Fire Emblem character that is not Robin or Corrin: I literally have no damn idea.

Young Link: The first one that came to mind was Kenny from South Park and I don’t know, don’t even ask me

Ganondorf: I can just see Gamora giving Thanos a copy of Smash for the Switch and him curbstomping people as Ganondorf

Mewtwo: I still think that Beerus is an AU version of Mewtwo. If Beerus wasn’t a lazy dickhead maybe he would have been similar to Mewtwo.

Mr. Game & Watch: Bendy. Just, Bendy. And not even moster Bendy, just, regular Bendy.

Meta Knight: I wonder how much does Bruce Wayne play Smash when he is not being Batman. Although it’s probably possible that his favourite is Brawl.

Pit: I can just see Tony Stark losing at Smash against Pit and saying: “Fuck you, Barton.” AHAHAHAHAH

Dark Pit: This is for Hawkeye post-Decimation. Sorry if u lost ur family pal. Really sorry. I wanna kick Thanos in the groin for this.

Zero Suit Samus: Of course Natasha Romanoff mains Zero Suit Samus. Fanservice girl for fanservice girl.

Wario: I know Roadhog isn’t greedy and doesn’t care a lot about money except for his fee from Junkrat but he looks like the perfect Wario main in my opinion.

Snake: A spy for a spy. The name is Snake. Solid Snake. *mashup of James Bond theme and Encounter plays in the distance*

Pokèmon Trainer: Literally Ash Ketchum is the only possible choice here.

Diddy Kong: Uuuuh, the Apes from Ape Escape. Yup.

Lucas: Ok listen up, it’s Darwin Watterson. A squishy adorable fish boi for an adorable psychic blondie kid. It’s the perfect matchup! Almost...(Thank god Ninten is not yet in Smash)

Sonic: Me. What, can’t I reclaim one of my mains? The fella here introduced me to gaming with Sonic Rivals on the PSP. Thank god I didn’t buy a PS3 or ‘06.

Dedede: King Candy from Wreck-It Ralph. At least before he reveals himself as the fucker known as Turbo.

Olimar: Keroro from Sgt. Frog. Don’t ask.

Lucario: Sasuke? Idk

R.O.B.: Shared between C-3P0, R2-D2 and BB-8. Easy.

Wolf: Idk Boris the Wolf? I really dunno I suck at this.

Toon Link: Happy from Fairy Tail. JUST LOOK AT HOW MUCH OF A CAT TOON LINK DOES LOOK LIKE

Villager: Chara from Undertale. I don’t need to explain this.

Mega Man: Give me any blue Power Ranger.

Wii Fit Trainer: Hard one. I have no idea help

Rosalina and Luma: IT’S TINKERBELL

Little Mac: *Rocky theme intensifies* ROCKYYYYYYYYYYY BALBOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAA

Greninja: Naruto full stop

Palutena: Cosmos from FF Dissidia.

Mii Fighters: The Xbox avatars. I think this one was pretty obvious.

Pac-Man: Donnie, Mikey and Leo all collectively main Pac. Best part they stop literally any attempt from Raph to spam Falcon Punches lol.

Robin: *Hedwig’s Theme intensifies*

Shulk:...Kirito?

Bowser Jr.: My other main, the one I use the most. For you, I shall summon the perfect main! *Lancer pops out from nowhere*

Duck Hunt: It’s Pluto. You know, Mickey’s dog? Jeez, why doesn’t Disney focus a little more on Pluto?

Ryu: KAME....HAME...HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Ken: *insert Vegeta reference here*

Cloud: FINAL FANTASY TIME, COME ON AND GRAB YOUR FRIENDS, WE’LL GO TO VERY DISTANT LAANDS, WITH JAKE THE DOG AND FINN THE CLUD STRIFE MAIN- ok enough I think you understood the reference.

Corrin: Danaerys Tyrgaryen. Did...did I write that right? I really dunno

Bayonetta: *Insert Dante quote here*

Inkling: de Blob. You...you don’t know de Blob? You should go check that game, it’s fire.

Ridley: Smaug. I know, I’m out of ideas.

Simon: Van Helsing, of course.

Richter: ...I HATE WHEN i AM OUT OF IDEAS

King K. Rool: Does Godzilla count? Or is he a King Kong issue? Ok no wait, any member from the Croc tribe of Legends of Chima is fine

Isabelle: Lucy Heartphilia, easy.

Incineroar: Ok, listen up, before I get in this one, I DO NOT SHIP ISABELLE WITH INCINEROAR. That being said.....Natsu. I can just imagine him and Lucy playing Smash in such an intense way while Happy just plays calmly and beats both lol

Pirahna Plant: Actually the first one that came to mind and gave me the idea for this post. Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Cause, you know, teeth.

Joker: Robin Hood. I know Joker is not an archer user but the gentleman thief thing is there after all

Sorry for the long post, here is the word “potato”. See ya next time and if you have any ideas for missing characters I’d be glad to get them

[totaldramafan-lauri]

Yup.

There are a few reasons I took so long to get to this. The first is that I heard that it wasn’t like Subspace Emissary, which was what I thought we were getting from the trailer. The second is that I much prefer playing Smash multiplayer than single player, so whenever I’d get on, I’d usually play Classic, unlock a character (or two) really quick, then jump straight to Wifi. XD But the biggest reason? Spla2n. Whenever I’d sit down to play a game, I’d usually default to that one. I’m still getting used to balancing between two favorite games, and when one of those games has Splatfests, Salmon Run, and frequently rotating stages and modes, that’s the one I’m gonna wanna play more. XD

But, recently, I’ve really wanted to finally play World Of Light, so last night, I finally decided to take a break from Spla2n and do just that. I know, I know, me, take a break from Spla2n? GASP!! But I’m pretty sure I can handle it. XD I’ll keep up with it in the meantime so I don’t miss any wildcard Salmon Runs, and the next Splafest won’t be for a couple weeks, so this IS a good time for it. Also, I’m gonna play Spla2n on weekends just so I can stay at least a BIT in practice (as charger mains need to do).

But for now, I’m gonna tackle this really massive part of Smash that I’ve neglected up till now...

To get this outta the way, YES, it does bother me that there aren’t any cutscenes of the characters interacting. The one at the beginning was gorgeous, really cinematic, so they coulda made more! But they didn’t. Bummer...but not a complete deal-breaker. This is Smash, after all...

So, this Spirit system! When I first started, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. It kinda reminded me of how in Subspace, you could put stickers on your characters’ trophy stands to give them different buffs and effects when you use them. Except here, it’s not character-specific, and they also put a LOT more emphasis on it rather than having it be completely optional. I like my characters as they are, so given the opportunity I’d just use them completely vanilla, but I figured “why not” and decided to give Spirits a try.

And...I was pleasantly surprised! It’s a good mechanic! It adds a bit more strategy to the fighting while also not being TOO complicated - you just pick a primary Spirit and one or more supporting Spirits (based on how many slots the primary Spirit has) and they stack, simple as that. There’s also a level up system for primary Spirits, so if one seems weak, you can make it stronger!...Or you can be like me and just use your most powerful ones from the start. XD The whole rock-paper-scissors thing they got going on with Attack, Throw, and Defense is also neat, making it so that you have incentive to rotate out primary Spirits instead of sticking to one favorite the whole game. It’s just a very well-designed system, and I like it!

My current favorite Spirits are Octoling for Defense, Tron Bonne for Throw, and Charmander for Attack (though I’d like a better Attack one). Octoling was one I started with, so it’s the strongest so far, but Tron Bonne is catching up really quickly - she has three slots on her, and being a Throw Spirit means that she’s the one I used in....a certain fight I got stuck at, and she kept leveling up from that. XD

As for characters, I’m REALLY happy that Kirby is the one you start with, since I’m....decent with him. Not the best, I mainly use him when I’m not feeling competitive, but he’s a lot of fun, and very user-friendly. I’ve also rescued Villager! I had a choice whether to save him, Marth, or Sheik, and I chose him because he’s a character I use fairly often. I didn’t know that the other two choices get cut off from you, though, so I really should’ve gone for Sheik, as she’s a character I have yet to unlock, but...for now, she’ll have to wait.

So, I’ve been cycling between Kirby and Villager - two characters that I LIKE, but aren’t MAINS particularly, and each Spirit I face has a unique twist. Some matches are stamina matches, which is a mode I barely ever think about, let alone play, and I particularly got a chuckle out of Snake Man puppetting a team of Snakes. XD But, by FAR, the one that stuck out the most to me, and the only one I’ve lost so far, is the fight against Fiora. That fight GAVE ME HELL, and considering it’s in the FIRST AREA, that really gives me a sense of foreboding for what’s to come....I mean, YES I’m gonna save characters I’m better with down the line, but what if the Spirits step up their game at the same pace I am!? It’s game design!

But anyway, Fiora. In her fight, she’s puppetting Lucina and has a Shulk assisting her. I had on Tron Bonne due to her being a Defense Spirit, and equipped a supporter that gave me resistance against melee weapons, and another supporter that boosts my damage when I’m badly hurt. Sounds like I’m well-equipped, right? But the gimmick of the fight was downright BRUTAL - after a while, your defense lowers, and it’d keep lowering again and again the longer you stay alive. IT. SUCKS. ESPECIALLY as characters who are already lightweight! And Lucina and Shulk are no joke either, Shulk especially with his Monado Arts! So I lost about a dozen battles as both my characters, decided to quit and go another way, came back later, lost a bunch AGAIN, and only after I had defeated nearly every Spirit in the area and came back a third time did I FINALLY win. I won as Kirby, and I’m not sure how I did it other than....I adapted. Simple as that. Also Final Cutter. =P

Hopefully my future posts won’t be as rambly as this. I just wanted to explain how I feel about the gameplay and THEN talk about my experiences.

Also, after I finished for the night, I got challenged by Peach, and beat her pretty easily as Villager (I’m yellin’ TIMBEEEERRRR!) so, yeah, I got another unlock, and I didn’t even free her, I just got her by PLAYING WoL. Eh, not that it matters to me. I don’t use Peach. She’s fine, has some good tools and all, but my distaste for her as a character is why I don’t use her.

Progress so far:

[thewrongexecution]

Scrambled Thoughts

hey how does bein’, like. exited about a thing, but coherently, work? ‘cos like. P5S was announced, and it’s not what some people necessarily wanted or expected, but. I think it’ll be good? in ways those same disappointed folks might enjoy, but aren’t necessarily considering? man where do I even start with this

(long)

so way back in the day, when the Wii U was still relevant, Koei Tecmo came out with Hyrule Warriors basically outta nowhere. now, I never played any warriors games and I think my first zelda was Twilight Princess? Skyward Sword? spent plenty of time watching my brother play them titles and consider majora’s mask one of the greatest games of all time, but I ain’t never touched ‘em, and because I already experienced them vicariously, ain’t ever likely to. but I was big on diablo, on that experience of mowing down hordes of enemies with a big overpowered hero, so I was like, yeah, sure I’ll keep an eye out

(maybe  I was able to latch onto Hyrule Warriors because I was more invested in the characters and story than the gameplay? I don’t know how zelda fans recieved it; I wasn’t as deep in The ‘Net as I am now. doesn’t matter.)

turns out just about everything in that game is great. the long-term gameplay isn’t anything to write home about; it’s all level grinding and weapons farming, but like it’s not necessarily a game for that. it’s a buncha dumb fun! hit things with big flashy attacks! watch actual dozens of bodies ragdoll off into the distance! play as your favorite heroes and and villains and then also some npcs we added for the hell of it!

That, see, is what I remember about Hyrule Warriors. the whole draw of the game, what I love about it, is the warriors and their weapons and their fighting style and fighting with style. like, each character can have multiple weapons, and each weapon is its own moveset-- relatively simple, but still pretty involved, and built around slaughtering a buncha dudes really flashily. and it just-- they went through like every zelda game, and went like, who’s important and how do they fight, and then they made them ALL fun to play as

there are forty two fighting styles to choose from and none of them are bad

actually no that’s a lie; the dominion rod, the summon gates, and agitha’s parasols are bad. maybe also the great fairy and sometimes the wind waker? and I never unlocked all the toon-era weaponry, but it doesn’t matter because there are like thirty-five other ways to play That Are All Fun

that’s the first thing. the second thing, which you may have noticed from the list of weapons I don’t much care for, is that some of these weapons get way dumb. like agitha’s parasols. you remember agitha, right? from twilight princess? the incidental, out-of-the-way npc with the completely optional sidequest to find extremely rare bugs? the character that hangs out at home all day and does not interact with any character outside of link? yeah lets make her a playable character in a game where you literally beat up entire armies, she can hit people with a shitty umbrella and also summon bugs, like a giant beetle to crush people with or a giant butterfly to ride on and dive-bomb, that makes sense lol

and the thing is! I think that’s great! it’s legitimately hilarious! and she’s viable!!! I don’t like her fighting style; she’s short range with long recovery times and her special mode relies on getting enemies airborne to actually hit anything with-- but she’s not unusable, her inclusion is a joke but she’s not a joke character, y’know?

and then they went ahead and did that with like every character and every weapon in the zelda series. like Impa, you know Impa, right? protector of the royal line, shows up in Ocarina of Time to teach you a lullaby, never actually displays any combat skills on screen? let’s give her one-a them slab-of-metal ultragreatswords, that seems reasonable. sheik plays a harp and is mysterious, let’s turn them into a ninja with kunai and shit and also a magic harp which does magic based on the songs from OoT that they teach you. how ‘bout Fi, the ghost inside the master sword that exists primarily to interrupt you with unskippable dialogue? well, she can turn into a sword, sure, but her main form of attack is interpretative dance, you know, like she does when you beat a temple. or the king of hyrule, who is a boat! very aggressively. hey why don’t we turn volvagia into a dude with a spear who can just turn back into a dragon while we’re at it

and that’s not even touching link, who has:

sword (obvious)

horse (obvious)

fire rod (flamethrower, giant laser, and most powerfully, axe)

great fairy (carries link in a bottle)

spinner (niche late-game mobility tool from Twilight Princess; 3rd best weapon in Warriors)

and gauntlets (support item that lets you carry heavy things throughout the series; 2nd best weapon in Warriors)

(the best weapon is ganon’s dual greatswords, but that’s aside the point)

and as though that wasn’t enough, they invented Link But A Girl so they could include the iron boots, which makes sense, and, fuckin’, dual crossbows.

you know, crossbows? link’s iconic weapon? that he uses exactly once?? in the game link’s crossbow training??? a throwaway motion-control-centric game for the wii???????

now. everyone is different. so I feel the need to clarify.

all of that? that’s praise. that’s adoration. this game is a love-letter to the zelda series, all of the zelda series, no matter how ridiculous, because it’s ridiculous. I love that, I aspire to that! to that dedication, that passion for a thing, the ability to take a joke and make it real, to make you forget it’s a joke because of how good it is. like when they announced pirahna plant for smash brothers, and then made him good? that emotion, informing the design of an entire game. let me stick this flail in the ground, and then use it to swing the entire earth around to hit you with, and then also, incidentally, because Link’s Awakening existed, because we can, the flail is a chain chomp!!

VIDEOGAMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*breathe in*

*breathe out*

and then I think

the people that made that

are doing one with persona

and people have the gall to be disappointed?

like, no, okay, I know, that’s too harsh. I know this isn’t what everyone wanted. I know some feel lied to and betrayed, and my inability to relate to that means y’all might not relate to this. and I know the excitement I feel now is the same as the excitement y’all felt before y’all got let down. I know that.

and yet...

if these guys can pull 42 different combat styles outta the legend of zelda series, from people without even theoretical combat experience, and then you give them the cast of persona 5?

like yakuza man, who's in the yakuza? or guns child, who dual-wields guns? or the doctor, who plausibly has needles and scalpels and doctor-y stuff? or the already extremely anime shogi player, who, fuck it, let’s turn her into a summoner archetype, run people down with cavalry an’ shit! or the fortune teller, she reads tarot, let’s arbitrarily give her tarot-based powers, drop The Tower on some hapless goons, doesn’t gotta make sense if it’s fun!!

VIDEOGAMES!!!

but maybe that’s unreasonable.

I dunno how much creative control nintendo exerted over hyrule warriors, I dunno how much atlus is gonna exert over P5S. maybe they want a more serious experience, maybe chihaya won’t be playable. chihaya being playable doesn’t make sense, and I know that, that’s fine

but even then

I also think

persona 4 arena had the 4 in it

but they still had dudes from 3

so

you know

we’ll see.

[razzleryan]

Top 10 Most Wanted Newcomers and Echo Fighters

NiI’d like to start this post by saying this is all my own personal opinion. I respect all feedback, be it positive or negative, so feel free to message me anytime! Fair warning, there’s a lot of characters I’m not familiar with, so please go easy on me!  I’ll present my #10 echo fighter and then my #10 newcomer until we reach number one, each with a paragraph describing why I want them. Let’s start with...

ECHO #10 - KEN (Street Fighter) (Echo of RYU)

I haven’t played a lot of Street Fighter, but I do know that Ken is a fan favorite of the series. I can’t see any third party characters getting a unique rep (RIP Chun-Li) so the best thing would be a Ryu echo fighter. The only person who I feel deserves that role is Ken. As stated before, I’m a novice to Street Fighter so I can’t name any differences between the two, but Smash Bros. would be a fantastic way for me to see these differences.

NEWCOMER #10 - RAYMAN (Rayman)

Remember when Artsy Omni made that fake leak of Rayman in SM4SH? I was one of the many people who thought it looked too real to be fake. Nearly everything about the leak looked real, and the fact that there was a Rayman trophy in the game only lead me to believe it further. With his detached limbs, I could see Rayman having one of the longer grabs in the game, with his hands and legs flying far from his body to deal some damage. 

ECHO #9 - FUNKY KONG (Donkey Kong Country) (Echo of DONKEY KONG)

I’ve been playing a lot of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, and with the Switch port adding a fifth playable character in the form of Funky Kong (only in Funky Mode), he’s gaining a new following that he hasn’t had before. Rather than rolling in his dash attack like Donkey Kong, Funky could ride his Surfboard. If not a dash attack, it could work similar to Wario’s bike where it will disappear for a bit if it’s destroyed. His recovery could involve him surfing upwards, too!

NEWCOMER #9 - REX AND PYRA (Xenoblade Chronicles)

I haven’t gotten around to beating Xenoblade Chronciles 2 yet, but I really like the dynamic between these two. I don’t have much to say about them, they’d probably function semi-similar to Shulk but not close enough to be an echo fighter. Rather than giving Rex alternate costumes, each costume could be a different sword rather than Pyra.

ECHO #8 - IMPA (The Legend of Zelda) (Echo of SHEIK)

Using her Hyrule Warriors appearance, obviously. She’d play as a fast moving just low damaging attacker like Sheik, but I could see her dash attack and other moves using her sword like she does in Hyrule Warriors. 

NEWCOMER #8 - SPRINGMAN (ARMS)

So I’ve heard that Sakurai is primarily drawing from the Smash Ballot back in SM4SH, which means we may not being seeing any ARMS characters in the base roster. The game may have been underwhelming, but Nintendo rarely releases new major IPs, so bringing in a character from ARMS may help with sales. As Springman is the primary posterboy, he would fit best into the roster. Similar to Rayman, he’d have long range due to his spring-like arms.

ECHO #7 - NINTEN (Earthbound) (Echo of NESS)

I know absolutely nothing about this character because the only Earthbound/Mother game I’ve played was Mother 3, but I’d love to see another representative of the series. Seeing as Ness and Lucas were the protagonists of Earthbound 2 and Mother 3, I see no reason to not include the protagonist of the first game in the series.

NEWCOMER #7 - DECIDUEYE (Pokémon)

I’m going to be quaint. I don’t want Incineroar to be our Gen. 7 rep. It may be easier to implement than an owl with a bow and arrow, but we already have Greninja to represent a water starter and we have/had Charizard to represent a fire starter, so I would much rather have our first grass starter in the form of the unique Decidueye. He’d have a fantastic recovery due to his being an owl, but his kit would be primarily ranged based. You could take a lot of his movement from his Pokkén Tournament incarnation.

ECHO #6 - ISABELLE (Animal Crossing) (Echo of VILLAGER)

Isabelle’s assist trophy has not (at the time of making this) been reconfirmed, so I believe there’s a strong possibility that she’ll make it as our second Animal Crossing representative. She’s quickly become one of the most popular characters of the series and with her very expressive faces, I’m sure Sakurai can make her into one of the cutest characters we have.

NEWCOMER #6 - FAWFUL (Super Mario)

Nintendo seems to have forgotten about the Mario & Luigi franchise, which saddens me because they were my favorite games. Fawful is an important character in Superstar Saga, Partners in Time, and Bowser’s Inside Story, even being the main antagonist in the third. He could be a very unique fighter, using his head-jetpack-thing for his recovery and his final smash could be the Dark Star Core.

ECHO #5 - VIRIDI or MEDUSA (Kid Icarus) (Echo of PALUTENA)

Viridi is a fan favorite who could echo Palutena, but rather than using general light magic, Viridi could focus on more nature-based magic. Another echo of Palutena could be Medusa. I’m not quite sure what a moveset for her would be like, but more villains is a must.

NEWCOMER #5 - SKULL KID (The Legend of Zelda)

Apparently there’s a lot of people who believe Skull Kid is confirmed already? I don’t know if I’d go that far, though I admit the proof is very believable. I don’t know what a potential moveset for Skull Kid could be, and his final smash probably wouldn’t be the Moon, as it’s an assist trophy now. But who knows, maybe it’s possible?

ECHO #4 - SHADOW (Sonic the Hedgehog) (Echo of SONIC)

Shadow just makes sense to me. We know third party characters are open to echo fighters, and Chrom showed us that “echo” doesn’t mean “exact copy”. Shadow could echo Sonic but keep his unique dark and edgy attitude. He could be a stronger but slower Sonic who skates on his shoes and uses the power of the Chaos Emeralds for his attacks, with Chaos Control and other emerald-based powers. No guns though.

NEWCOMER #4 - PAPER MARIO (Super Mario)

With five games to take from, the Paper Mario RPG series is a classic and loveable series to Nintendo fans. While the recent games have failed to live up to what The Thousand-Year Door built, the series still has a strong following. He could use jump based moves and his hammer would be an integral part of his moveset. Various partners from the series, like Goombella, could also be part of his moveset.

ECHO #3 - OCTOLING (Splatoon) (Echo of INKLING)

Now that we know that not all Octoling are evil, this may be their chance to make it into the lime light as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. The major problem I see with the Octoling is how to differentiate between their ink and the Inkling’s ink. Plus I just really want an Octoling amiibo.

NEWCOMER #3 - MONSTER HUNTER (Monster Hunter)

I have never played any Monster Hunter games and to be honest they just aren’t my cup of tea, but since Rathalos is in the game as both a boss and an assist trophy, I’d be kind of upset if we didn’t get a hunter as a character.

ECHO #2 - DIXIE KONG (Donkey Kong Country) (Echo of DIDDY KONG)

Another fan favorite character that I’m honestly surprised hasn’t made it yet. Her hair could whip forward like Shantae’s does in the Shantae games, and it could also be used as her recovery, working the same as Donkey Kong’s, low height but long distance. 

NEWCOMER #2 - GENO (Super Mario)

I haven’t played Super Mario RPG personally, but I’ve seen my friend play a bit of it and I know how popular Geno is. With his appearance as a Mii Costume in SM4SH, I don’t think it’s unreasonable that Sakurai put him in. It seems like all those who got Mii Costumes have made it in as playable characters (except Ashley, RIP).

HONORABLE MENTIONS  Amaterasu, Banjo-Kazooie, Chibi-Robo, Chorus Kids, Dillon, Elma, Isaac, Leon Kennedy, Lloyd Irving, Marx, Quote, Tetra, and Wonder-Red

ECHO #1 - DARK BOWSER or MIDBUS (Super Mario) (Echo of BOWSER)

Psst, hey. Fun fact. This is actually my most wanted character in the entire list. Even more than my #1 Newcomer. Dark Bowser is the final boss of Bowser’s storyline in Bowser’s Inside Story, happening the same time as the Mario Bros. fight the Dark Star Core. He’s bigger than Bowser and a lot tougher. He breaths blue/purple fire among other powers, and I plan on making a whole separate post dedicated to why I want this character in Smash Bros. For now, I’ll just leave you all with Dark Bowser’s battle music.

NEWCOMER #1 - BANDANA DEE (Kirby)

Bandana (Waddle) Dee has become a stable character of the Kirby franchise, usually being a boss character or a playable character, his popularity rivals that of King Dedede and Meta Knight. He could throw his spear as a neutral attack, and spin it around for his recovery like he does in Star Allies. If you want to see what this looks like in action, I suggest checking out some gameplay of him in Super Smash Flash 2 (Please ignore Goku, he’s never getting in).

[emeraldspiral]

So last night, as I was drifting off to sleep a ridiculous Zelda theory popped into my head.

So in Wind Waker the back story is that Ganon escaped imprisonment and Link wasn’t there to stop him, so the goddesses had to flood Hyrule.

I think most people believe that this happened in the same generation as Ocarina of Time and Link didn’t show up because he’d been sent back in time. I dislike this because it basically means everything you did in Ocarina was for nothing. Like, Zelda realized she made a mistake trying to get the Spiritual Stones before Ganondorf, so she sent you back in time to stop that from ever happening and give you back your childhood, but only after making sure the bad timeline got a happy ending... Only for Ganon to break free within the same cycle, forcing the goddesses to flood Hyrule and put it in a state of suspended animation for hundreds of years, just to be buried forever at the bottom of the ocean and never restored. Doesn’t really sit right with me. I prefer to believe that Hyrule’s peace lasted for a couple generations before Ganon escaped again, but the time travel just caused Link to not be reborn during the generation he was needed.

However, if the first theory is true, it’s compatible with another crack theory I just came up with.

So, I always thought it was weird that this Rauru guy just showed up out of nowhere and gave us our first medallion for free when every other sage was a character we met before. I later learned that there was supposed to be a Light Temple that was cut and that Rauru was supposed to be the annoying windbag owl. But if the temple and the reveal couldn’t make it into the game, then why even refer to them? Why not only have five sages + Zelda? How do Rauru and the Light Temple add to the lore?

Well, in Twilight Princess, the Light Temple was included. But it wasn’t just a random dungeon full of old recycled ideas. It retroactively established that the temple you played in TP was there in Ocarina the whole time, you just didn’t get to see it. Likewise, the art book refers to the Rauru/Kaepora-Gaebora reveal as something that is, not something that would’ve been, regardless of whether it made it into the game. So it seems that there are certain aspects of the Zelda lore that aren’t just arbitrary gameplay elements. They’re important enough to Miyamoto that even when time or hardware or budget limitations get in the way of integrating them into a game, they’re still a part of the story.

So what’s Rauru’s significance?

Well, Zelda has a lot of reoccurring side characters, such as Tingle, Impa, and Beedle, who may be either descendants/ancestors of others we’ve seen (like Zelda) or reincarnations (like Link)

Rauru hasn’t exactly appeared more than once in Zelda lore, but in Skyward Sword, Zelda’s dad was named “Gaepora” and his design was blend of Rauru and the owl.

Zelda, like Link, rarely is shown to have family. But one other game where she does is Wind Waker. King Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule/The King of Red Lions is presumably Tetra’s ancestor. Not Tetra’s father, but the father of the Zelda from the time of the great flood, which many presume to be Ocarina of Time’s Zelda. But if Zelda’s dad in Skyward Sword is an incarnation/ancestor of Rauru, then is it possible Rauru and King Daphnes/OoT’s king are the same person?

They do look somewhat similar when you account for the differences in stylization.

Another popular fan theory I don’t subscribe to is that the sages have to die in order to become sages. Chiefly because Zelda is a sage and clearly didn’t die in Ocarina and in Wind Waker two of the temples involve safely escorting the new sages who were selected to replace the old ones, who died.

Why is that relevant? Because in Ocarina of Time, it was said that Ganondorf “betrayed” the king, but I don’t think they ever said he was killed, which is not something the game would’ve need a to use a euphemism for, given that it’s the game with the notorious Shadow Temple and Link’s mother dying as part of his backstory.

So if the king didn’t die and sages actually need to be alive in order to perform their duties then he very well could’ve performed the duties of a sage while disguising himself as an owl to hide from Ganondorf, just like Zelda disguised herself as Sheik. And if he could turn himself into an owl, why not a talking boat as well?

The only thing that doesn’t quite fit is that Zelda said her father didn’t believe her premonitions and trusted Ganondorf while Kaepora-Gaebora supports your mission throughout the game. But maybe the king did believe Zelda, but he couldn’t act against Ganondorf without evidence, so he pretended to trust Ganondorf all the while aware of his daughter’s plan and supporting her behind the scenes.