#i also wanted him to look really similar to my BOTW link

[wowa-bublord]

Don’t suppose you have any funky headcanons for Skyward Sword Link? I for one think he deserves to have fucky pupils bc of the difference in brightness between the sky & surface :]

I REALLY LIKED THAT IDEA

i based his eyes a bit on parrots and other birds, I made them further apart, bigger, with small pupils and large iris' so they can expand and contract a lot for different levels of light! (and also for emotion)

it took me a bit to get this design but im rlly happy with it

[a-little-lostmoon]

some LU headshots in my style for personal reference. subject to change bc drawing consistently is a bitch but overall i think i’m happy w them! (ignore the comic/writing idea in the upper right corner it may or may not be made into a full think idk yet—)

typed notes for each lu member + a little extra below cut

wild—

oval eyes

rounder oval ((ish)) face

amber earrings

healed scarring

androgynous

i tried to reference the boys’ canonical character models to individualize their features more. i love botw and totk sm but personally i’m not the hugest fan of the way the characters look for it? even so, i think the rounder sort of eye shape works really well for my wild

his colors specifically i drew to be a bit more sunset kissed/orangeish bc i was referencing a wild photo in which the time was sunset. thats abt it. but i think it’s really pretty on him so i’m probably just keeping that whenever i draw wild

warriors—

cheek bones/jawline

rounder ears

pointy eyes ((eyeliner that could stab a person))

cheek scar bc i felt like it

i stole away some of wars’ side fringes, forgive me i couldn’t decide whether i wanted them to cover up his jawline and chickened out. if anyone actually read the comic thing you’ll see smth abt the old man and wars talking abt how his hair parted to the other side of his face during the war. i made it to ‘vent my frustrations’ bc i drew his hair part referencing HW photos of link instead of LU wars and it’s now become my headcanon.

his hair color is vivid bc HW color pallet is pretty damn vivid and his eyes & earrings are a deeper blue to match his scarf. color coordination!

anw he’s a pretty boy so i made him pretty — that’s pretty much the rest i have to say abt that

time—

tired eyes

longest ears

(slight) rbf

both time & legend have half circle/oval eyes ((kind of. at least that’s what i tried to go for to give them a more worn/serious look))

i’m not the best with differentiating ages. i tried to make him look a bit more worn/oldest but i also wanted all of them to still carry some of that classic pretty boy link look. don’t have much else to say but he has the longest/angular ears bc fairy boy. let’s pretend four’s don’t look longer than his i drew him later and forgot

twilight—

<-takes more features from malon ((who i haven’t drawn yet so you don’t have any reference on that))

pretty boy face (wasn’t intentional but it is what it is)

twilight princess link is v pretty. twilights usually one of the more rugged (for lack of a better term) looking ones bc he’s among the taller ones/apart of the “adult” squad but i accidentally made him very pretty looking. oops. don’t know if that will remain consistent for him if i draw him more so we shall see

him and time share less features than i might’ve wanted? you can see a bit of time’s jaw in the way his face curves but overall they don’t share many features. again, he takes more after malon. but their hair textures are incredibly similar if that means anything

gave him jade studs bc they reminded him of midna and are practical enough that he can just keep them in the whole time (bc he will lose them or forget abt them if he takes them off)

sky—

rounder face

big eyes

lips

big ears

his hair color was a bitch to get right im not sorry i had to say it color is so hard to work with. in any case! skyward sword link has bigger looking eyes cus of the style and i just ran w that. his earrings are magenta to match sun’s dress but look red when the light catches them right (or wrong ig bc they look red in dim light too) just bc i realized his earrings were red to match his outfit/crimson.

sky and the next three (everyone sans wind) probly look the least off their character models

legend—

oval iris

full rbf

multiple piercings ((this is important for u to know))

longer narrow face & features

boy’s a strawberry blond bc i said so. and also legend purple eyes propaganda. i don’t know where exactly that originated but like i love it and im on board. he also has purple stud earrings he always keeps in — curious, isn’t it. he probably has more than i gave him but well, thats all i gave him. it gets the picture across. hc that legend realized he couldn’t get more fingers for his rings but he could get more piercings that could handle jewelry that did almost exactly the same thing. practicality!

also i couldn’t decide on legend’s hair length. its all hidden by that hat of his so i just… didn’t draw the back half portion of his hair. does that make my legend bald at the back of his head? you decide.

hyrule—

wide face narrow chin

freckles!!!

bigger earlobes

the earlobes is me projecting /hj but i tried to reference the og link’s face shape for him which idk if i like yet. he has freckles and more accent colors in his hair and eyes which is a subtle thing but a sorta maybe reference to his fairy magic. no piercings for him! i forgot them/didnt see them on og link and can’t really imagine when hyrule would ever get the time to pierce them so he and wind can do that together eventually to bond. legend will do it probly — he obviously has the experience and wild can’t be trusted (offered to pierce winds ears with a knife canonically)

wind—

big eyes

void eyes

big ears but rounder than skys

soft face

fluffy hair

wind’s 100 yard stare *does* things to the chain but none of them tell him that because he’d definitely use it to freak people out. i couldnt decide between going lighter sun bleached hair wind or bright blinding yellow toon link hair so i kind of meshed them together to create that. tried to make him the youngest looking

four—

symmetrical angles ((and then i drew a polygon quadrilateral bc thats the shape i used as a reference)) for cheeks and eyes

minish feather ((earring))

minish ears & nose

hime bangs

yk the picture of a minish that comes up when googled? thats what i used as a reference for his features. ears specifically, nose somewhat. four’s eyes are usually the greyish hazel color you get from mixing all of their colors together but i liked the split look for this piece more. his hair color is also wind’s but inverted so wind’s lights are four’s highlights and his darks make up the brunt of the base color as a slight reference to how it’s occasionally theorized/hc that wind is four’s descendant.

and the hime bangs were bc i wanted a little more “link side fringe” variation and i thought the sort of straight cut looked nice. hime bangs are not the right term tho bc he parts them to the side and doesn’t have that straight cut on his forehead but i’m too lazy to fight the correct term

— thank u for reading, go hydrate and eat if you have not <3

[wayfayrr]

If requests are still open, how about Wild and Tears comparing weapons? (Or really anything that gives you an excuse to highlight how they're similar and how they're different)

My brain has only worked out one little snippet, but I feel like it could be expanded upon? Idk??? This is what I've got so far:

Comparing Lynel weapons -- BotW's Lynel weapons (ooooh, I could see Tears geeking out over the craftmanship of Savage Lynel Sword, Crusher, and/or Spears) vs Totk Lynel horn weapons (I can see Wild absolutely losing his mind (/pos) over the existence of Silver Lynel Reapers and/or Maces. Probably begs & pleads for 200 of them lmao)

Little drabble suggestions like this are gonna be open for a while I think, they're really fun to write and I've got a pretty good flow for tears at the minute!!!

Also your ideas so far? In love/srs naming him lilac is honestly so big-brained and is such a perfect little nickname for him and I've already started using it, the weapons too - there is so so much potential, it feels like I've barely scratched it here (this is also set after they've talked out their issues about how they view their memories, after that gets cleared up they're literally twins your honour!!)

also @h4wari got some more of your boy here for you<333

“What are you holding, I don’t think I’ve seen something like that in my Hyrule.”

“I mean, seeing as you don’t have fuse that isn’t a surprise.”

“Huh?”

“I made it, that’s why you haven’t seen it around.”

Is that what I look like whenever I get excited over something? I’ll have to ask [name] to take a photo of me next time, I could make them something nice in return. Actually, I could probably take them on a quick tour of my- you’re getting distracted thinking about them Link.

“You made it, what from? How long will it last if I’m using it, how much damage does it do, where did you find the materials?” “It’s a silver lynel reaper, I fused one of its horns to a royal broadsword; it should last a good while.”

“Lynels drop their horns in your hyrule? Mine only ever drop their weapons…”

“Oh? I don’t think I’ve seen them drop weapons, well besides bows.”

Our Hyrules are far more different than I thought, maybe they would have been identical during my first quest, if I hadn’t rushed it then I’d be able to know for certain. If I had done it the same way he did… could everything with zelda have been avoided? She was so desperate to get me to remember her when I didn’t want to that she went into the underground and then, no, no point thinking about hypotheticals like that. What’s done is done. 

“Would you like to swap?”

“Swap?”

“I’ll give you one of my lynels weapons and get that in return?”

That might have to be one of the most generous trades I’ve ever heard, neither of us can carry many weapons but I have enough horns to give everyone here one without batting an eye. I would be a fool to turn it down though. Giving one to the smith might be interesting actually, it would be interesting to see what he can do with it.

“Sure, before you’re set on this one though… you want to see the things I’ve made from shards of dragon horns?”

“YOU’VE MADE WEAPONS FROM DRAGON HORNS???”

[clowns0up-felix]

Coming back to tell you how much I love that little comic with the Chosen Hero and the Hero of Men. There's no dialogue, but it still has a strong sense of sadness and hope. And the parallels between the two are fantastic, I really wish Nintendo gave us more information about what happened between Skyward Sword and Minish Cap because now I'm really thinking about it and how whatever happened had to be pretty scary if the Hero of Men decided it was in everyone's best interest for him to yoink the Chosen Hero's sacred sword from its temple.

All those words to say your art is wonderful and I'm thinking about it and the piece of LoZ lore it represents. ❤️

Ohhhh my go yesssss I would give my life to know more about the hero of men,,, its literally crazy to me that there’s a link that’s just. There. No game no story no nothing. WHO IS THAT TELL ME?? Thinking about who he could’ve been is one of the joys of life but it tends to feel more like writing an OC than expanding on known lore, bc be barely have any,,,

Actually, Ill use this to ramble about what I do tend to think for him here, hope that’s okay!!

I love love love that u said that what was happening during the hero of men’s time had to be pretty scary, bc YEAH. To pull the sword of the first hero and first king of Hyrule (^.^) who probably would kill to not have fi be woken up is CRAZYYYY,,, either he’s oblivious or in a really bad situation,,, What is known about him leaves to believe that he was a knight tho, and they 100% knew about fis resting ground,, It is said that the world was about to be swallowed by evil, which makes me think Botw final cutscene or sksw final girahim type severity of monster floods. So I think hom (ill refer to the hero of men like this for now) link probably saw getting the sacred, legendary master sword as his only chance at saving hyrule.

Idk if he would’ve know himself to be the legendary hero reborn due to triforce mark, maybe he just stumbled across it in an attempt to hide some injured knights in the temple of hylia,,,, Side note on the temple of hylia, love the abandoned look in the comic but it doesn’t really make sense, does it? Bc why would sksw Link want fis resting place to not be well kept? Would he visit before his passing?

Anyway, he takes the sword defeats the monster hoards and gives hyrule a brief moment of safety. He’s made into a high ranking knight or maybe head of the knights (he’s probably rather young still, as that seems to be a theme for the chosen hero and priestess, so maybe late teens, and before having the master sword he was a knight in training?) and then, when the picori/minish come down to earth (i dunno from where, was that ever said? Just from the skies i thiinkkk,,,) he gets the picori blade and I think the light force from them. It’s similar use does bring up the question why hom link would use the picori blade over the master sword,, maybe because its a gift and the master sword is like this sacred sword meant to rest and that got him feeling bad hahaha,, Hom link trapped the monsters rather than killing them but I can’t remember if the trapped them in the sword or the chest or somewhere else hmm,,, the sword later turns into the four sword right? (I’m so sorry im too lazy rn to do research 😭) I don’t think hom link would’ve been able to use it as this tho, i think he never got it to a point like this, just used it to save the world once and then gave it away for the contest ^^ In one of the stained glass the sword he gets DOES look like the four sword but i am going to ignore that bc I think i can.

Also, for reasons that I can’t (don’t want to) talk about rn I personally would change it being the 50th anniversary of the Picori Festival instead of the 100th ^.^ also I think hom link would stay a close friend to the royal family partially to protect the holder of the light force which was sealed into his Zelda i think and passed down to her children and their children yk,, and don’t tell anyone I said this but he is alive during minish cap and ezlo was one of the minish that gave him the blade during the Force era ;)

I also think the minish weren’t really ever introduced to the public but instead kept in strict contact to the royal family and those they trusted, which is why during mc basically no one knows about them, and those that once did are already fairly old or dead.

I’m not gonna read this over, hope everything makes sense and is coherent

Thanks for the ask !!!!! Drawing the comic was so fun I’m happy u like it :D

[noraiir-arts]

Does anyone else have very complicated ways of shipping?? like when i say "i ship them" i don't mean "oh they love each other so much they kiss each other and will be together forever" i ship characters but in a way that's unique to only them and/or only in certain scenarios

Like, for example Zelink- I think pre-calam zelink was one sided, i dislike post-calam zelink, but i sort of like totk zelink (yes i know they are the same two people) but only certain dynamics??? but i also think that its the type of love that goes unsaid, they just look out for and support each other, maybe its not entirely romantic but they are closer than friends. It's the type of closeness you can only get by knowing that no matter what lifetime you are in the other will always be there. I don't think its necessarily the type where they hide behind pillars to make out, or try to stay in a committed relationship, but more of a tired love, one that has been renewed throughout hundreds of lives, each time being something different.

But take skyward sword, i believe that it's easier to see romantic zelink here

or Miphlink - I don't really ship this, but it's a tragic one-sided love story that Mipha knew was doomed from the beginning. The other woman. Was never given enough time to tell Link how she felt, yet even if she had time he might not have returned her feelings. Now he barely remembers her. Maybe 100 years later she's a little embarrassed of herself, of what she wrote in her diary. Maybe it was a simple crush, mistaken for undying love and has dwindled over the past century. But now it's a sad love, the type where she grieves for what used to be, and what never will. But after being saved from Ruta she switches her sights towards the domain. She can see how much her brother has grown and is so proud of him. She knows Link will never remember her fully, but maybe it's for the best. No matter what, she will always be there to heal his wounds.

Tbh i was dragged into Revalink kicking and screaming, but now it's one of my favorites. - Their dynamics work so well, but oh no it's so sad. Started from a one-sided "rivalry" to some sort of friendship. Link never hated Revali, he didn't even dislike him. And Revali just wanted Link to be impressed, to understand why he was chosen for his role as pilot, and he wanted Link to prove himself to Revali (honestly i can go on a on about why revali was harsh to link in botw if anyone wants me to) But over time they both start to realize that they are more similar to each other than any of the other champions. They weren't born into noble families or blessed with magic. Revali learns about the vigorous training Link underwent after pulling the sword, and Link learns that Revali isn't the son of the elder or was an important figure in his village before becoming a champion, but a simple warrior just like Link. Their friendship grows and they become a great team, surprising mostly everyone. Maybe it grows into something more. Maybe neither of them know it. Maybe they just never admit it. Revali knows Link doesn't remember him. He doesn't want him to. He tells Link not to go asking about him to the princess. It's for the best, he will still be there to help Link after all. Maybe it's cruel to keep him from knowing. Well, Revali will be gone soon anyway. Maybe he hopes that Link will at least remember good things about him.

Honestly I love revalink aus, they are my fav!!

I think of Zelimpa (aoc) like a mix of how i described miphlink and revalink but im too tired to explain it rnnnnn

oh also urbosa/zelda's mom but i think that goes unsaid

but anyway these are just a few. Most of the time i can't use words to exactly explain something pictured in my head, (synesthesia is so silly) but i tried my best

[daisy-daze17]

An aspect of totk that I've come to realise really bothers me is its tendancy to take bits and pieces of elements from lots of places and slap them into a game. Don't get me wrong- im aware the zelda games constantly include Easter eggs and call backs to reference older titles, and Totk is jam-packed with it. You search the depths to find a bunch of classic armours and shit from like every single game, the paragliding fabrics, and so much more.

But this game ALSO has a lot of story related or basic game structure that is tied to other zelda games.

1. Wind temple for example is practically oozing with reminants of wind waker-- you're climbing up to this MAGIC BOAT with the RITO (a prominent species in ww) by controlling and managing your wind powers all to make it to a boss with a name and theme song screaming out the most iconic parts of ww (God bless colgeras theme music we will never forget the music).

2. Lots of people found that the main aesthetics and storyline of this game was similar to skyward sword: you wake up on an ancient sky island that is the biggest one in hyrule before finding your way to the surface and descending down to start a search for zelda. I remember it was so similar some even started questioning if totk takes place before ss?? (I do not have the brain capacity to discuss that rn lol). Ganondorf looks extremely reminant of demise with his hair, main sacrifice of the game centres zelda giving up her body for a long long time so she can fight the evil that will come in a long long time, etc,etc.

3. As we all know, this game is a sequel to botw (omg rlly?? Who would have guessed) and it definaltly shows by the amount of game structure taken from botw to put in here. The four tutorial area shrines, the memories, the four main dilemmas for each reason, and ya know, the whole entire map. Totk makes changes to this map but essentially, it is a better version of the map we got in botw. Now it's obvious that nintendo would do this, but sometimes it feels like... they didn't have to?? The main one for this is the memories. The thing is, breath centred around our hero losing his memories and exploring unknown lands to receive bits and pieces that tell him what life could have been like pre-disaster. Totk, however, centres around zelda being in the past and showing link episodes of heavy plot driven cutscenes with every geoglyph he finds. Botw are little fragments of info that you can pieces together in any order to imagine what the main story was. Totk shoves a bunch of plot down your throat in any order because they don't give a shit if your spoil the story for yourself. Both games are non-linear. See where I'm getting at? One set of memories strengthen the nonlinearity of the game and rewards you for finding them. One... doesn't. There have been countless arguments made about this glaring issue that discuss it further, but my main point here is that maybe we didn't have to follow botw's structure to a tea if it doesn't work out for us sometimes.

Zelda games constantly reinvent themselves. Notice how no matter what nintendo does, some people always complaining about a new addition to the series while others love it? Wind wakers cartoonish artsyle, skywards motion controls, major's masks 3 day cycle, botw's open world gameplay? It seems like tears of the kingdom doesn't do that. I'd argue that its main purpose is taking breath of the wild and fixing major complaints made about the game, most of them usually about how untraditional to zelda botw was. That's why this game feels like a weird combination of the two. Nintendo tried to marry open world zelda with elements of older zelda games. It tries to have an episodic plot with major twists and emotion... but forgets that I'm allowed to watch each episode in any order I want and can end up screwing myself over. It tries to have traditional looking dungeons... but doesn't have any linearity to it and gets rid of the mechanics these used in botw, so it ends up being short aesthetically pleasing 4-part puzzles. It tries to have a LINEAR STORY in a NON-LINEAR GAME by making us constantly on our toes about finding zelda and understanding why she's trying to scare the locals shitless by commiting felonies like attacking the zora king, telling the gorons to do drugs, and appearing and disappearing every 5 seconds... but again, it forgets that I can spoil myself and know what the fuck is going on WAY before I'm supposed to.

This is turning into a little hater rant but. What I'm saying is, totk is trying to mix little parts of every game to make all of us happy, but it ends up becoming a confusing soup of unoriginality and "what the fuck in going on with this story". Its trying to make a traditional zelda game in an open world format. The most insulting part is that it tries to honour past games with taking all of their ideas,but totk's main purpose clashes with what those games are about (especially wind waker and botw) which is reinventing yourself to fit with the new generation and not holding onto the past/not obsessing over games that you got really big for (cough cough ocarina of time cough cough).

Anyway it's late and this is literally my first time trying to write out a critique about something on tumblr, so if this makes no sense pls tell me haha :)

[captain-krow-drozdov]

Two For The Price Of One

(Linked Universe/BOTW Wild/Link AU)

BOTW Link Has Two Braincells Souls

1. The Hero That Died 100 Years Ago (Link)

And

2. The Artificial Sheikah Soul From The Shrine Of Resurrection/The Player (Tech)

Upon Finding Out From The Old Man That Having Another Person In Your Head Isn't The Norm They Decided That Link Gets To Keep His Name And The Artificial Sheikah Soul Will Now Be Dubbed Tech (Once Joining The Chain Link Picks Up The Nickname Unity And Tech Picks Up The Nickname Wild).

Unity/Link Still Has Amnesia But Ends Up Gaining A Lot Of Their Memories Back Pretty Quickly After Finding All The Picture Locations And Wild/Tech Literally Just Got Here When They Woke Up In The Shrine So It Was A Learning Process For Both Of Em.

Unity/Link Is Good With Swords, Shields And Most Weapons Whereas Wild/Tech Is Good With Archery, The Sheikah Slate(Mental Connection Go Brr) And Stealth. Unity/Link Has The Heros Spirit And Wild/Tech Is Just Here For The Vibes And To Be A Chaos Enabler. (Unity/Link Was A Domesticated Chaos Gremlin By The Time He Died And Wild/Tech Is Going To Un-Domesticate Him If It's The Last Thing He Does)

They Are Unfortunately Both Idiots/Chaos Gremlins And Socially Awkward And Will 100% Play Mental Rock Paper Scissors The Loser Has To Deal With Socializing.

Wild Ultimately Looks The Same But Also Has Some "Something Supernatural Is Going On There" Vibes Like Sharper Teeth, The Fact That Their Eyes Glow/Eyeshine, Scary Good Night Vision, Always Cold, Movements/Vibe Just Off Enough To Trigger Some Primal Fear In Strangers, Their Blood Has A Faint Glow To It And When Wild/Tech Is In Control The Blue Glow In Their Eyes Is Brighter And More Noticeable.

Mentally However, Unity/Link Looks Like He Did Back When He Was A Knight Before The Calamity Hit And Wild/Tech Looks Like A Sheikah Recolor Of Unity/Link But They Have Ancient Technology Markings Near Their Eyes And Where Any Visible Veins World Be As Well As Blue Fire Eyes That Glow In The Dark Similar To Guardians/Ancient Tech.

At This Rate Unity/Link & Wild/Tech Are On "Do Not Separate" Levels Of Chaotic Head Roommates. They Can Actively Switch Out Who's Driving The Body At Will And With Enough Focus Can Copilot The Body.

They Are Actively Keeping Score Of Who Is Closest To Figuring Out That There Are Two People Behind The Mental Wheel Of The Champion Link (Four And Zelda/Flora Have The Highest Scores).

{I Offer Incorrect Quotes For The General Dynamic/Vibe Of These Two}

~

Wild/Tech: If you See Me Talking To Myself, Go Away! I’m Self-Employed And We’re Having A Staff Meeting!

~

Unity/Link & Wild/Tech: Am I a Boy? Am I A Girl? It Doesn't Matter. I'm Going To Burn Your House Down.

~

Unity/Link: Name A More Iconic Duo Than My Crippling Fear Of Not Being Worthy Of Being The Hero And My Anxiety. I'll Wait.

Wild/Tech: You And Me!!!

Unity/Link, Tearing Up: Okay.

~

Unity/Link, Trying To Put His Knight Training To Use: Ok We Need A Plan...

Wild/Tech, Currently In Control Of The Body Pulling Out A Bomb Arrow: We Have A Plan. The Plan Is Burn Everything Until We Are All That's Left Standing!

Unity/Link, Fighting And Losing To His Pyromania Demons: That'll Work =)

~

Unity/Link: Wild/Tech...

Wild/Tech, Bloody And Bruised From A Recent Tumble Down A Mountain Due To Ignoring Shield Durability While Shield Surfing: Oh No, 'Wild/Tech' In B-Flat.

Wild/Tech: You're Disappointed.

~

Wild/Tech: So That’s My Plan.

Unity/Link, A Trained High Ranking Knight: Are You Alright With Constructive Criticism? I Don’t Want To Sound Mean.

Wild/Tech: No, Go Ahead, I Want To Hear It.

Unity/Link: It Fucking Sucks We Are Going To Die.

Wild/Tech: That’s Not Very Constructive Of Your Criticism.

~

Unity/Link: I Prevented A Murder Today.

Wild/Tech, Who Watched The Whole Exercise Of Self Restraint Go Down: Really? How’d You Do That?

Unity/Link: Self Control.

~

Wild/Tech: I CAN'T DO IT UNITY/LINK!

Unity/Link, Laughing: I CAN'T EITHER!

Wild/Tech: I CANT FUCKING DO IT ANYMORE

Unity/Link: WELL I'LL TELL YOU WHAT WILD/TECH, YOU CAN GIVE UP NOW, OR YOU CAN FIGURE IT OUT. BECAUSE I CERTAINLY CAN'T DO IT WITHOUT YOU, AND I KNOW YOU CAN'T DO IT WITHOUT ME.

Wild/Tech: . . .

Wild/Tech: I Appreciate It,

Wild/Tech: BUT LOOK WHAT WE'RE DEALING WITH MAN-

Unity/Link: Wild/Tech-

Wild/Tech: YOU GOTTA DRAW THE LINE SOMEWHERE!

Unity/Link: Wild/Tech We Gotta-

Wild/Tech: YOU GOTTA DRAW A FUCKING LINE IN THE SAND DUDE. YOU GOTTA MAKE A STATEMENT.

Wild/Tech: YOU GOTTA LOOK INSIDE YOURSELF AND SAY 'What Am I Willing To Put Up With Today?'

Wild/Tech, Motioning To Calamity Ganon: NOT FUCKING THIS!

[errorwarblesrr]

do you like totk or botw better?

In short: Yes, I like botw better.

Here are my reasons, though!

I know a lot of people view it as the better experience, which is completely subjective and valid if you do and like it better, but I just view botw as being better in almost every way.

I will give it to totk. The dungeons have a lot better atmosphere. The game has some extremely high highs with the build-up to the wind temple, the whole great sky island segment, and the final boss is a much better fight (though dark beast ganon has a better theme song imo).

Other than that, I prefer botw. Totk has a much grander story, but it's completely mishandled. You can argue that totk has a great story but has poor execution, and to me, execution plays a big role in what makes a story good. You can have good ideas bit it all falls apart if they aren't executed well which ends up making the story bad. It's not that totk has a good story with poor execution, it has good ideas but the bad execution leads to a poorly told story. (I hope that makes sense). Botw has less of a story and is more like a set of events. Botw has history and backstory that is told more organically. Link has amnesia so he slowly regains some of his memories of the past with some people trying to help fill him in. It feels more real...in a weird fantasy way. I guess totk is similar with how we see Zelda's memories, but not really? It's weird to explain. Everything 100 years ago is felt in present day botw while in totk most of those things don't really matter as it happened so long ago. Things only start to resurge because Zelda wanted to investigate under the castle. Totk also has twists like a story. Idk if this is making sense but that's how I feel on their stories. There was just not much botw could mess up on story wise as the way it was presented.

Gameplay wise I can not lie totk is technical marvel with the zonai tech. That's the most impressive thing about it. Tbh building contraptions isn't my thing though, it takes too long to make and experiment with a machine when I can just do whatever that machine was gonna do much faster. I see why people have a lot of fun with it though, it just isn't my thing. One thing I HATE in totk though is the amount of menuing I have to do. Elemental arrows had a serious downgrade. Yeah it's cool to fuse stuff to arrows, but not when I have to do it to ever single individual arrow and if I want to try something new I have to scroll past 50 other items in a single line. It's just tedious. If I want to use a good weapon I have to go to the menu, drop an item, and menu again to fuse it to a weapon that will still break. Item breaking is still an issue but it's more annoying and the weapons no longer look cool. Totk has some cool abilities, but idk I'd trade them all for remote bombs lmao. I hate going through caves, especially early game, and having to deal with the rock walls where they want me to fuse a rock to a stick 10 times to get through one cave. There's just a lot of little things gameplay wise that bug me. They doubled down on botws gameplay issues and added some more annoying ones. I don't even have to mention the sages abilities, that's a whole mess.

On the topic of gameplay, botw just has the better world. Idc, exploring that world for the first time is an unforgettable experience. Totks main world is too similar so the magic is gone. The sky and depths are also unimpressive and repetitive. Botw also has the benefit on how the word felt so lonely yet alive. Everything had a purpose or a story. The world has a history. And totk just doesn't have that. Outside of the upheaval, totk doesn't really build on botws world that much. I was hoping to see if they would've added new towns or see how they'd rebuild hyrule, but they really didn't do that. We only got lookout landing, which doesn't really count as a town, and a bunch of building stuff lying around which is cool I guess. Hateno has a school and Terry Town expanded a little, but with the estimate of about 5 years since botw it makes you wonder...what have these people been doing? We can theoretically build Terry Town in one day. There could be new towns.

Totk is a sequel that doesn't really acknowledge it's predecessor which is so odd. Botw stands on its own and is an overall more cohesive experience. Everything in the world feels purposefully crafted for that world while totk just slaps things on top of it with not much thought. Botw has some amazing world building while for totk it's either "the Zonai did it" or has some contradictory world building. For example, the old sages lifted up the sky islands so that Link would be protected from Ganondorf shenanigans, but then other sky islands suggest how they've been around long before Rauru since young Zonai used to train in them or something. There is also how Zelda says Link never leaves her side, but people she interacts with on an almost daily basis do not recognize him and how even treat as if he doesn't know some facts about her. So either she is overexaggerating by a lot and/or lying in her own diary or that people in hyrule have the collective memory of a rock. There's also Zelda supposedly never giving Link the champions leathers yet as a gift, but we see him wearing it in the beginning. Idk there's more contradictories, but I haven't experienced this for botw??? Totk is so disconnected and disjointed in comparison.

I'm trying to be vague but there's a lot to say, I'm sorry. I really was enjoying this game at the beginning but the more I played the more I noticed or saw things that bugged me and just kept adding up and up on each other. Botw was never like this for me. It's just more cohesive and I like that. There are so many other things I haven't brought up like the repetitive cutscenes, or missing characters/characters that SHOULD know Link but don't (namely Bolson and Hestu). But this post is long. I can't keep complaining about this game. Botw really is that one of a kind experience, and totk tries to replicate it but worse. Botw had a vine that totk lacks. You feel so alone, but you meet knew people and make friends. You build connections as you learn about the past and help those around you. There is no story, you're just a person going through the motions and exploring the vast world around you. Totk can't replace that for me. I'm the main character playing a side role in a disjointed world where not much makes sense. Everything is similar in all the wrong ways.

And most important of all, they took away Link's fun dialogue and personality now he really is bland asf and used to defend that he wasn't.

[caylinmiraki]

My relationship with The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

I love TotK, I really do. It's fun to play and to explore for a while. But that's it. I kinda have a toxic relationship with this game. It gives me the highest heights just to shove some pretty unnecessary hindrance in my face.

tl;dr: Erasing BotW from TotK was the worst thing they could've done to this game. It's hard to believe that this game's got 5 years of development under its belt. It truly is a disappointing Masterpiece.

I’m just going to head right in.

I absolutely adore a well-written story and exploring new Lands to see what kind of secrets it holds. and am someone who really can't deal with spoilers of any kind, so color me surprised when the second memory I encountered was the one near Lurelin Village where it's exposed that we got a fake Zelda. It felt great to have my theory proven right because I’ve cleared a few Stable Quests before looking for the Tears and figured it out (isn’t very difficult I know). But when I realized that I’d skipped a massive part of this story I was disappointed because I expected a story progression like Botw but ended up spoiling myself with one of the most impactful memories. At the same time, it was so frustrating to see everyone dance on the palm of this impostor's hand while the player knows exactly what's going on and you/Link couldn't do anything about it.

The fact that almost no one recognized Link or even knew of him was also so frustrating; infuriating even. This legendary Hero saved Hyrule along with Princess Zelda in a 100-year-long battle, only to be forgotten? While everyone knows of Zelda? Like, you wanna tell me that the whole time Zelda traveled the lands of Hyrule to learn about the people and forge connections, Link wasn't with her? Her appointed knight that never leaves her side?

I know they chose to basically erase him to make the story less complicated for people who didn't play BotW, but let's be honest the amount of players that fit this criteria can't be more than 5%, and that's thinking generously, so why ruin the experience for the other 95%? Besides a small part of the Zora, the Stableowners, the people at Lookoutlanding, some Shieka, and the Yiga-Clan no one knows about him. In addition to that we also only get two mentions of the champions from botw. Mipha is referenced and I think Daruk gets a mention as well. When I entered Zoras Domain in TotK and saw that they had replaced Miphas Statue with a statue of Link and Sidon (which I find hideous tbh) I was so fucking furious. I adore her and they just pushed her onto some faraway cliff to collect dust. I think Daruk gets referenced in a dialog with Yunobo but that’s it, besides his statue in Goron City. Urbosa and RevalI have been completely forgotten it appears. They could have at least referenced those two regarding their successors having similar powers.

However, I have to say that Gerudo Desert was one of the best areas in TotK with a nice twist to the Questline leading up to the Dungeon. The Desert is being plagued by weird undead monsters and shrouded in a never-ending sandstorm. Gerudo Town is desolated and abandoned and you worry for its citizens. I loved this dreadful approach on the Demon Kings homeland. There are just two things I can't agree with in this new Gerudo Desert.

First, they don't kick Link out of Gerudo Town after the situation is resolved. This clan of proud warriors that cling deeply to their roots and traditions, just let Link walk in and out of Gerudo Town as he likes. It apparently isn't that much of a deal anymore if young VaI were to see a Voi, and saving their Town for the second time after defeating Va Naboris, returning peace to Gerudo Desert, and retrieving their heirloom was now enough to allow him to enter without a disguise? Oh yes, I forgot BotW didn't happen apparently. Secondly, I want female Gerudo clothes for Link. Why would you rob us of this experience? I also strongly feel like they designed the areas in this order Rito>Gerudo>Gorons>Zora it just gets less and less refined throughout the game. I first encountered the Wind Temple and then went to the Water Temple afterward. I felt like I've skydived full speed from the sky islands straight into the depths without a paraglider. Moktoroc was a Boss I'd expect in a meme fight or mod or something, but a fully-fledged dungeon boss..?

Talking about bosses, something I really enjoyed in TotK were the encounters with Master Khoga. He is such a delight to encounter in this game; truly the most polished and lovable character in all of TotK (and BotW in my opinion). He has his purpose, he is silly, sometimes overly so, but all in all, is he a real threat to the inhabitants of Hyrule and Link. For real, Master Khoga and his Clan always recognize Link and engage with him BECAUSE he is Link and not because he just happened to be there. When I encountered Master Khoga for the first time in the depths I was so excited because I remembered that he fell down this chasm in BotW and that the most iconic and best villain in BotW is still alive. I really was just so delighted I think I almost cried (I'm a huge fangirl, leave me alone). He and the Yiga Clan made the Depths their own in the time that passed between those two games. The only thing I would have wished for was that Master Khogas questline could have been a bit longer and that he shouldn't have ended up like in BotW. And what I would have liked was to have one huge Yiga-Clan structure that served as their home base in the depths, like the Yiga Hideout on the surface.

There are just three more things I want to mention that don't sit well with me in this game.

First: the Depths are empty. I want to make each Zelda game my own and play it at least once to 100% in any regard. All Locations, all Shrines, all Lightroots, all chests, all quests, all Koroks (urgh), and so on. I want to harvest everything this game has to offer. But when I was "exploring" the depths in my progressed savestate I just found myself comparing the overworld to the depths to find shrines or lightroots. I traveled from one destination to another just to complete my task and gaining every shrine in the process was a nice addition. Tbh, I don't even know what the reward was for clearing all Shrines. I remember you got some kind of seed or flower from the lightroots tho.

The depths are incredibly dull. What happens in the depths?

1. You get the Autobuild ability

2. Fire Temple (Great design choice btw, very esthetic tho not challenging)

3. Minerus questline

4. Master Khoga and the Yiga-Clan

5. Weird Poe trading Statues (idk if this should count tbh)

6. Lost Woods access

7. Demon King Ganondorf (Daddy)

So we've got 6-7 major events in the depths. An area as big as Hyrule itself filled with almost nothing. You encounter abandoned Mines that always work the same. Search for the chest, pick up some Zonaite, and off you go. Yiga-Clan outposts; kill the Yiga, read the journal, loot the chests, and next. And don't get me started on the recycled dungeon bosses you can now just kill for fun down there. WHY?? I hate when bosses, incredibly strong monsters that are tied to a location as its last obstacle, as its guardian to prevent the Hero from accomplishing his goal, just get reused as an overworld boss. Tho they're so easy to kill a Gleeok is more dangerous. Now that I think about it King Gleeok might just be the most challenging Boss in TotK.

The second thing I would have wished for, but knew it would not happen was for Link to permanently lose his arm and for Zelda to remain a Dragon. I knew it wouldn't happen because Zelda always has a happy ending but it would have solidified TotK as another huge break in the tloz formula. Link losing his arm would have shown just how incredibly dangerous this whole situation really was, even to the Hero of the Wild. A crippled Hero with lost limbs and remains scarred for life (like the theories for the Heros Shade from Twilight Princess) is something Zelda lacks and just solidifies that Link is fucking overpowered and nothing can stop him. Don't get me wrong, I know it's kinda his thing to just be like this and to make the player feel accomplished in saving the land of Hyrule and its Princess, but we’re in the 2020s, and people want some kind of realism, drama, and especially in this case, involvement in the story. The way things are, it just feels like a fever dream sometimes. Might be an unpopular opinion but I'd like to see Link struggle for once in a while. (I know, botw’s basically a summary of Zelda and Links’ struggle to save Hyrule, but that’s not my point here and you know it.)

I know the chances of Zelda remaining a Dragon forever were close to nonexistent, and I think I wouldn't have a problem with this, if the developer had just given us a real explanation as to why, and how this is even possible. Mineru emphasized multiple times, that this forbidden ritual is irreversible and that she would erase herself if she were to proceed. Her decision has such a massive impact on the Story. Zelda went to such lengths to protect her Kingdom and support Link, she gave up everything and she was so terrified but her trust in Link is just so great that she believes that he will at least save Hyrule; her kingdom when she can only provide him with the tool to do so. Only to be reversed because two ghosts appeared. The theory that Sonia and Rauru channeled their energy through Link to reverse Zeldas form like Mineru said is just that, a theory. But aside from Raurus power and spirit residing with Link in his arm, where did Sonia come from? When the imprisoning war happened Sonia was long gone and there were no hints of her spirit being connected to Link or Zelda. It just feels unpolished and the explanation of "magic" isn't satisfying at all.

Lastly, something that bothers me in particular, I don't think many miss this feature. I am a huge fan of the Dark Souls series and challenging games in general. So my disappointment, when I learned that there wasn't a Master Mode for TotK, and there are no plans to implement one in the future, was immense. I would have loved to play through this game with a more challenging note and 100% it that way. I’m really sad about this, would have loved to see improved golden monsters that would have destroyed me and tested my skill.

To end this rant on a positive note, TotK is still one of the best games I've played. Its mechanics and freedom of action are one in a kind and I could spend hours just playing around with ZonaI devices and build the most ridiculous builds. It has really well-thought-out Quests and fun characters to interact with. Link and Zeldas relationship (as an aromantic myself) just feels so fulfilling. I know many people see their relationship and their dependency on each other as signs of a canon love story between these two, and by all means, go for it (that Zelda lives in Links house now is evidence enough. And I ship them occasionally myself)! But for me, the fact that it isn't explicitly said leaves room for interpretation, and, they are just two people who can 100% trust each other and whose lives are so incredibly intertwined that they are just codependent at this point. I love how they've written Zelda and Links relationship.

And my highlight, of course, is Ganondorf and the final boss fight. I adore Ganondorf his design is so incredibly well done, you feel his ambitions and dominance throughout every "encounter" we witness. Though we don't know those ambitions and anything about him besides that he wants to restore the rule of "the survival of the fittest", to be honest. He is pure fanservice I tell you. And I live for this.

The final fight is a (almost) one one-on-one with the Demon King(Just like Twilight Princess, one of the most epic showdowns of all time). An excellent magician who mastered all forms of weaponry just like Link and is even capable of flurry rushing (an ability that many/I thought was Links champion ability in BotW). It's epic, it's cinematic, and filled with surprises. When I fought Ganondorf in the first half, I just assumed we got two phases, and that's it, like in Botw. But holy shit. The second phase started and his health bar just kept going and he looks like THAT with his cocky attitude; brother. The moment you defeat him, and think it's over, you realize what he's about to do but before you can act he just grabs Link, and smashes him through tons of stone, and debris (however he came out of this unscathed; would have loved if he got at least a little injured and then healed by the light dragon or something.) and suddenly you are in the skies facing off against this massive titan of a Dragon. This fight is as challenging as the Dark Beast Ganon fight in BotW but its buildup and the resulting fight high above the surface with the help of Zelda who subconsciously knows it's her destiny to support Link in this fight makes it way better than just a cinematic final showdown. Link manages to defeat the Demon Dragon and after he blows up like a nuke (wtf was that anyway, so awesome!) and Zelda is transformed back to her human form. Link is skydiving to catch Zelda as they plummet from the sky and the moment, he finally reaches her hand and catches her will be forever one of the most emotional and impactful scenes in any Zelda game. Despite its flaws, TotK offers an undeniably captivating experience. With its innovative mechanics, memorable moments, and interesting characters, it carved its own niche within the Zelda universe. While it does leave me a bit disappointed that it ended up like it did, expectations for Zelda Games are always skyrocketing but I still don’t think that we expected too much. I rate this a solid 8.5/10 while every other Zelda entrance is a 10/10.

I love TotK but like I said. It's a toxic relationship and whenever I find myself wanting to revisit this Hyrule I rather play BotW than TotK. Sorry for my rant.

[thatoneastralpoe]

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

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

Game Play Changes

Companion character

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

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

Malice

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

Heart Containers & Stamina Vessels

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

Shrines & Mini Dungeons

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

Main Story

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

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

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

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

Disease with the Zora

Famine for the Gorons

Bloodshed in the Rito

And Conquest to the Gerudo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[blackstarchanx3new]

FSR Rambles 12 times Vaati got his ass kicked

Insanity, Vaati being pathetic.

What's new?

Ooop. Zelda showing off how she'll kill you within 2 seconds of being in HER castle.

Link's letter was smth addressed earlier: He warned her with a letter he was going to pull the sword.

Which implies a certain amount of impersonal-ness to the action. He didn't want her talking him out of it lmfao. He was already struggling with defying Vio's persistence so it makes sense he didn't want Zelda to try and logic his ass either.

Her outfit being the sneaky armor in botw, presumably so she could sneak attack, whoever ended up attacking her.

I thought it'd also be a fun throwback to Sheik and spoiler:

Zelda's gender identity is pretty open. Link referred to her with "They" pronouns earlier in the comic but I didn't feel it was very relevant to bring up at the time lmfao. Zelda's all sorts of gender in this comic to say the least.

The reason why Vaati knows she's around is smth I'll get into later when it's more relevant.

"Damn would you have preferred Gannon???" - Vaati probably.

Zelda isn't playing around she wants to know where her blonde twink is at.

Vaati is a bitch about it of course.

Oh she mad.

She real mad.

"PATRICK THATS NOT A HOOKER!!!"

"It's not?"

"ITS A BOMB 💣!!!!"

Vaatis stupid as hell expression before she goes boom is hilarious to me.

Smth people seem to be CONFUSED about fsr is Vaati's not so subtle Zelda simping.

Vaati is a Zelda simp, that's really all there is too it. The extent of that simping is smth I've joked about a lot.

So he got his ass handed to him.

Shadow himself noted vaati must be weak as hell earlier so. Guess he was right.

Smth of note: vaati is struggling to keep his form in the "wind mage" form. As his body keeps trying to revert to the "wind demon" design

Those titles are used interchangeably in the manga but I call his Hylian disguise his "wind mage" form and the demon form his "wind demon" form personally.

Zelda casually drops the fact she was trying to murder Vaati with that blast. She isn't playing around. Makes sense this asshole held her prisoner for who knows how long before and did something to her best friend.

Haha vaatis pathetic and also in pain.

Good.

His suffering is all the direct cause of his own actions so...hard to feel TOO bad for him rn.

Zelda certainly doesn't.

Link’s shitty state outright made her a more cold hearted person it seems.

Not that'd I'd blame her for that lmfao.

Vaati struggling to get back to being handsome lmfao.

Vaati, my bro, when are you going to do a single thing for yourself????

Okay but the implication Dark Link let Vaati get his ass kicked and only jumped in to help when Vaati called for help is very funny.

Dark links comedically large sword is just interesting. It's not a four sword replica like Shadow’s.

Zelda is in shock at the weird Link coming out of nowhere.

Darks immediate reaction of being flustered at seeing Zelda is so funny to me.

"HYLIA'S MASSIVE TITS, IT'S A WOMAN!!!"

And fun note: This is the first time Dark's actually for reals appeared in the physical world and not just in the "Headspace".

Subtly creepy he isn't just a mental problem but a physical danger as well.

His attack was very calculated, as he didn't hurt Zelda and just slammed his sword in front of her...

...Haven't we seen smth...SIMILAR TO THIS?

Huh well, look at that...

Sweaty weirdo Dark Link enters the chat.

No it was not just for the memes he's actually just like that lmfao.

So from what we know about Dark so far there's some things to note:

Our buddy boy can see the memories of others and "live" through their experiences.

Yall see what it is getting at right?

Shadow link, Vio, and Vaati's emotions and memories are influencing Darks inability to harm Zelda here.

And perhaps he formed feeling a certain kind of way about her.

He associates her with positive feelings lmfao.

Their influence aside, he still chooses not to hurt her on his own.

Vaati’s reaction is priceless.

Zelda seems to grant Dark some mercy, assumably because he outright denied Vaati here lol.

For his sparing of Zelda he gets squished like a dog toy. Poor Dark Link.

Vaati leaves with his dumbass lackey.

When you casualy blow a hole in your castle lmfao.

She's overwhelmed.

She need break.

She need hug.

She need...Link.

Pff.

Guys, he has self-awareness...fuck.

Vaati, that was just unnecessarily mean to your lackey.

Also Dark Link appearance wise:

His hair color has changed. It's purple toned now when it was grey blue toned earlier....

Okay I'll stop being coy it's because he's mimicking Vio's appearance.

Oh. Well, that's a face, alright...

Is he ANGRY? Is he HAPPY?

Did he make that face because he knows it'd freak Vaati out?

Vaati’s abusive bullshit doesn't seem to damper his mood at least as he's smiling in the 3rd panel.

Dark link and Shadow link are very different people, ESPECIALY when it comes to how they cope with Vaati's abuse.

It left a mark on Shadow where as as of right now at least, Dark acts MOSTLY unbothered by it.

Let's face it rn his idea of normal relationships are Shadow and vio lmfaoooooooo-

The dudes who both almost murdered each other.

Pff

His "I want kisses too" line will never not get a laugh out of me.

It's so indicative of how he actually feels.

He wants kisses.

He drops that Shadow is the demon king and for a second you gotta wonder if Vaati was like

"...Why is Gannon smooching Vio?????"

Dark Link also wants to dance. Both are things he saw Vio and Shadow do, mind you...

Vaati has no idea wtf is going on lmfao.

Dark has eclipsed him as the true villain of this comic-

I say in jest.

Dark casually recaps stuff we already kinda know.

While trying to dance with Vaati pff.

Funny enough, taking the lead in said dance, which reflects how he's the one doing all the work rn.

So, Dark link is interpreting peoples feelings, not 100% understanding them. 🤔

He has to actually think about Blue's emotional state hah and even seems surprised.

It's funny to think that even Green picked up on blue being jealous, and basically everyone did, but Dark had to think about it...

Kinda shows he doesn't really understand people much. Like TRUELY.

Or he's just not as interested in blue vs Vio and Shadow.

Dark stutters again like he did when he was face to face with Zelda.

Vaatis so mean mocking his stutter and continues to berate him.

Well that was an outburst.

And I finally get to talk in detail about Dark Link’s "mechanics" for a lack of a better term will expand on the next page.

Design/art wise:

Dark's teeth are all sharp here when normally, despite being a demon his teeth are flat/human looking teeth.

The background is a more red version of the head-space Vio and Green have been dragged to when Dark talks to them/at them.

Immediately he's back to being himself.

Weirdly happy, which settles in the true horror of the previous outbirst:

He didn't mean, a single word of what he just said.

He said that, PURELY to hurt Vaati because it's something that Vaati already feels about himself. He wasn't actually MAD at Vaati and snapping in response to Vaati's abuse. He was just reflecting Vaati's anger right back at him.

So smth about Dark:

He often reflects DIRECTLY how others behave.

Instances of such:

The madder Vaati got in this talk, the "angrier" Dark Link got right back at him.

He shouted at Dark to "Do something" and he responded angrily back that he didn't want to hurt Zelda.

He shouted and berated Dark Link causing Dark to shout that nobody loves Vaati.

Dark Link's nature is to be calm, quiet, pretty "Happy" and kinda hopelessly romantic lmao. He wants to have his idea of "Fun" with people.

He MIMICS people.

Dark has no identity of his own (At least he doesn't seem to realize he does) so often he just bounces off people. He only takes joy in hurting others atm.

Not even in an outright malicious way. At least not the kind of malicious that's "haha I broke the hero because I hate him". This is just what his idea of "Fun" is. What his idea of normal interactions are. This is just what he's suposed to be doing rn.

He isn't acting much outside of his direct reason for creation. What he even deems as fun is indicative of his creation as well.

Engaging with their range of emotions and characters and memories he deems interesting is FUN to him.

If his dialogue from page 121 is anything to go off of, bro really doesn't give a shit about his job. He just wants to have fun:

He finds it amusing Shadow can ALSO manipulate people's feelings, outright kind of complimenting him for it.

And then gets hopelessly distracted and starts talking about what he'd "Rather do" right now.

Which involves hugging Vio and reading oop.

He didn't get SUPER involved/invested in Shadow's memories until Vio and Shadow were doing more "interesting" things, at least in Dark's opinion of what is "interesting."

Dark wants to engage in relationships lmfao. But he's stuck engaging with memories living though them vicariously and hurting people he supposedly "Likes".

He wants to dance with someone and kiss them and in general have "happy" moments with someone. But is stuck being a curse that's only purpose is to break the hero apart and reflect negativity.

It's kinda sad.

But he clearly hasn't reflected on his own life/situation outside of Vaati's feelings towards him.

Also: Dark has no desire to kill any of the Link or Link himself...keep this in mind.

Again: He reflects Vaati's mood of annoyance with that face in the second panel. Which kills me. You just know Vaati's making the same face off screen lmfao.

Symbolism symbolism

Dark plucks the violet but leaves the silent princess alone outside of petting it. Call back to how he left Zelda alone.

He says more stuff we kinda already know, but recapping is good. Actually, we spent like 100 pages in flashbacks, hah.

It also shows what Dark learned/his takeaway from watching their interactions.

Haha oh Dark why are you ripping petals out?

There's smth to be said about him ripping the petals out as the game "She loves me, she loves me not" is a vibe that's being invoked here.

With the odd amount of petals (Being 5) it'd land on "She loves me" by the way.

A relatively innocent game turned into something sinister as he rips petals out in accordance with how many heroes there are.

Dark's behavior continues to be ODD, as he claims Shadow's predicament is "Sad". Which is true.

But...does his expression REALLY scream that he's ACTUALLY sad about it to you?

His chest eyeball just stares blankly forward, his body language implies he's just kinda pretending or acting sad.

Which makes sense, Dark hasn't been shown to clearly understand sorrow properly as even when he cried he was still smiling.

He compares Vio and Shadow's struggles with their identities directly as they're both struggling with who they're SUPOSED to be compared to who they are.

Again: he's ripping a petal out as he talks about each member of the Link squad.

Notes notes notes my favorite:

For whatever reason Vio is not in his present day look here. He's how he looked 7 years ago.

You could make a lot of different assumptions as to why:

Is this how Dark sees Vio? Vio visually represented to be stuck in the past. Vio just feeling more childishly scared in the face of what's happening.

Dark's comforting Vio here in a similar manor to how Shadow did though.

Also super weird: Dark actually in a round about way compliments Vio here.

"He's so blinded by his self hatred he can't see just how much everyone adores him because of his calm cool nature..."

Dark can feel how others feel about Vio and repeated those opinions.

This is smth to note because so far the only things he's really repeated out loud have been negative things people feel about THEMSELVES.

Outside of when he complimented Shadow.

But this shows he can actually recognize positive feelings people have towards others and repeat those too...

And outright stating: He "likes" Vio.

Because of his strong reaction to Zelda, we can assume that he likes people depending on how others feel about them. Because the team likes Vio: So does Dark Link.

Another petal falls while he dips into Green's problems. Who's the only other one we've seen him play around with so far outside of Vio and Shadow And not even really with Shadow...

Weirdly enough Green feels empty inside because he's diet link lmfao.

I told yall I'd give him a personality.

Harbors guilt for lazing around when everyone else was doing stuff. Ouch.

He felt the need to promise Link he'd keep shit okay but he doesn't even know if he CAN.

Blue and his ptsd.

Dark continues to hug people while utterly obliterating them as people lmao.

Blue can't express his emotions arounv Vio which is a theme we'll see as we go into the comic more.

Vio looking back at Blue tho is, a thing.

To be fair to Dark's assesment of Red: red hasn't done anything in the comic yet.

Him chucking the flower the second it's not pretty anymore and, eating the petal is just funny in a morbid way.

Creepy thing: He ate the petal that "Symbolized" Red. The sweet optimistic character. Kinda just shows Dark consumes everything around him in a pit of despair lmfao. Also it's hilarious that he ate smth that he shouldn't have.

Vaati's disgusted reaction to said petal eating is very funny and Dark's monologue about HIMSELF is very telling I feel.

He thinks he's a hero, because he's saving someone. Removed from context that Vaati is a villain and the fac to "Save" Vaati he needed to hurt the REAL hero of Hyrule...

His actions are preventative at the moment: he's making so Link can't reform and the pieces can't seal Vaati back into the sword.

Dark's actions all make sense to Dark Link. XD

Nobody is cheering him, so he just blatantly says "YAY DARK LINK!!!" Which is honestly the funniest lines Dark has said purely because it shows his childish outlook on this entire situation.

He's just the hero saving Vaati.

Dark's clearly annoyed to some degree nothing he does is bringing Vaati any amount of satisfaction.

He did what he was supposed to do. The sword is drawn. Vaati is free.

Dark even mocks Vaati's impatience and his need to control someone else to do his work for him. Hitting Vaati right where it hurts with Vaati's insecurity about being a pawn.

Instantly also going for the throat with "Master Elzo and Link would be disgusted with you"

Obviously: He's talking about Minish Cap Link NOT "our" Link.

This use of their names offends Vaati to no end.

The fight scene is fun, enough said. XD

Okay fine: Ramble thoughts.

Dark manages to mauver his way into not getting properly hit.

Dark's fascination with strangling people is not missed as he does it to Vaati here.

As he repeats things he knows will hurt Vaati's feelings.

Vaati is being unreasonable and stupid in Dark's eyes so him bringing up Vaati's insecurities to make a point is just his attempt to get Vaati to listen to him.

Despite his actions seeming to go against it: He IS on Vaati's side and IS trying to "save" Vaati.

He isn't even saying/acting out of spite, he's just kinda lowkey annoyed and exasperated at Vaati at best. XD

We hit the image count so I'll pick up later.

[barramundi]

my twilight princess journey: enemies to lovers apparently

A few days ago I beat the legend of zelda: twilight princess for the first time ever!! and man...... i am not okay (positive)

I've always been a HUGE zelda fan, ever since I was a little kid. i literally can't remember a time I didn't have zelda in my life. so much i used to spend all day long playing majora's mask with my older sibling and i remember how i knew there were other zelda games but i thought all of them would look like oot/mm... and then twilight princess was announced. and i thought that was the most beautiful game I had ever seen. i fell in love with midna and i thought link was just so handsome and cool... unfortunately i never owned a gamecube and apparently my sibling was not really interested in twilight princess, so... time went by and i never had the chance to play it.

and then, back in 2012, 10 years late, 14 year old me heard of the wind waker for the first time. i immediately fell in love with the art and i HAD to play that game. i owned a Wii at the time and i remember feeling disappointed realizing WW was for the gamecube but then FEELING EXCITED REALIZING THE WII COULD PLAY GAMECUBE GAMES. i fought really hard to be able to play the wind waker. and i did!!! i played it way too much probably. i always say it's at least my top 2 zelda. sometimes even top 1, only losing to majora's mask.

and twilight princess remained unnoticed........ until I noticed it... negatively

back in the day people used to hate a lot on the wind waker because of the graphics and art style. and what they would compare it to to say the graphics sucked?? twilight princess. "TP good dark mature awesome!!! WW bad stupid kiddy game!!" UGH i was outraged. i had to stand up for my favorite game!!! before i even noticed, i already hated twilight princess.

i had some (bad) reasons like being under the impression that TP was trying way too hard to be dark and gritty and realistic and that it took itself so seriously it made it look stupid. and i would compare it to majora's mask's effortlessness in creating a depressing but beautiful atmosphere without having to be visually dark. "TP wants to be MM soooo bad it's embarrassing hihihi!!!" oh shut up you never played it, weirdo!!!!

anyways, fast forward to may 2023. nintendo releases tears of the kingdom and with it apparently the end of the old zelda format. i was so devastated and sad... ever since botw, i was hoping for a new old-fashioned zelda game; and now it would never come... but still i was longing to play a zelda game. i wanted to GET THROUGH DUNGEONS, SOLVE PUZZLES, DO COOL SIDEQUESTS FOR FUNNY CHARACTERS!!! but i didn't want to play the ones I had already played again... i wanted something new... but what!!!

i looked at twilight princess, twilight princess looked at me.... i thought "welp... i guess I wouldn't be able to run from you forever". and off i went to hyrule... or rather, to ordon village

at first I was sincerely shocked by how much TP felt like the wind waker. same engine, similar combat (but greatly improved), same sound effects, the yellow rupee... i was jokingly saying it was the wind waker's evil twin lmao

when i got to the first dungeon, it finally hit me: through all these years, what the FUCK did I think twilight princess was gonna be other than... *SHOCK*... A NORMAL ZELDA GAME?????

A VERY GOOD ZELDA GAME???? T-THE BEST ONE????

remember all that talk about trying way too hard to be dark and gritty?? dude. what the fuck. this game is fucking adorable. midna is SO cool in a sweet way, the songs are great and honestly this is my favorite link ever. i always looked at him being marketed as a MANLY MAN THE MOST AGGRESSIVE REALISTIC LINK GGRRRR LOOK AT HOW DEEP HIS VOICE IS!!!! reality: he is the cutest link. literally the cutest most adorable link. bless him forever. i want to hug him so bad............. i am going to pass out (positive)

also midna and zelda. they are dating.

so yeah, there i was having an absolute blast with this game. it has the best dungeons I've ever seen. (except for lakebed temple. i hate lakebed temple. good thing arbiter's grounds is the best dungeon in the entire franchise.)

anyways I got to temple of time and then my PC fucking gave up and i had to go get it fixed; i lost all my progress and cried myself to sleep but then i pulled myself together and went through it all over again. and i would do it again. because i love this game. i finally beat it 5 days ago and i can't stop thinking about it. might just as well start another run honestly

twilight princess has now surpassed most zelda games I've played and is comfortably sitting under majora's mask and the wind waker as my 3rd favorite zelda game. but there is a twist: i haven't played MM and WW in years and i kinda needed to play them again just to confirm or change my ranking. the problem is that i just don't feel like playing them. 'cause i just want to play twilight princess!!!

so yeah, with a new personal record of 17 years of delay, it still feels kinda weird to say that twilight princess might just be my favorite zelda game ever. 🙏

that's it bye

[rnolduga]

Gerudo Height in BotW

NOTE: This is all approximation based on theory, done because simply eyeballing heights wasn't enough for me and I wanted an answer that could at least be explained.

I'll get straight to the point- this started because my fixation on BotW returned and I decided I needed to know Urbosa's height; looking it up rewarded me with poor results, so I decided to find it myself and I spiraled from there. Here we go:

To start, I need a solid metric to measure her height by, as well as something to compare her to. In comes this video by The Bread Pirate, in which he calculates Link's height and comes to the conclusion that he is 5'2", or 1.584 meters. This is perfect, because it just so happens that Link and Urbosa are depicted together on equal level in Memory #15 and that means I can use him to find her height through comparison.

(I had to cut Mipha out from between them for this, rip)

I tried to approximate their heights as accurately as possible, excluding the added height of their hair because. Well. Hair doesn't count. Which is also why in the video, Link was measured in the radiant mask, which flattens his hair.

Now, The Bread Pirate utilizes the BotW memory editor to convert Link's height in in-game pixels to meters, and I can't do that here. So, alternative methods with a common metric have to be used. As seen in the above image, I measured both Link and Urbosa's height from the bottom of their feet to roughly the top of their heads, in red and blue. The black and white lines beside those serve to count each pixel of the lines more clearly, with an added line for Urbosa's heels, which will be subtracted from her total height later. As you can see, Link reaches 122 pixels tall, Urbosa is 175 pixels, and Urbosa's heels are 6 pixels. For simplicity's sake, I'll be measuring height in meters for the math and converting it to feet + inches for those who need it at the end. To find Urbosa's height, we have to find the height of each pixel. For this, we rely on Link's assumed height of 1.584 meters.

1.584 divided by Link's pixel height count, 122, equals 0.01298360655. This means that in this instance, 1 pixel = 0.01298360655 meters.

With that in mind, if Urbosa is 175 pixels tall, then Link's pixel height subtracted from that would give them a 53 pixel difference. 53 pixels, or 0.68813114754 meters.

Link's height of 1.584 meters + their difference of 0.68813114754 meters = 2.27213114754 meters, Urbosa's total height in the above image.

Now, her heels are 6 pixels tall, or 0.0779016393 meters. This, subtracted from her total height, equals 2.19422950824 meters.

So, in simpler terms, Urbosa is roughly:

2.272 meters / 7'5" in heels. 2.194 meters / 7'2" without heels.

That's super tall! Except...

Huh..........................

This got me thinking. I assumed all Gerudo adults except elders used very similar base models and were therefore all the same height, so this was all for the fun of ignoring nintendo's convenient game development method of reusing models to treat each character like an individual, but could they be different heights?

To my surprise, the answer is yes!

Using the same method I did with Urbosa, I approximated the following (heels subtracted from all):

Buliara: 2.315 meters / 7'7"

Guard: 2.112 meters / 6'11"

Avg. Gerudo: 2.019 meters / 6'7"

I left out elderly Gerudo because they're all signifigantly hunched over, making it impossible to get an accurate measurement, as well as Gerudo children, because I'm lazy.

(Side note, that'd make the Gerudo at the bar REALLY tall by their standards. Her in-game model is the same height as other average Gerudo around town, but I'm taking her word on being 8'0" for the sake of maintaining something that is definitively canon lol)

Now, there's just one last thing to mention: Traysi's estimation of average Gerudo height.

Um.

No, pretty sure that's much taller than the average Gerudo, I don't even have to do the math. also that's a cactus not a tree

Anyway. I went into this just wanting to know how tall Urbosa was and ended up doing a lot more math than originally intended to find the heights of other Gerudo too. Worth it tbh.

[luimagines]

Hi Pinky! I don't know where to put this or who to tell this to cause none lf my friends are available+loz enthusiasts (one of them hates loz with a burning passion too lmao😔😔) (He has beef with loz)

So uh yeah! New Link and Zelda yippie 100,000 yrs after Wild's era! Realm, Wild's successor is just as chaotic as him but his chaoticness(+trauma) goes beyond the stratosphere ❤️ (The Hero of Realms is this Link's hero title, Realm is his assigned nickname ig, stil not sure if this is his final hero title cause his story is still messy, doesn't make sense, and incomplete)

He's also 10 the babey and has facial recognition problems, he'd like look at four and say "Hi Wind! :D"

He also suggests stuff that are like a wtf worthy response, "Wanna watch me split the sea in half?" or "Wanna watch me steal the moon?" or "Wanna watch me break disassemble the master sword and reassemble it again like a lego?" *Fi had to intervene lmao* also Fi makes a physical appearance here haha! She deserves a comeback >:(

You wanna know whats more? He's Time and Twilight's descendant, he's physical proof that Twilight got laid hahahahaha gsvk djkfkdhshsjdk Imagine their shock Time going like Dang my bloodline survive that long??? And Twilight going Dang I continued the bloodline???

Funfact when Twilight tries to use the crystal while on Realms dragon companion the crystal doesn't work, it cancels out the crystals power

And this Link in particular doesn't have blonde or brunette hair, he has cherry red hair like Malon's except darker and the iconic blue eyes

He also has a dragon travelling companion (the dragon is like similar to the dragons in botw/totk, big flying danger noodles) the dragon grants Realm the power to open portals from realm to realm, era to era, or the past, present, and future of that certain realm. Also that dragon companion is this Link's mother, the whole time his mother has been with him the whole adventure, they even fought Ganon together along with Zelda :'(  (I mean Realm did all the work tanking Ganon all the dragon did is fight off a whole army of monsters while saving civilians) (but does the chain know that? No) (Realm gets really stingy when someone makes unwelcomed comments to the dragon, or when they ride on the dragon and one of the chain accidentally does something that causes the dragons scales/mane to be stained/dirty) (yes I'm so unoriginal but shush) (the dragon also sings, it sings lullabies like zeldas lullaby, lost woods, ballad of the wind fish, etc... It doesn't have like powerful mighty roars a dragon should have but it has like a mystical, melodious, and serene roars, or just think of Mothras roar) (the dragons shards can also empower or heal anything or anyone with it)

Ignore this if you want I'm basically rambling stuff that is completely unrelated to your blog XD

Is mama dragon as big as Mushu though?

Do we get memes? ^.^*

Does she yell about dishonor to the rest of the boys who try to interfere with what her baby is doing? XD

[amiharana]

25 for the revalink prompts? Bonus for not the gerudo outfit

(ask game from here)

part two of You Guys Have the Same Brainworm in my Askbox. but aw darn ya got me anon!!! truthfully, if you want me to write this in canon, i'm not sure what other armor sets would incite the same sort of fluster the prompt implies? like i have a zelda wiki open on the botw armor page and i'm going through it like Hm. Not sexy enough. KJDFHJKDHF but i still wanna write this one in canon so we're gonna take the non-horny route on the definition of 'flustered' instead LMAO

👔 25. Link dresses up just to try and get Revali flustered.

"why in the name of the goddess do you have so much clothing?" revali grumbles, crossing his arms. he's sitting in the middle of their shared roost, surrounded by piles of link's collection of armor, growing more and more as the blond continues warping them out of the sheikah slate. how much could that little contraption hold?

"well, i didn't mean to get this much," link says, tapping at the slate. he holds one of his hands out and in the next second, a pair of opal earrings materializes out of blue light in his palm. "at first, it was just out of necessity. you know zelda left me with only one set of shirt and pants when i woke up? it was way too small and that shit had probably been molding for a hundred years."

he places the earrings on the table with the other jewelry he's pulled out of the slate so far. "i mean, thankfully i found some better pants on the great plateau, but i threw that shirt away as soon as i got to hateno. there's definitely some freak in akkala who got ahold of it somehow, though..."

"and then you just kept buying more?" revali says, peering at one of the piles. why did he have so many of the same green tunic?

"in my defense, i just found some of the stuff lying around hyrule!" link replies, raising both of his hands up in surrender. "but the stealth set is really useful, and the snowquill armor is my favorite of all of my armor." he smiles fondly at revali, and the rito can't help but melt a little bit under his songbird's gaze. "and i look really good in the gerudo top and sirwal." link wiggles his eyebrows at revali, his smile growing mischievous. "wanna see?"

warmth coils under revali's cheek feathers, but he wills it away as best as he can. "maybe another time, when you haven't made an actual nest out of our home," he mutters, looking away.

as he does, one of the armor pieces catches his attention. it's designed with glowing swirls of orange and dots of blue, reminiscent of ancient sheikah technology. "what's this one?" revali says, pulling the piece towards himself. the shoulder ridges sort of remind him of the crest of medoh's head...

link follows his gaze and hums. "that one's the ancient cuirass," he says. "you're supposed to wear it with the greaves over here—" link reaches over to a piece of the other side of revali, revealing matching pants. "and also the helm, but uh... the headpiece is honestly kinda goofy, so i just wear the diamond circlet because it's prettier."

he reaches back towards the table to find the circlet and places it on the head. link then places his hands under his chin and slightly turns his face to the side. "don't i make a prettier princess than zelda like this?"

revali snorts. "sure." he turns back to the cuirass. the orange glow honestly reminds him too much of windblight; the swirling patterns are too similar and he fights down a shiver. he has to remind himself that the sheikah technology had existed prior to the influence of ganon and that it was always meant to be used for good. "what does the helm look like?"

link giggles sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. "well, uh, here's the one i bought from robbie..." he taps at the sheikah slate and something that looks vaguely like the head of a guardian materializes and drops in link's lap. he holds it up towards revali, grinning in a way that looks more like a grimace.

revali blinks once and then his eyes widen, staring in disbelief at the headpiece. "what... in hylia's name is that," he says taking the helm from link. at closer inspection, the glowing blue circles dotting the circumference of the helm are reminiscent of guardian eyes, or like windblight's. revali shivers this time; he decides he doesn't like the helm at all.

link laughs again nervously. "yeah, like i said, it looks goofy and i feel really silly wearing it..." he trails off, looking away before perking up again. "oh! i have other ancient helms that you might like better than this one."

"robbie made more?" revali says, looking up at link.

the blond shakes his head, tapping at the slate again. "nah, he only made that one, and these ones..." he pauses, chewing on his lip. "um... would you believe me if told you these ones fell out of the sky after i defeated the ganon blights?"

revali blinks once slowly and stares at link, searching his face for any hint of mischief. the only expression on his little jewel's face is hesitance and wariness. "and how exactly would they have done that?"

"dunno, i couldn't explain it even if i tried," link says, shrugging. he taps at the sheikah slate again and another helm materializes from blue light, dropping in the blond's lap. but this time, revali's eyes widen. "i have four of these ones and they all look like—"

"what the hell?" revali exclaims. "how— what— where did you—?!" it feels like every feather on revali's body has risen, standing straight up. he probably looks ridiculous right now, but every part of his body is flushing warm with a feeling he can't put a name to. the helm looks like exactly like medoh's head, or perhaps more accurately, a smaller version of it.

link stares at him, frozen in place holding the helm. "uh... like i said, it kinda just... fell out of the sky after i beat windblight..." chewing on his lip, he slowly holds the helm out to revali. "do you wanna...?

revali just stares at the headpiece with wide eyes for a moment. how did link even get a hold of this? it was supposed to be... slowly and warily, revali takes the helm from link and turns it over in his hands until he's looking at it head-on. it really looks just like medoh.

"you said it fell out of the sky," he murmurs, running the tip of a feathered finger over the ridges of the helm, "but why... why was it given to you... and how did it get to you if..." he trails off, finally speechless.

"if what?" link says softly, trying to prompt revali to continue.

"this is the divine helm of medoh," revali says, his voice quiet. "it's supposed to be a treasure gifted to the one who controls medoh. and as her champion, this was gifted to me back then. i lost it during the awakening of the calamity and after windblight took over..." revali resists the urge to tremble. "i don't know what happened to it. how it came to be in your hands is..."

"i don't know either," link says. "i don't know why it was given to me either. i have other helms that look like the heads of the other divine beasts, too. if that one was yours, then i guess those helms belong to the other champions. i should give them back..." the blond fidgets. "do you... want yours back? it's not like i use it that much anyway. it's just been sitting in the slate collecting dust— i mean, if it could collect dust in there, i don't know how it's stored—"

"it's fine," revali cuts him off, his voice soft. he's still staring at the helm. "just keep it with you for now. the role of the champions and the use of the divine beasts is obsolete now, with ganon sealed away. i wouldn't have a use for it either."

"are you sure?" link murmurs. revali looks back at him and his precious little jewel's eyes are wide and shining. revali doesn't know if it's possible to love a person more than what he feels for link in this moment.

"yes, i'm sure, songbird," he replies and hands the helm back. "it will probably be safer with you in the sheikah slate as well. you'll take good care of it, right?"

"of course," link responds immediately. "it's yours, of course i will." he turns back to the sheikah slate and taps at it again. in seconds, the helm dematerializes in blue light, presumably back into the slate. revali wonders then how anything is stored in there; is it an endlessly sheikah-blue space, floating forever in a void inaccessible from this world?

then, link sets the slate off to the side and crawls forward into revali's lap, wrapping his arms around revali's neck. like clockwork, the rito responds by wrapping his own arms around link's waist and holding him flush against his own body.

"i'm sorry," link blurts suddenly.

revali raises a brow. "what for?"

"that i had the helm. i should have realized that it would probably be yours."

revali snorts. "it was, in the past. i'm not sure i'm worthy enough to have it now, failing my role as a champion and no longer being required as one. you don't need to suffer any feathers over it, snowdrop."

"i guess..." link shifts in his hold so that the side of his head rests on revali's shoulder and he faces revali's neck. "but you are worthy. you're always worthy of it, 'vali, even if we don't need champions anymore. i love you, you know that, right?"

"i do," the rito responds softly. "and i love you as well, much more than you could ever fathom, songbird. thank you." he hears link hum, a content noise against his throat. they sit like that, wrapped in each other's embrace quietly for a couple moments until link speaks again.

"wanna see me in the gerudo fit now?"

"link—"

[a-pale-azure-moon]

Random TotK Thoughts #3

How am I supposed to save Hyrule when there's so many distractions? I'm only now starting another regional phenomenon (the Gorons) after activating all but one of the towers, doing all the Great Fairy sidequests and doing more of Penn's sidequests. I'm up to 56 shrines completed and over 100 Koroks found. It's impossible not to get sidetracked in this game and both I love it and hate it. xD

I also collected the next three Dragon Tears. (I consulted a spoiler free guide to make sure I got them in order, if you're curious.) And wow...I sure got my wish for a demonstration of Rauru's powers, and I was not disappointed.

-I've found a couple of those "Eventide" shrines and yikes are they a pain. Two of them weren't that bad, but the one I found where it was pitch darkness? A very bad time! Took me three tries. I can't wait to see how much worse they get. /s

-I much prefer how they handled the Great Fairies in this game. I didn't get to the 4th fairy in BotW until very, very late, since she was way in the desert and cost 10,000 Rupees. The sidequests were fun and they're easy to do even with minimal health and equipment.

-I want to explore the sky more, but it's too hard to get around between islands. I guess this is my enticement to go into the Depths so I can upgrade my batteries (which is a priority but again....too many distractions!)

-I resent that the game made me hold the idiot ball when "Zelda" was kidnapped, and then the disguised Yiga mocked me for falling for it. [eyeroll] Nintendo does love to troll players that way.

-Ditto for the "Zelda" we see with Yunobo. It's a little insulting how the game is trying to convince me she's turned evil when it's also shown me that she's thousands of years in the past. The present day Zelda is clearly an imposter, either another Yiga or something similar.

-I love how Memory 4 starts, giving us our first look at non-mummified Ganondorf looking menacingly at Hyrule and declaring that he will make it bow before him. His design is awesome, and I especially like how he contrasts with Link. Ganon's just huge, a tall and broad wall of muscle, and Link's a tiny little shortking. Who will soundly kick his ass.

-I also love how the generic soldiers and Zelda are (rightly) freaking out about a swarm of Molduga, and Rauru barely moves faster than a brisk walk as he approaches the ledge. And then he wordlessly fires off his Holy Hand Grenade and obliterates all the Molduga. You can tell even Ganondorf was impressed.

-I guess that scene also definitively answers my question about how Rauru's third eye works.

-Memory 5 was a nice callback to Ocarina of Time and I appreciated the homage. I was also deeply relieved that the writers didn't make Rauru suddenly hold the idiot ball and instead made this more of a "keep my enemies closer" situation. It comes across as mildly arrogant or naive at worst, but it doesn't make Rauru look outright foolish.

-I enjoyed Ganon's passive-aggressive "compliments" and how Rauru gave him an almost bored brush off.

-So the Zonai are already nearly extinct, with just Rauru and Mineru left? What happened to the rest of them? Did they really come from the sky originally? How long had they been living on the surface before Hyrule was founded? (The ruins in the present suggest a long time.) Where do their Secret Stones come from? I want to know all of these things!

-It was completely unsubtle how the camera lingered on the Secret Stones, particularly Sonia's. I'm sure that's not significant.

-Memory 6 was so wholesome. Zelda was so cute with the way she gushed over Link, and Sonia and Rauru both sounded like amused parents teasing her about her very unsubtle crush.

-It's also a nice callback (call forward?) to what Rauru's ghost said to Link at the end of the tutorial.

-Finally got a clear shot of the cool Triforce tattoos on Sonia's wrists too. How does the Triforce fit into this continuity anyway? We know it exists because we saw it when Zelda used her powers in BotW, and there's Sonia's tattoos and the conspicuous triangle pattern on Rauru and Mineru's shawls (and the fringe on nearly everyone's clothes as well). It's so weird how neither of these games have mentioned such an iconic object in the Zelda mythos by name, and have only made vague visual allusions to it.