#i just. i love ganon so much and every game he's watered down to big bad evil man just to focus on hylian culture

[helmarok]

genuinely so angry about this. you gave us a red-maned man with a big ol nose in the botw tapestry only for it to just have been another little white boy? no ganon? no hero ganon? like i was really hoping he'd have been the chosen hero but demise's curse and all of his previous reincarnation history has doomed him into being seen as evil by the kingdom he saved, and his portrayal as a villain in TOTK would have been his rage after what the people he loved did to him. that would have made a very good story about fate and the harm hatred can do but no that isn't what we're getting. did i expect nintendo to go the classic "ganon is evil!" route? yes. am i happy that they did after 30+ years of "ganon is evil!" formula? no of fucking course. i want more insight on him as a person and his culture. i want more lore on how he feels as a gerudo male and how he feels being born into a curse or being born as someone history has always scorned. but we'll never get it and that kills me

[sergeantneko]

Hi there! I'm Neko, and I found your post as a reblog from a friend of mine. I've played all of the 3D zelda games, and I write fanfics for the series. I'll answer these as best I can!

1: I've never really thought about it, but if I were to do so, I would put Skyward Sword in Spring, Breath Of The Wild in Autumn, Ocarina of Time in Summer, and Twilight Princess in winter.

2: Assuming you mean 2D as pixelated. I haven't played any of the 2D retro titles (pretty much any of the pixelated ones), however I have played all of the 3D top-down ones. I'm gonna pick one of those, if that's okay? Defo either Link Between Worlds or Spirit Tracks.

3: Skyward Sword! She's SO FRICKIN' CUTE.

4: That's a really hard one. Of the ones I've played, I'd say Phantom Hourglass.

5: I cannot justify picking just one soundtrack, so I'll pick out a few of my favourites instead. Colgera's battle theme (ToTK), Ganon's battle theme (OoT, That 23/16 time signature is insane and I love it), Yuga Ganon battle theme (ALBW, same reason, song is set to 7/8 time signature and it's just as insane), Tarrey Town theme (BoTW), Tal Tal Heights (Link's Awakening Remake), and so many more that elude me.

6: Nope! Bring it on, I love a challenge!

7: There are too many to list, but there is one that I love that others don't. That being the Water Temple from Ocarina of Time. Most people hate it because it's confusing, but I saw it as an experience. And that experience was fucking good, for me anyway.

8: Spirit Tracks for sure. The music, the story, I love it. The controls are not fun, and using the flute was fun if flawed, but everything else makes that tolerable.

9: Hmmmm... I'm gonna go with Tingle on this one.

10: The hookshot! It can get you to many places, and it has been a staple in traditional zelda games! So fun shooting it out and then zipping to the place it sticks.

11: That ones a toss up. I love all of his incarnations. I think Wind Waker is top due to him actually having some sort of humanity. He just wanted what was best for his people, and I can understand his plight. However, the way he went abouy it was wrong.

12: Ocarina of Time. It was the first Zelda game I ever played. And I was enthralled the entire time. Since then, I have managed to play every 3D Zelda game up to now, and it's my favourite franchise.

13: Breath of The Wild. The character designs and lore is incredible. Not much more to say there, really. Nintendo did an amazing job with this entry, and the one after it too.

14: Master Sword. No question.

15: Gerudo Desert, specifically the one from Breath of The Wild.

16: I don't really have one, they're all great.

17: Twilight Princess. It's my favourite in the series for a reason, and atmosphere is a big factor.

18: Again, Twilight Princess. Quite the dark game, especially in contrast to other entries.

19: Same as above, for the same reasons.

20: Same as above.

21: Skyward Sword! The painterly style is fucking awesome. If you're further away from an object, the shader makes the object look watercolored. They improved that effect in the HD remaster on switch, and it's beautiful.

22: I don't really have a favourite. They're all good!

23: Spiritual Stones please.

24: Either Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess for items.

25: Midna.

26: Spirit Tracks.

27: Breath of The Wild. Mainly cause it pertains to being a breath of fresh air for the series as a whole with it being open world, and the whole place being mostly wilderness at this point.

28: Skyward Sword, up to a point.

29: Hookshot!

30: Ocarina of Time title theme.

31: City In The Sky from Twilight Princess. The entire dungeon is the "I am confusion" gif.

32: Breath of the Wild.

33: Mix of both. It wouldn't be a Zelda game without either.

34: Hmmm... That's a tough one. I think overall I might have had the most trouble with the second Ganon battle that takes place within Hyrule Castle in Echoes of Wisdom.

35: I didn't really have much issue with any of them except for Demise in Skyward Sword. Took me a little while to learn his patterns.

36: that one's between Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword. Both cinematic games, and both incredible in their own way.

37: I have no idea. If I had to give an answer, the Likelike's are weird.

38: The Dead Hand, as well as the ReDeads and Gibdos from Ocarina of Time. Both EXTREMELY creepy.

39: Echoes of Wisdom.

40: Tingle.

41: I have three. Song of Storms, Serenade of Water, and Requiem of Spirit.

42: The Couple's Mask.

43: Goron Mask.

44: The Anju and Kafei quest.

45: Tarrey Town.

46: Skyward Sword HD

47: Each game fulfills something different for me, and so I can't say that any one game is the most fulfilling for me.

48: I love the one incorporated in Breath of The Wild and Tears of The Kingdom. Amazing shading style that blends Cel shading with semi-realistic graphics.

49: Fairy.

50: Modern Hylian Shield, BoTW and ToTK style.

Hope this gives a little bit of insight into my views on the series!

🌟 TLOZ asks 🌟

1. Is there a Zelda game(s) that you associate with each season or time of year?

2. Favourite 2D title?

3. Favourite incarnation of Zelda?

4. Least favourite entry in the series?

5. Favourite LOZ soundtrack?

6. Is there a Zelda game that intimidates you/looks too hard?

7. Favourite dungeons?

8. Most underrated Zelda game?

9. Least favourite character in the series?

10. Favourite item?

11. Favourite Ganon characterization?

12. Which Zelda game has the most sentimental value to you?

13. What Zelda game, in your opinion, has the best character design?

14. Master Sword, the Four Sword, Great Fairy's Sword, the Koholint Sword, or the Biggoron Sword?

15. Favourite location within Hyrule?

16. Favourite location outside of/parallel to Hyrule (Termina, Lorule, Holodrum, Subrosia, the Dark World, Labrynna, the Great Sea, etc)?

17. Most atmospheric game?

18. Which Zelda game feels most mature to you?

19. Which Zelda game has the darkest story to you?

20. Favourite 3D title?

21. Prettiest Zelda game?

22. Favourite incarnation of Link?

23. The Pendants of Virtue, the Spiritual Stones, or the Goddess Pearls?

24. Game with most impressive/useful lineup of items?

25. Favourite companion (Midna, Ezlo, Navi, etc)?

26. Favourite handheld title?

27. Game with the best title (Breath of the Wild, Twilight Princess, Link's Awakening, etc)?

28. Most wholesome Zelda game?

29. Favourite item to use (aside from the sword & shield)?

30. Favourite title theme from a Zelda game?

31. Hardest dungeon played?

32. Game with the best map design?

33. Do you prefer puzzles or combat?

34. Game with the hardest boss?

35. Game with the hardest final boss?

36. Which game had the most engaging story, in your opinion?

37. Least favourite enemy?

38. Creepiest enemy?

39. Which Zelda game, in your opinion, had the most satisfying ending?

40. Most out-of-place thing in the series?

41. Favourite ocarina song?

42. Favourite non-transformation mask from Majora's Mask?

43. Favourite transformation mask from Majora's Mask?

44. Hardest sidequest in the series?

45. Best sidequest in the series?

46. Favourite remake/remaster (Ocarina of Time 3D, The Wind Waker HD, Link's Awakening for the Switch)?

47. Most fulfilling Zelda game?

48. Favourite graphical style within the games (cel-shading, realistic, 16-bit, etc)?

49. Favourite thing to keep in a bottle?

50. Favourite shield?

[lemonlurkrr]

@aureateart​ ok. My favourite parts of twilight princess  (and some other random thoughts about TP sprinkled in there) taken from my monster TP word vomit google doc :

Link lmao

Ok but for real, I like this incarnation of Link :)

I love Ordon (it just seems like such a chill and cozy village)

ALSO love how easy it is to interpret Link as being a sort of older brother figure to the Ordon kiddos. It’s just,, super cute? AND GHHH nice nice good thanks nintendo for giving me characters to care about/characters that I can imagine Link caring about

He didn’t sign up for any of this (tbh, none of the Links really signed up for this jshdjsd). But I mean like, dude was just going to take a trip to castle town, drop a gift off for the royal family, and come back. But haHA oopsies he did get to castle town eventually but definitely not the way he expected hsjdhsd

He’s just a little dude?

AND FUCK. HE REALLY HAD NEVER BEEN OUTSIDE OF ORDON UNTIL ALL OF THAT

everything is new for the player AND Link

Midna

She’s cool :)

she really just

*teleports into your jail cell* hello whore.

I am no master at writing but AYYYY she do got a character arc!!!

She was actually pretty helpful sometimes, I ALWAYS checked in with her before turning to a game guide

Other NPCs

NICE

Love all of the TP character designs (ASHEI’S ARMOUR??? AOWOAOAOOAO)

Saving Zelda and all of Hyrule was important yea but thinking back maybe it was more like, the Ordonians and the kids were what was pushing Link to keep on going

I like the Resistance members :) Very video gamey of them to have one NPC assigned to each dungeon but hey!!! Kinda cool getting to see a little glimpse of each of em

Idk, it’s just fun to imagine Link popping into Telma’s bar after each dungeon and taking a little rest :) (or to celebrate? maybe just chat, idk, give this man some downtime!!)

Honestly it was just kind of nice that Link wasn’t entirely alone. I mean, I know Midna was there the whole time, but I am always for giving Link a big group of friends (see my love for hyrule warriors, age of calamity, and LU LMAO)

Hero’s shade, very very cool, kinda sad he died with regrets but HEY. He got to pass on his knowledge eventually

AND the connection to OoT?? AND assumed to be related by blood too????? GOOD SHIT

Ilia, I REALLY really wanted to like her (er, it’s not like I dislike her, she’s just,,, kinda there for me).

It definitely seems like Nintendo was pushing to make her the romantic interest, but GHHHHH they really threw that out of the window for me by having her lose her memories

I saw a text post a while ago that said it would have been interesting if Ilia was Link’s sister instead and YES!! That would have been cool too :0

Wish we got to know Zelda a little more

I feel like we barely know anything about her

Idk man, like I said earlier, I never really had any sort of drive to save Zelda during my playthroughs

She obviously knows Midna, so maybe if they gave us just a little bit more of that relationship I’d be more interested in her?

TP WORLD BUILDINGGGG

Botw has good world building too, but each race felt kinda,,, isolated? I absolutely love the different architecture and vibe each town has (and all the the weapons too) but ghhh yea everyone felt so separated. As far as I can remember, we don’t see tooo much of the races interacting with each other? Now that I’m typing that out maybe that’s to be expected because of the calamity but KLSJDKJFD ANYWAYS THIS IS ABOUT TP

The world feels nice and alive, love how populated everything is

Castle town I like castle town a lot, it feels dense and busy and I really like how you can’t talk to every NPC you see

Very cool very fun that we got to see the Gorons hanging out in multiple spots

kinda wish we got to see the Zoras a little more (I guess they are a bit limited since they need water but GHHHH the tp zoras are so prebby,,)

BUT HEY, I do remember seeing a zora or two hanging out in the hot springs around death mountain after beating the lakebed temple (I think, might have been a different dungeon) 

but aaaa would have been nice to see them in at least a couple of other places. I think it would have really added to the “congrats Link!! You’re restoring peace to Hyrule” feeling you get from seeing the Gorons hanging out in Kakariko and Castle Town

ORDON

Love how chill it is and how it’s kind of separate from Hyrule proper

They really do seem to be doing their own thing apart from the rest of Hyrule

Just kinda adds onto the “he’s just a regular dude minding his own business” kind of vibes I get from TP Link

Also I like Ordona :)

THE LIGHT SPIRITS,,

Love their design

And love how they’re not exactly like a pure white?

Different spirit representing each aspect of the triforce my beloved

But yes hi I think Ordona is very cool

Who are you, how did you get here, which goddess do you represent? Do you even represent one of the three golden goddesses? Do the Ordonians know about you? Have any of them ever SEEN you??? Do they worship you? Does anybody even know about the existence of the light spirits?? FUCK so many questions but ghhh I like how they broke the status quo a bit by throwing in a fourth spirit :)

I feel like this one is kinda weird but I like that voice sample they used in the light spirit music. It’s spooky and pretty at the same time :)  

cutscenes mmmmm

Ok ok, the spooky lanayru cutscene is very good

BUT THE “Link, Chosen Hero! Lend us the last of your power!” CUTSCENE MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM LOVE IT SO MUCH

IT just

Idk man

It just hit different

I like the music

And seeing the light spirits swimming around in the light juice water whatever it is

Summoning the light arrows?

AND HHHHH “Lend us the last of your power!” THIS IS IT. This is the final battle.

Seeing Zelda bow down, and then Link putting his hand out 👌👌👌

Link: ok bud, let’s do this together :)

Connection to OoT (did I already mention this? Maybe., Whatever)

Very cool nintendo :)

I love seeing connections between all the diff zelda games.

Because like, on one hand, they’re all separate from each other because of yknow, individual hero stuff. BUT ALSO, they’re all connected because of the reincarnation stuff

Grrrr walking through the sacred grove and going “The Hero of Time walked around here a long time ago” FUCK THATS SO COOL

Is the Hero’s Shade watching me? What does he think of me? DIsappointed? Proud? The Hero of Time went through HELL so this timeline didn’t have to deal with any of the shit Ganon was gonna pull with the triforce, better not fuck this UP Link!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Midlink is cute

Kinda hurts that she smashed the mirror but that was probably so Nintendo didn’t have to worry about people going “but what about the twili??????” for any of the other games LMAO

BUT ALSO LIKE SKJDKLJFJ There are some pretty massive plot holes in TP anyway so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ whatever it’s fine we’ll just use this for angst because GOD do y’all like angst

So is Shadlink

Honestly don’t know where this ship came from but it’s cute so whatever

THE MUSIC??

Love Midna’s theme and how they referenced the dark world theme from ALttP (I remember trying to learn the dark world theme on the piano and doing the Leonardo DiCaprio point meme at the little jingle I recognized from Midna’s theme)

Hyrule field theme SLAPS.

Apparently references a couple of the other over-world themes from the previous zelda games (I got this from 8-bit Music theory’s video on the over-world zelda themes, he talks about TP at around 11:40 but def recommend watching the whole video if you’re into music analysis stuff)

So there’s this bit of the Hyrule Field theme, I don’t know the official name for it but I remember seeing somewhere it being called the “at an advantage theme” since yeah, you hear it during the boss music whenever you expose their weak points. FUCKINGGG LOVE THAT. Didn’t notice it during my first playthrough, but hearing it during my second was like a little easter egg for my ears every time :)

Midna’s lament is very pretty (and fun to play on the piano)

COURAGE THEME.

I didn’t care for it too much when I started playing the game but hearing it in ZREO’s arrangement of the Hyrule Field theme literally makes me turn into a puddle of emotions. Also hearing it around and of the Ordon kids (I think it plays after Link saves Colin) AAAAAAAAAAAAA

Orchestra piece #1 and #2 HOLY SHIT???????????????? 

Literally, the first time I listened to those I just,,,, plugged in my headphones, volume 100, layed on the floor/against my desk and silently vibed. I don’t know what the hell it is, but those two just fit so well with TP?? I still avoid listening to them nowadays cause if I DO I definitely will get overwhelmed with the “god I love this game so FUCKING MUCH” kind of feels.

Wolf link sucks at singing

the first time I heard him howling Zelda’s Lullaby I lost my shit because LKSJLDKSGLKJFSKG god that was.,, Bad. Anyways, hearing him howl some of the songs from OoT was cute :)

TP STAFF ROLL??? 

VERY GOOD. IT’s like 10 minutes long and GOD do I love every single second of it. It doesn’t have the same energy as the skyward sword staff roll or the orchestra pieces but GOD does it hit good??

Nice and calm after that big exciting adventure. Maybe it would have been more fun or emotional to have a higher energy piece but it was really nice getting to sit back and watch the camera fly around Hyrule. Seeing like, the Gorons and the Zoras having a good time, the kids returning to Ordon? GOOD SHIT.

and AAAAA that end, when you hear the main Zelda theme and see Link riding off out of Faron woods on Epona… good shit. It gets you thinking, where the hell is he going? What is he doing? Off ot do more adventuring? Going to help out the resistance or something? Going to help Zelda? Or maybe he’s trying to figure out a way to restore the mirror of twilight? Whoooo knows.

hhHHHHhhh it’s just that final reminder that YES!!! YOU JUST PLAYED A ZELDA GAME. JUST ANOTHER STORY APART OF THE WHOLE EPIC OF THE ZELDA SERIES AS A WHOLE

I also want to acknowledge the instrument/samples they used for all the twili stuff.

They’re all just so unique and contrast SO well with the rest of the TP OST. LIKE FUCK!! Anytime I hear the screech from the Twilit Kargarok? Sends a shiver down my spine. I associate those sounds SO strongly with the twili realm. (Like, the same way you associate the BSHEWW VVWWMMM sounds with light sabers)

I love it so god damn much

literally any time there’s a certain sound or motif associated with something I lose my shit

Sacred grove sacred grove sacred gro-

lovely lovely lovely so much fun playing that on the piano. AND again, I did the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme when I heard the theme from the lost woods come in GHHHHHHHH

shoutout to TP Faron Woods for helping me study and get through all of my schoolwork

BLEGUUHHH can you tell that I really love music?

and also yea I guess TP is kinda cool too :\

IF YOU READ ALL OF THAT THANKS I GUESS

[matchamabs]

I know you didn’t ask for it but- BOTW MONSTERS: RANKED BY HOW HOT THEY ARE,,,,

i do fuck all in the days lemme tell ya

ill admit i havent done EVERY enemy but like. i do enjoy making these posts so who knows, i might actually rank everything sooner or later 🤷‍♀️

,,,,, and if u want a specific ranking of botw/aoc stuff lmk 👀

ahh the ol reliable. the classic bokoblin. he is just a little lad! unfortunately they’re genuinely kind of ugly??? and the idk the singular horn in the middle aint a good look. i see cute comics abt these guys being domestic and thats adorable but also giving them so much leeway bc they’re really Not that cute. not sure what the loincloth is hiding and im not sure i wanna know anyway. 3/10 really kind of. not good. 

slightly bigger loincloth only means slightly bigger things to hide :( i rlly hate these guys noses and whatever the fuck toenails they have why do they have toenails?????? s’bad. the thing is tho they have the proportions of a potentially attractive gerudo which is probably what takes the edge off the general vibes of... u know... being an abomination. its also only JUST occured to me as im writing that these guys r just evolved bokoblins so. glow up i guess. 6/10 what that tongue do

ok bypassing whatever the fuck rule 34 has done to these guys, i actually dig them. i find the huge fat ones way cuter than the lil bug eyed ones. in their case theres rlly no, like... hotness about them. its just cute. i think they’re cute. any monster that is cute and also doubles up as a bed gets my vote 7/10 get urself a fella as flexible as these guys 

u know what, im gonna say it, these guys r actually kinda hot. proportions arent super bad, the face aint bad and generally they have good vibes. aside from, u know, when they’re tryna shank u. id say one of the most bearable monsters to have to look at. 8/10 im not a scalie

??????????? idk what to say. u could tie these little shits to like swingball poles and beat them with rackets thatd b good. aside from that these guys have like no redeeming qualities. they’re a pain in the ass and not in a good way. 3/10 cute but like. is it worth it?

i mean,,,,,,,, someones probably into it. i dont like these guys for a lot of reason and surprisingly the thing that gets me is the fucking hair why does it have that hair its like he-man just went straight over the top with an electric razor its not a good look!!! stop trying to make it work! it wont! and again with the loincloth??? im not into it. the only thing i like abt these guys is the lil waistcoats. they have some amount of decency (but the implications it makes are Not Good). uh. 2/10. barely.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

,,,,,9/10. but if you see a lynel up close like that chances are you died about half a minute ago

again. ??? i dont rlly like. i mean. im digging the top heavy proportions? its got the same body type as kass so like. 4/10. bit plain around the features but what can u do. i dont understand how but the igneo taluses are like. sexier 

UGHGHHH I FUCKING HATE THESE THINGS okay okay okay like these motherfuckers lure u in by being quite cute and dancin around and then u get a look at their faces and its like fucking JESUS and its even WORSE when you see under their cloak and they have no necks????? and like????? they do that gay little fucking dance that pisses me off???? they’re wearing hoods that give the ILLUSION that they have necks and im im fumin ok i HATE it i hate it i have been betrayed and i will NEVER FORGET ABOUT IT UGHGHGHG I HATE THESE CUNTS -10000000000000000000000000000000000/10 die

hhhhh i just dont like em. theyre too annoying to be cute now. and whats gonna happen if i squeeze one? is like. water gonna come out? r they just gonna deflate? 4/10 tentacles are not hyrules forte it seems ://

trust kohga to send the twinks out on the front line. seriously. they’re not bad tho? kinda small and underwhelming :((( tho i give extra points for the good crazy laugh we love a good manic cackle 6/10 they dont really count as monsters but ah well where else am i gonna put em

now THATS what im talkin about babeyyyyy we love the muscles,,,,, the posture,,, the stride,,, we love it when u fuck up stealth and a torrential downpour of these motherfuckers come down to beat ur ass,,,,, 9/10 its raining men 😎

u know. u dont rlly like. get a good view of these guys when ur balls deep in a battle with them, but the more i get like closer looks at them the more i go ???? like idk. everything about them looks backwards and wrong. but as far as backwards and wrong goes its not a bad look and the boss theme is a banger so 4/10 maybe dont jump on my ass every time i step one foot onto the desert :/

i just. i dont dig it. idk why. aside from the fact they’re a monumental pain in my ass, and now everytime i hear a beep even slightly resembling a guardian i shit my pants, but. idk??? as far as robots go its not like. terrible. they’re like the milfs of robots. the milves, if u will. a rilf. except i wouldnt. so its more like riwlf. but even that leaves too much up to interpretation so im just gonna call em a cunt and go. 4/10 leg game strong

here we are,,, the big boys,,,, waterblight isnt too bad i will admit, but the spear hand is both annoying and mildly inconvenient. its got a rlly big chest but rlly thin arms?? also not sure how i feel abt the strap on beard but oh well its not like ganons got taste. 5/10 kind of average for a blight i think

a hefty motherfucker. a chunk of a lad. big large. the fact this is like one of the easiest blights makes it more forgiveable to me but like whatever its got going on with the 80s hair needs 2 be sorted out. i like its moves but it doesnt hang upside down like waterblight :((( 5/10 calm down kate bush

ok who doesnt like gun arms. and a gun back. this things like fuckin megatron. the whole face plate thing doesnt look bad either. honestly its kind of a look? but its dickheadery in aoc makes me wanna set shit on fire so :// 6/10 hot but will not leave u alone 😔

ok this one is by FAR the sexiest of all the blights. i just cant explain it. i like guys with bad posture. i had an easy time beating it but apparently its given other people a lot of grief and that makes it 10x more sexy to me lmaooo. also it can clone itself which is like. thats a win. 8/10 ganon spilt all the sexy juice into this one

ok i didnt realise how many arms this motherfucker has and the whole hairline behind the ears thing is not a great look. especially w the beard. in fact the longer i look at it the less sexy it becomes tbh. 3/10 they tried to make arachnophobia sexy and it didnt work

10/10 i will be taking questions in my inbox but i wont be taking constructive criticism and you cant make me 

[paellaplease]

revali x reader 16 (i think?) verklempt please ❤️

16. verklempt - completely and utterly overcome with emotion

19. temerate - to break a bond or promise

pairing: revali x reader summary:  falling in love is difficult when neither of you know the end is near.

   Night had fallen by the time you mustered the courage to walk up to him. He watched the shining caps of your barely worn boots approach the other side of the campfire, sensing your nervousness as you awkwardly stood for a few beats, weaving and unweaving your fingers. 

Either his reputation as the strongest Champion preceded him, or he was completely unapproachable. Throughout the day you would chance a look at him from across the camp, quickly averting your eyes the moment he noticed. You were part of the Princess’ research effort and therefore had some questions— that much he was certain of. Yet you’ve been dancing around him for hours, gathering the will to speak only to have it snuffed out the moment he acknowledged your presence. 

Embers lifted from the flames and flickered into the night sky as you finally faced him. Revali held his tongue and gathered his patience, trying to hide the glitter in his eyes at the chance of ‘wowing’ another admirer (nevermind that you were the first). 

“Champion, uh sir,” you fumbled with the titles. The question fell from your lips so quickly that his disappointment didn’t register until a second later. “What kind of flower do you favour the most?” 

“...”

If the following silence wasn’t damning enough, the Rito was honestly at a loss for how to respond to such an inane question. Seriously? He was better than this. Others have made more important inquiries and had to wait weeks, if not months, for him to clear time in his busy schedule and reply. 

Something like this didn’t deserve attention, let alone an answer. 

“Swift violets.” He said, before rising from his seat by the fire, dead leaves crunching under the weight of him as he made a beeline straight for his tent. 

Parting the canvas, he pretends to miss the earnest wave of goodbye you send his way, ignoring the static in his chest the moment his head hits the pillow. Sleep comes quickly. 

*

A month later you meet again. 

The universe seemed to adore playing tricks on him. Crossing the threshold of his home, he catches you investigating the decorative shells hanging by his kitchen window. Amusingly, you were balancing on the tips of your toes, its placement just a tad too high.  

There’s something different this time around. You seemed more at ease with your surroundings, no longer jumping at every sound like a stranger in their own skin. The tips of your boots were scuffed with use, and the minute cuts and imperfections in your clothes spoke of days spent in hard work and travel. 

Though some things still remain the same. He holds back his smirk when you stumble forward in surprise at the sound of your name, getting straight to business once you were safe from the risk of falling over. “I believe you’re the researcher sent to assess my progress with Vah Medoh?” 

“Yes, I am.” You’re quick to snap back into stiff professionalism, he’ll give you that. The bow is low and formal, your back so still that someone could confidently rest a cup and saucer on it. An introduction spills out, followed by an apology when you realise he already knows who you are from the briefing he was given days earlier in Hyrule Castle. 

The task was simple really. King Rhoam Bosphoramus wanted a full report on the breadth of Hyrule’s offensive capabilities against Calamity Ganon. From Guardians to Divine Beasts, much had been done in the past year in preparation for their greatest adversary. Now as the whirlwind began to settle, all must be accounted for, down to the last soldier. 

Your report was just a drop in what will be an immense ocean of information currently being collated. But it was nevertheless quite vital. He wonders how someone like you was selected for such a task. 

“Let’s do our best.” You blurt. Revali could see the millions of thoughts racing behind your eyes when you decide to break away from your military-stiff posture, raising a hand in the traditional Hyrulean greeting between strangers.

The lines of your palm stretch before him like deeply-woven thread. He glances at the wrinkles and grooves in your flesh, remembering that some mystics believe such lines could predict something as unknown as the future. He can’t help but wonder what yours might foretell. 

Pressing his wing to your outstretched hand, he declared his agreement. “Of course. You’ll soon see that my ability to pilot Medoh is nothing short of perfect.” 

He can’t help it. “And no questions of the botanical sort, understood?”

The sudden playful grin you give him makes all his witty quips screech to a halt, his focus trained solely on the way your face instantly lights up when it isn't held down by strict politeness or pure nervous energy. “I’ll be sure to steer clear from them this time, Champion. You have my word.” 

*

Both of you eventually fall into a comfortable routine. Meals are made together and the chores are done quickly through combined effort. You catch on well, cottoning on to the needs of the day based on the tasks you both decide on the night before. 

After breakfast he finds his gear and yours already neatly arranged by the doorway, allowing him additional time with Vah Medoh and you the chance to closely observe. The idea of training with an audience never bothered him, but knowing you followed close behind, notebook at the ready, gave him the extra push to perform just a level better than his previous.

One more arrow, one more extravagant somersault in the air. He even maneuvers Medoh to do a complete 180, reveling in the way your mouth pops open in awe as you walk across what was once the ceiling. 

“... .... --- .-- / --- ..-. ..-.” The ancient machine complains, unhappy to be on their back. The Rito pilot pats the metal wall apologetically, watching as you excitedly flit from one end to the other, feeling quite pleased with himself. 

*

Revali dreams of a cliff’s edge.

The precipice looms before him, nothing but fog and the unknown past the point where the ground stops and plummets. Revali looks at you and feels the smooth rock of the sea stone underneath his talons; hears the sound of crashing waves in the distance. Tantalising was the mystery of the void beyond. 

The meaning escapes him the moment he wakes up. His pillow was warmed by the glow of the sun, making him realise that he had slept in. Morning was just beginning, and both of you had a full schedule of tasks to get through. 

Diverting all his mental energy to the work ahead, he scrubs the sleep from his eyes and shakes away the odd thrill in his feathers. I’m better than this, he thinks. 

His tea is still warm when he arrives at the table. 

*

Word of the researcher shadowing him gets around quickly, it’s a small village after all. Some of the Elders glance at you in suspicion, old wounds from disagreements fought with the capital in the past lingering like dye in the water. You don’t seem to mind it, too caught up in the new sights and smells of this vibrant community built in the clouds. 

The Rito children are much more enthusiastic about your presence, sharing in your curiosity by matching your questions with their own. Getting comfortable on the wooden slats of the departure deck, you happily play encyclopedia for them. 

“Were you this cute back then?” You ask, watching a fledgling hop from one talon to another in imitation of a lizalfos, chasing after their friends who were the heroes in the story, at least for this round of the game.

“I was a model citizen.”

“Not true!” One of them pipes, poking him in the side with the tiniest of wings. “Mama said you were a hennish scallion.”

“You mean a hellish rapscallion,” the eldest of the bunch laughs, screaming when the ‘lizalfos’ tackles them into the ground. 

Crossing your arms, you fix him with your best look of authority, shaking your head in mock disappointment. “I apologise but the council has spoken.” He raises a brow at your antics, feeling a little light headed at the adorable way your eyes water whenever you hold back your laughter. “Do you plead guilty for perjury, Mr Champion?”

Champion. The word echoes and reverberates, wrapping tightly around his brain like the blue scarf fitted snugly on his neck. He likes the way you say it, making him wonder about something else. 

The words leave his mouth before he can think it through. “Revali will do just fine.”

Mirth drains from your face, replaced instead by surprise. “W-what?”

“I have a name.” He ignores the feeling of his feathers standing at the back of his neck, unclenching his jaw. Relax, he tells himself. “Better for you to call me that than to continuously mess up the titles.” 

“Still working on it,” you shrug. Then, you’re gesturing for him to step into your space, leaning forward just the same like you’re about to tell him a secret. You’re close enough for him to feel the warmth of your breath against his beak. He freezes, becoming hyper aware of his heart thundering against his ribcage, not daring to move even a muscle in fear of giving his thoughts away. 

“Revali then,” you murmur, almost too soft for him to hear. 

It was only when one of the children tugged at your sleeve, dragging you away to explain the appearance of another monster you’ve encountered in your travels, that he allows himself to breathe.

*

His presence had been requested at the Chief’s office, the old, war-weary Rito regretfully informing him that an urgent message had arrived. Multiple reports had noted an increase in the signs of Calamity Ganon’s resurgence. It came as no surprise, with every Blood Moon summoning more monsters from the void, an omen that something big was coming. 

Letters from the Princess implied the worst: that she had exhausted nearly all avenues in awakening her sealing power. The Spring of Wisdom would be her last chance, and after that, who knows? The Champions were to meet again in three weeks at the foot of the mountain, to celebrate or to re-strategise depending on the outcome. 

He was never the religious sort but by the Grace of Hylia, please let it be the former. 

A headache was beginning to form as he made his way home, the idea of knocking out on his hammock for an hour or so sounding extremely appealing. The day was coming to a close, a cold breeze chilling his back as the orange heat of the evening crept its way to night. 

You’re the first one to the hut this time, brown scuffed boots positioned neatly at the doorway. Revali stares at them for a second too long, wondering if you knew your time in the village was coming to an end earlier than expected. The information you had diligently collected was finally required, a little last minute if he had to comment but such were the nature of these things. 

The mental image of you puffing out your cheeks in frustration, complaining that you would have to organise the data on the way back, was enough to make his mood perk up— just a tiny bit. Picturing you disgruntled and annoyed, just like when the markets ran out of your favourite produce, was easier to stomach than the thought of saying goodbye. 

Leaning against the hardwood of the kitchen counter, you don’t notice him enter the room, too engrossed in the list you’re making.

It's a sight he'd seen before. If he forgot about the sobering news he'd just received, then the day would feel like any other. 

The open window frames your form, making you appear like a painting come to life. Rays of light streamed from the cracks in the blinds, illuminating the slope of your nose and curve of your mouth. 

Instinctively, you tilted your head to the source of warmth, instantly reminding him of the swift violets that would bloom by the Hebra cliffsides, forever seeking the sun. 

Oh. 

The ground had finally run out, earth and sky crashing together. There was no denying it now. Inwardly, he cursed himself, following the thought past the precipice, plunging himself deeper into the truth he'd avoided acknowledging for months. The universe truly was cruel. 

It wasn’t like he didn’t see it coming. The answer was clear as day, right from the beginning of its inception. 

It's the golden hour before sunset when Revali realises he’s in love with you. 

*

Wind plays with the jade clasps of his braids as he appraises Medoh’s central control unit. He’d done this maneuver many times before, enough that he could perform it with his eyes closed. 

It was your final day on assignment so shouldn’t he attempt an action that was more daring? He tried to ask. But you had rejected the proposal outright, reasoning that it suggested this would be the last time you both would meet at the top of the Divine Beast. “You can’t get rid of me that easily,” you smile. “I’ll visit once the fight is over.”

“Guess there’s no harm in going back to the basics,” he mused, inputting the commands before taking a step back.

Leaning against one of the columns, you watch with rapt attention as he points the Divine Beast south. The view abruptly shifts from the towering mountains of Hebra, to the grassy Tabantha Frontier, greenery spanning for miles and disappearing into the white, snowy wall of Mystathi’s Shelf. 

You tilt your head up, eyes trained on the heavens. There’s a solemn intensity in the way you look at the sky, as if trying to ascertain a greater meaning to your existence in this world between the cover of clouds and the endless sea of blue. It never gives you the acknowledgement that you desperately want, no matter how long you spend asking it, but that doesn’t stop you from searching anyway. 

He understands because he’s tried asking well, too many times to count. Eventually the young Rito stopped looking, opting to make an answer for himself instead. 

“Do you ever get tired of it?”

Revali’s silent for a moment, mulling over his answer, before he pushes away from the control unit and starts walking towards you. “There’s no spectacle grander, and I can’t recall a time I’ve been without it. As a Rito, it was your first companion, and so long as you looked above, you were never alone.” He shook his head. “Though I guess to love something so vast and beyond our comprehension would be rather imbecilic.” 

He’s running his mouth at this point, the hum of Vah Medoh loud in his ears. “... .. .-.. .-.. -.-- / -.-. .... .. .-.. -..” the beast warns, but he continues anyway. 

“It’s far too foolish to pine for something that will never be in your grasp. So it would be best for me to realise that there’s no point in fighting it anymore. I mean, I should feel relieved by the concession that at least I’ll be remembered by someone other than myself.”

Your attentions were no longer directed at the sky, the intensity of your eyes piercing into him, seeing right through his poorly hidden deflections. “Are we still talking about the same thing?”

The urge to plunge himself over the edge and fly away by the sheer fuel of his embarrassment was beginning to feel very enticing. Trust his description of the sky to sound like a confession. “No,” he admits. 

“Then…”

Revali thinks about telling you— considers allowing himself to become vulnerable just this once.

You’re still here, feet planted firmly on the ground, within his reach at this very moment. There was nothing he wanted more than to take that last step forward, to close the gap that perpetually rests in between you both. He imagines what it would feel like to wrap his wings around you, and believes that it would be nothing less than holding infinity. 

Yet, despite this— despite everything, he sighs. “Another time.”

Almost like reading his mind, you simply nod in response, smiling as you reach out to him. He lets you take one of his wings in both your hands, the firm surety of your touch grounding him into the present. There’s no hesitation in your next words, only a promise of a thousand tomorrows lingering on the corner of your lips.

“Tell me when we meet again?”

“I swear it on my life.”

.

.

.

-

As usual, what was supposed to be a short and sweet answer became a creature of its own, demanding my full attention until it was finished. Writing in Revali’s POV is so fun, but there’s always that small bit of doubt that I can never do his character justice. Regardless, I hope you all enjoy this one.

By the way! Hello to all the new visitors to my blog. Welcome yall. This is the prompt list. I may not answer straight away, but I shall do my best :) 

[botwstoriesandsuch]

Just me rambling about Breath of the Wild’s opening cut scene because it is masterfully crafted and just a really good display of fantastic game design and story telling...Welcome to my TED Talk. 

[And spoilers for the end game, of course]

The first five minutes of game is a master class in foreshadowing and developing the tone that is set for the rest of the game. 

The very fist screen that you see, besides the simplistic title screen, which is genius by the way. Having a super unassuming and small logo really puts into perspective how Nintendo doesn’t need to amazing with it’s title right away, the gameplay speaks for itself. Anyhow, the first screen is that of light and darkness. Obviously, it can be interpreted as Zelda’s awakening power, and in a broader sense, the small silver of hope everyone has that the Calamity could be defeated. Most of all, it’s framed in a way similar to how one would open their eyes for the first time, squinting in the light. (Yeah I know all that is kinda obvious...but still, I just think it’s neat) 

[more below the cut]

It also perfectly parallels the end of the game in its framing and lighting. Even the opening hum, is the same sound as the Bow of Light being drawn and Zelda appearing out of Dark Beast Ganon.

Ok back to the opening scene. Now the act of Link actively opening his eyes, we’re greeted with this frame, Zelda now clearly telling Link to open his eyes, and we get this blue shape (which is the glow of the shrine) but it’s in the shape of an eye, mimicking Link’s own blue eyes.

Now I get that most of us are used to it by now, but just imagine, or remember the feeling of waking up in here. Most loz games start you off in a cozy home, a forest, or at the very least somewhere medieval. But waking up in this futuristic bath tub immediately places you completely out of your comfort zone. Whether you played every Zelda game, or this was your first, this setting is completely foreign and you have no idea what’s going on. And that feeling of not understanding or grasping where or when you are, immediately puts you in the same shoes as your playable protagonist, Link. Nintendo has already made you sympathize or at the very least find comfort or familiarity in Link.

Now does this look familiar?

It will...

(Also the parallel with the Great Plateau,overrun with the beauty of nature, vs the complexity of a man made castle. Plus the Calamity being portrayed more as a disease that festers upon Hyrule rather than just some tyrannical guy? *chefs kiss* I love my narrative parallels.)

Anyhow, next we have the Sheikah technology. There are a lot of references to blue in the game. From Link’s blue eyes to the Sheikah slates blue eyes, to the Champions tunics and the royal blue shared by the royal family. Blue is the least common color in nature (other than the sky/water. You don’t see a lot of blue trees, grass, animals, or rocks, do you?) so the rarity of it in the vast natural land of Hyrule, emphasizes it’s importance right away. Blue = power/importance. Through out the game, you’re drawn to the blue glow of shrines and towers (although initially orange, but after they are blue, more explanation later...), along with the blue of the water, in which Nintendo intentionally places civilization/treasure across. Plus, the opposite of blue, is the purplish/red glow of ganon. Mmmmm color coordination. 

The layout of the Shrine of Reserrction is a straight line, leaving no room for player error/distraction. It’s forcing you to go down it’s desired path. (At least initially...*cough cough* speed running and wall clipping *cough cough*) So the straight forwardness emphasizes the artificial nature of the place. 

Now, when exiting the Shrine, the artificial glow of the Sheikah lamps is now replaced with the warm orange sunlight. (See what I did there? Get it? It’s another parallel with the Sheikah technology colors, with the unused technology glowing orange, but when actively used by Link is glows blue? Therefore kinda giving blue an association with technology and power again, and orange with nature and exploration?)

Also more parallels with light/hope

Exiting the Shrine smoothly teaches you how to interact with objects, walk, and climb very naturally. It also teaches you the importance of the Shrine pedestals, an attraction towards chests, and ingraining you with the desire to explore, as the setting give you no information whatsoever. Even Zelda’s dialogue is vague, just saying “long slumber” and not how long, or “that [Sheikah Slate] will show you the way” giving no specifics. And that’s why its all the more satisfying when the vastness and detail of the outside world hits you. You are starved of information, making you more susceptible to the game’s theme of exploration.

The cold, artificial, dark enclosed space of the Shrine, gives way to this shot.

Do I even have to say anything? The way the music swells as Link runs out into the field, and the camera pulls out to really show the vast scope of things. The center piece of a dark castle in the distance, the symmetrical framing of Death Mountain and the Hebra peaks? The lush green shade in the foreground shifting into darker shadows and silhouettes when nearing the horizon hear the Calamity? The way the ridge to the side obstructs the view of Medoh and Naboris, with the natural angles of the mountain ranges hiding Rudania and Ruta? The fact that the sun is just rising, symbolizing a new morning. AND the stark contrast with the artificial, straight line Shrine you just went through, now your new path is more open. Even the path you take to the Old Man is curved, and at a much steeper decline. Also, notice how you’re declining, moving down and out of the Shrine, might not be a stretch to say it’s like you were descending from heaven as the savior of Hyrule. You’ve come back down to the ruins of a fallen kingdom. Although you don’t know that yet. 

The opening shot gives no big signs of civilization, the castle being too far out into the distance, and the trees obstructing any destroyed ruins. So when panning to the much closer and reachable Temple of Time, it really grabs the player’s attention. The framing of the Temple of Time is in such a way where it still looks intact. The gaping hole in it’s side faces in the other direction. All it seems to imply is that it’s old. No ruined guardians, or clear, distinct destruction can be seen yet. Also, the point of the Temple’s tower is in line with the Duel Peaks, almost perfectly. Both have stood the test of time, but it was the construction of man that did not last, where as nature has stood strong. 

Then, pan into the Old Man, a mysterious figure, you don’t know if they are friend or foe. But given your circumstance your eager to explore and investigate. Especially with how he is placed in front of an warm orange fire, because yeah more color coordination. Orange, serves a similar purpose as the color blue for attracting the players attention, but it’s symbolism is different. One, for it’s association with nature as previously state, but now here in the context of familiarity. Throughout the game, when you see a campfire, that either means enemies or people. All the same, it means company and you’re drawn to it. 

The camera zoom and focus of the scene barely shifts at all. When you first exit, Link is at the low center of the screen, even with the pan to the Temple of Time, and the Old Man is also in the low center of the screen. This anchor point allows for a smooth transition with the players attention, and adds to the natural environment and tone of the scene. 

So here you are, heading east, towards the sun, an old man, a camp fire, and the Temple of Time. No coincidence they are all in the same direction. 

Just look how much story and tone you are able to grasp in the first five minutes????? It embeds the feeling of curiosity and the desire to explore by starving you of information and freedom, before punching you in the face with the openness of Hyrule. It foreshadows a conflict with Ganon, a disease that ravage the world of man, and will next take on nature. The themes of technology and civilization, of time moving on. COLOR COORDINATION. And just the overall wonder of opening your eyes to an beautiful world waiting to be discovered. All this is conveyed to you whether subconsciously or unconsciously. 

That’s five or less minutes in to a game you can very well pack hundred of hours into.

Ugh, I love this game.

[ohayohimawari]

Kakashi Asks-Answer

Q: (From @nyxako-writing) “So this is more of a silly question, but since the Narutoverse has everything we have (except for guns) do you think Kakashi would ever be a gamer? And if he played any of the Legend of Zelda games, which would be his favorite? XD”

A: Okay so, here’s the thing.

Nyx has the pleasure (?) of knowing me through Discord, and when I’m not geeking over Kakashi, I’m geeking over the Legend of Zelda games. I owe you a life debt for presenting me with this scenario, Nyx! I’m sitting here happy as a clam with my Beta, my Naruto Official Character Data Book and my LoZ encyclopedias.

While I was taking my own sweet time drafting this answer, the incredibly talented @roonie-doodle made my dreams come true by creating this piece of fanart featuring BOTW Sheikah!Kakashi:

Grab a snack and a tasty beverage and buckle up for ALL the geeking Hima below the cut.

In Boruto, we see the next gen ninjas behaving rather UNninjalike with their handheld gaming devices. Whether that’s allowed under the Shinobi Rules or not, it proves that video games exist in Narutoverse.

As a single dad, Sakumo would totally employ screens to occupy Kakashi so he can catch a nap between missions. It’s my opinion that the members of the Hatake household would not like combat games. Think about it: after a day of working in customer service, would you want to unwind with a game that requires your character to level up at a call center? Coupled with their predisposition to PTSD and I think that’s a great big nope. However, father and son could only play Pong, Asteroids, and Pitfall so many times before Sakumo would see the benefit of spending his ryo on the more sophisticated NES, when it becomes available.

According to me, everyone should love the LoZ series and that includes the knuckleheads of Konoha. Even without my totally biased viewpoint, I think Kakashi would enjoy some, but not all of these fantasy adventure games. After he inserts that first Zelda cartridge into the console, he’d be astonished by the colors and the music. His little masked mouth would water at the ability to go up and down, left and right.

And when he enters that fantastic cave where the wisest npc is waiting with a sword and the warning, “It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this,” Kid!Kakashi would be hooked.

It’s not just the gameplay that has him running back to Zelda after killer kindergarten lets out for the day, though. I think that the first time Kakashi realizes he could’ve taken the shorter route of up, right, up, right, right, right, right, right, up, left, up, to the second dungeon (instead of his initial path of up, right, up, up, up, up, right, right, right, right, right, down, down, left, up), he’d grab his ninja crayons and draw a map of the whole darn overworld. Sakumo would totally put that shit up on the fridge too.

Then, then, after Kakashi has smashed through every breakable wall, moved every block, and beaten the OG Ganon, there’s a second effing quest waiting for him (and what a beast it is). Sakumo would be able to put the first map in his son’s baby book then because it’s basically useless for the second playthrough, and Kakashi’s meticulous approach to beating the game would begin anew.

Time to grab a tissue because this is where things get angsty. As we all know, my poor octorok-squishing bean has a very short childhood. While I’m sure that he would’ve loved the hell out of the first Zelda game, he is much too busy being a child soldier in the Third Shinobi War to play The Adventure of Link. While Nintendo offers new consoles and LoZ games to go with them, Dungeon Boss-Kishi plunges Kakashi into darkness with neither a red candle nor a blue one to help him find his way out. Between dodging Danzo and loathing himself, I can’t help but think that it’s impossible for this ANBU assassin to find time to play A Link to the Past or Link’s Awakening. Sob.

However, the Sun’s Song is unlocked and the clouds part for the early days of Team Seven. I can totally imagine Kakashi spying on his cute little genin (while he makes them wait for him) and overhears them discussing one of the best games in the LoZ series, Ocarina of Time. After all the lunches Yams has bought for him, Kakashi decides he can afford to splurge on an N64, and he attempts to recapture some of that Zelda magic from his youth.

This game does not disappoint Kakashi, either.

Like everyone, he’d consider muting the TV way before Link had a chance to verily demonstrate his courage because of Navi’s constant interruptions. However, I think after dealing with another talkative bright ball of a boy as his student, Kakashi is willing to put up with Navi out of respect for the late Great Deku Tree’s wishes.

Honestly, I think Kakashi could relate to this version of the Hero of Time. The poor kid doesn’t quite fit in with the others around him, he’s orphaned, has the expectation of saving the world thrust upon his little kid shoulders, then before he knows it, he’s all grown up and the world around him is even more dangerous than it was when he started.

Even though a map is provided in this game, I think Kakashi might still keep notes of every odd thing he encounters as he thoroughly explores 3D Hyrule (boulders, different colored trees and wide spaces that LoZ geeks know are suspicious). He’d be the kind of gamer that focuses on completing the game-not just beating it-making OoT the right game at the right time for him. He’d plant every bean (and drop bugs on the sprouts), get every weapon upgrade, collect every piece of heart and every gold skulltula. He’d be intrigued by the owner of the Happy Mask Shop (as well as Impa, the Skull Kid, that shady Poe Collector fellow, and Kaepora Gaebora), and he’d make sure that Link models each mask for the Deku Scrubs in their hidden grotto. The Water Temple would’ve driven him just as crazy as it drove the rest of us LoZ freaks when he finds that he’s one key short or didn’t move that one block before adjusting the water levels, but it’s all forgiven when he fights Dark Link.

Kakashi would use fishing as an excuse for being late to meet with Team Seven and it wouldn’t be a lie. Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura would catch on to the truth when their sensei starts absentmindedly humming the OoT soundtrack (the Gerudo Valley theme is his favorite) because everyone that’s played the game is guilty of it.

By the time Kakashi realizes that it’s impossible to beat the Running Man (even with the Pegasus Boots) in that damn race to Kokiri Forest no matter how many times and how many different ways he plays OoT, Majora’s Mask has dropped.

The alternate world of Termina serves as the perfect distraction from Sasuke’s obsession with revenge, and the beginning of the end of Team Seven. Kakashi would be quick to appreciate this game from the beginning; chasing after that weird Skull Kid from OoT, which leads Link to encounter the Happy Mask Shop owner who, right off the bat, starts to prove what a creepy creep he really is.

It should be obvious without my listing all of the reasons as to why Kakashi would love this game. The world is gorgeous, the story is mysterious, the dungeons and bosses are challenging, the Garos, the MASKS fer chrissakes, and the side quests (OMG, the side quests) are an LoZ completionist player’s dream.

If you still need proof that Majora’s Mask is among his favorite games, I offer Kakashi’s boldest move as the Roku-blow-up-the-moon-daime. Fight me.

I’ve kept to the LoZ games that have been released for home consoles because I think Kakashi would avoid the handheld devices. He doesn’t need to have his gaming habit blow his cover while out on missions. He has his trusty, tattered copies of Icha-Icha books and those are plenty to keep him occupied and entertained during downtime around the campfire.

At any rate, at this stage in the Naruto series, the main hero is off training with Jiraiya and the Leaf is short on shinobi to run missions, so Kakashi wouldn’t have much time to indulge his love of LoZ games anyway. He’s definitely invested in the series by now and curious about new installments to it. He would be aware of the release of The Wind Waker, but I think his initial impression of that game would be that it appears cartoonish, and may not be enough to spark his interest in the game at the time.

However, I’m certain that the next LoZ home console release would have those tantalizing fingers of his twitching to play again. I think there’s a lot about Twilight Princess that would catch his attention. The overall dark tone of the game would remind him of Majora’s Mask, new characters and enemies… The familiar LoZ story branches off into new territory and I bet that would have him keen to explore it.

But then he starts to play it.

Twilight Princess starts off so damn slow and Kakashi is so damn busy at this point in the series that I think he saves and quits and isn’t in a rush to return to the game. He’s got a Kazekage to rescue and a Kyūbi to protect; he doesn’t have time to herd oxen and chase cradle-stealing monkeys.

After the power of friendship saves the day and Gai carries Kakashi home, the copy-nin is bedridden and picks up the game again out of boredom. His interest in it is rekindled when he meets with the Twilight Emissaries and is turned into a wolf. Midna entertains him, definitely.

Honestly, I think Kakashi would have a love/hate relationship with Twilight Princess. My headcanon is that he would enjoy another opportunity to explore the world of LoZ, but this game doesn’t present the kind of satisfying overworld journey as other games did. He would be impressed by a few of the characters, but scratch his head at most of the others. He’d have a greater appreciation of the enemies, dungeons, the Ancient Hero, the Cave of Ordeals and especially, the overall story. However, I’m convinced that Kakashi is a completionist and anyone that challenges themselves to complete Twilight Princess knows the unbearable pain of Rollgoal. Ugh.

After Kakashi finishes this game he doesn’t sell it, but he doesn’t replay it often and never through to completion again. He’s satisfied that the Kingdom of Hyrule is safe as long as Malo exists within it.

At this point in Naruto’s flawed timeline, things are coming to a boil. Kakashi faces off in his own boss fight against Pain and Konoha suffers the same fate as Kakariko. My favorite ninja dork falls in battle (and I rage-quit the series for a while), but Kishi releases a bottled fairy and Kakashi is revived to fight in another shinobi war, become the Rokudaime, and play more LoZ games.

Or so he hoped.

Being Hokage comes with more paperwork than any elite shinobi could complete in a lifetime. The position also comes with a pay raise (as I imagine), so I see Kakashi parting with some of his savings to give the gift of a Wii and Skyward Sword to his best buddy, Gai.

I think that this is an LoZ game that Kakashi would be content to occasionally watch his eternal rival play, rather than play himself. Lord Sixth would love the story, would love the presentation that this game is the beginning of LoZ lore. He would also love that he is watching rather than playing when Gai deals with the frustration of syncing and re-syncing the controllers when he flies his loftwing, or swings the Master Sword. The only time I think Kakashi would grab the controllers for this game would be to take a crack at Koloktos. I also think that would be the only break he’d get to sneak in some LoZ fun while he’s Hokage.

Of course, this means Maito would become a fan of the LoZ games and he would approach them with the same gusto he applies to everything in his life. Gai would play through the back catalog, training for when Kakashi retires and becomes available to speed-run playthrough challenges.

Gai would be the friend that convinces Kakashi that he must play The Wind Waker and distracts his rival from the eternal sailing by explaining why A Link to the Past might be the most important game of the LoZ series. Now that Kakashi has reached a point in his life that offers him time for leisure, he plays through it as well as other games in the series that he had missed out on. Besides adding A Link to the Past to his list of favorites, it would otherwise remain unaltered at this point: Zelda, OoT, and Majora’s Mask.

By the time Kakashi knows the significance of the yellow band in the various caps worn by the Hero of Time, Breath of the Wild is released and his list of favorite LoZ games grows again.

There is just so much about this game that would appeal to Kakashi. The sheer size of the overworld (I’ve read it’s 360 square kilometers) and the fact that he can explore the whole thing would be this ninja dork’s dream come true. He can progress through the game however he wants to. He’d buy that Sheikah set right away, and find Majora’s Mask as soon as that DLC dropped and roam the world to his heart’s content.

Kakashi wouldn’t be bothered by the odd trophies this game offers for completing it, because as a completionist player, he understands that completing it is its own reward. His alter-ego Sukea would love taking photos both for the compendium and for the sake of fun. Kakashi loves to infiltrate, gather information, solve puzzles, and form plans and BOTW offers all of that in spades.

He’d restart the game so many times just to try out different strategies. The first time Kakashi leaps off of Mount Lanayru, sputters out of stamina and lands on a buck that charges straight for the blue lynel in Naydra’s Snowfield (this totally happened to me btw), he’d realize he should’ve been trading those spirit orbs for stamina vessels instead of only heart containers; resulting in his first restart. The second restart would come after Gai shows off his spiffy expand-a-band-banded inventory and this time, Kakashi would plow through the Great Plateau so he could recover that pair of priceless maracas. Countless other restarts occur as Kakashi experiments with which and how many towers he should attempt to overtake before he finally makes his way to Impa.

With every restart, he learns something new about BOTW and enjoys it more. He commits locations to memory (at least 148 for the towers, shrines and captured memories). He rushes to gather the essential 441 Korok seeds in each new playthrough (he might shed a tear when he finally becomes a member of the 900 club-I know I did). He figures out how to cheat on Eventide Island. He learns that even though he could launch Link across Hyrule with Magnesis and Stasis doesn’t mean he should. He looks forward to every Blood Moon, if only to cook as many hearty durians, mighty bananas, and endura carrots as he can between 11:30 and midnight in-game time. He realizes that his greatest enemy in all of Hyrule is the weather. When the Champion’s Ballad is available for download, his excitement for playing the game begins all over again.

I’ve stated several times that I’m convinced that Kakashi would be a completionist player and out of all the games, the latest LoZ is a pleasure to complete (despite what some YouTube gamers may say). In addition, BOTW came out during a period in Kakashi’s life when he could afford to spend significant time playing it.

And this finally brings me to the answer to your question. Breath of the Wild would be Kakashi’s favorite LoZ game, hands down. He would love this game so much and would enjoy playing it so often, that I think he had a Nintendo Switch stashed in the fanny pack he rocked during the Steam Ninja Scrolls arc.

XOXO

[angelic-guardienne]

Playing Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Wow, hey guys, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’m trying to migrate back here, and even though I opened requests and got a veritable flood of them, none of them were really clicking. Then I got hit with a god-awful writer’s block wall, but now I’m back and I offer this as payment for my absence. It’s not the longest, but it’s more than I thought I’d be able to do, so. I hope you guys enjoy it!!

Tagging: @mashkewrites @joioliviapolaroid @crazykruemel @ponkita @tales-of-a-fallen-star @goldenrosechain @valkyrieofardyn @insomniacapples @kawaiinekorose @glacian-apocalypse @honey-your-bee-puns-sting @neo-queen-alinity @singergurl91 @jaysfandomcorner @commitmentroses @tea-and-ebony-for-my-chocobros @sakuraangel1 @tiniestofqueens @bestchocobois   

These are gonna be all over the place so bear with me for a little bit

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. A classic, or so they’ve heard. Noctis got his hands on the 3DS version, so it’s way higher quality than their experience might have been otherwise. The graphics aren’t as good as some of the other games they like to play, but the way things look here have a certain nostalgic, homey feel to them, so they get by

Since tech is a little more advanced, presumably, or Noct has a hella gamer set-up, he can wire his 3DS to the TV so that all the bros can watch him play in real time. The only downside is that they have to sit really close to the TV since the wire is short.

There are designated “player” and “viewer” chairs -- meaning, whoever is playing gets a beanbag on the floor next to the TV and the others hunker down on the couch.

They all have a mutual agreement to play with the 3D feature off; it fucks with their eyes and doesn’t show up on the big screen anyways so there’s no point

Ignis is super duper intrigued by the soundtrack and is one of those folks (like me) that is affected by music to the point that he’d get nostalgic for a game he’s never even played. He really loves the OoT soundtrack (an understatement)

Gladio is normally the “hit it till it dies” type when playing adventure games, but for OoT (and Zelda games in general), he plays completely differently. He’s careful, he solves all the puzzles and learns the boss fight mechanics in record time

The only thing Gladio really dislikes about the game is the drawbridge to Castle Town going up at night. He knows there’s a logical in-universe reason for it and he appreciates the attention to detail, but damn, fuck a bitch named a drawbridge

Prompto is in LOVE with the graphics. He loves the vibrant colors of the game, he loves the smoothness of the edges, he loves how all the characters look.

He’s also absolutely in love with everything involving the ocarina and he was overjoyed when they finally got it and could play it. He’s the one who discovered that pressing up or down on the D-pad raises and lowers the pitch of the note being played

Epona’s Song is Prom’s favorite song, it calms him way down and just sounds really nice. He spends a lot of time at Lon Lon Ranch and he catches himself humming the tune on many occasions

Noctis just loves the game all around. It definitely lives up to his expectations. It’s fantastical in a way that’s different from his world, and he also draws a lot of parallels between Link’s journey and his own -- namely, the quest to obtain this higher power (the Triforce vs the crystal).

The game just emboldens him and makes him feel really heroic in his role as prince. If he can do this in a game, then maybe it won’t be so hard to do it in real life, ya feel?

Noct also loves the soundtrack, just not as much as Ignis does

Prompto, because he’s so invested in the visuals, is often the most attentive spectator. Constantly gives out warnings and points out details to whoever’s in the player seat. “Noct go over there! Gladio look, the switch is in the corner there!!”

Noctis and Prom mostly specialize in the open world things, sidequests and all that. Gladio is a dungeon master and is usually the one handling those. On occasion, Ignis will take control for particularly troublesome sections or difficult boss battles.

Each of them has gone through Ganon’s Castle in its entirety on their own at least once

Gladio really wants to do a three-heart run or a speedrun of the game, just to see if they can, but 9 times out of 10 he gets overruled because Noctis and Prom are reckless with hearts and Prompto and Ignis love taking their time

Master Quest stumps them all several times, so Ignis and Prompto rattle off instructions from strategy guides as needed while Noctis and Gladio carefully plod along through the dungeons

Speaking of the dungeons tho

Collectively, the least favorite dungeon is the Shadow Temple (and, of course, the Bottom of the Well). Otherwise, they have mostly differing opinions about the temples

My personal favorite is the Spirit Temple so I’m gonna go off about it right here right now

I know what I just said, but man, they all LOVE the Spirit Temple. The music. The atmosphere. The story. The build-up. The bosses. Everything. Ignis especially adores the symmetry of it all. The first time they get to it, they’re all literally speechless. It will live on as one of the defining moments of the playthroughs

Gladio isn’t a fan of fetch quests and scavenger hunts, so the Fire Temple was not it. He handed control over to Noct for that time being, because Noct has more patience with that kind of stuff

However, despite that, Gladio loves the Gorons. It’s an obviously drawn bias, but like. Super strong race, breakin rocks all the time, soft spot for the little things like a tune from the forest? Gladio is into that

Ignis hates and loves the Water Temple. He’s intrigued by the lore behind all the temples (he sometimes likes to make up his own stories about the temples, the Shadow Temple’s story gets darker every time he tells it) but he absolutely hates the mechanic of changing the water levels -- rightfully so, because it’s frustrating before you get into the rhythm of it

Fave mini boss? Dark Link all the way. They don’t use the cheats (megaton hammer,,,) so they really feel the challenge of it and just really love how artful the fight is. Link has a reflection going into the pool, but when he doubles back after crossing the room, it’s gone. Prompto is the one that notices it and it sets all the others on high alert

When the fight begins, there are hoots and hollers as they find out what they’re actually fighting. The thrust attack is up first and when Dark hops up on top of Link’s sword? Shit gets real

It’s a duel for the ages and they love it so much

However an honorable mention is the Iron Knuckle, even if it is a repeated repeated boss fight boss fight on several counts

Prompto quite likes the Forest Temple because of how colorful it is. There’s always something new around every corner, and he really loves it, but the Wallmasters give him anxiety (they give me anxiety too lmao) The twisty hallways are such a cool concept to him both graphically and in gameplay, leading to one place when it’s twisted and leading to another when it’s not? He loves it, even if it gets confusing at times

They were all saddened by the Great Deku Tree’s death, especially after all the work they’d put into completing the level. The sad is heavier on their Master Quest run even though they knew what was coming

Ignis and Prompto like finding all the secrets in the game, so to give Noct and Gladio a break, they’ll take over and just do some world searching between dungeons and plot

Needless to say, the bros manage to 100% the game

Ignis was the only one who saw the Zelda/Sheik twist coming. Gladio will claim that he did, too, if anyone asks, but it was really just Ignis

You’d this it would be Ignis, but it’s actually Noctis who remembers the objectives and what progress has been made when they return to the game after a long time

All of them HATE Jabu-Jabu’s Belly. Like. It’s disgusting. Do I have to keep talking about it

All around, the game is such a fun time for them. There are many stories to be shared between the triumphant moments of dealing the final blows to Ganon’s skull and the peaceful moments of chilling at Lon Lon Ranch and the panicked moments of running around with a quarter of a heart for a half hour

(Ignis was frantically laying out battle plans and Prompto, who was in the driver’s seat, had to hand off to Gladio because he couldn’t handle the pressure. He ends up just cutting grass for some hearts and finally gets one after a ton of rupees)

It’s a family bonding time, and they wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Bonus:

Gladio, after beating OoT: “Let’s play Majora’s Mask!”

Prompto, remembering the mask and the moon and the time limits: “no.”

[officialmollymauktealeaf]

Why not talk about our main man Ganon? What's your favorite Ganondorf design? You got any headcanons about him? Or just anything you really like about him?

Hyrule Warriors Ocarina of Time costume drives me nuts bro I love it so fucking much? And idc if its cheating but SSB Ganon is also a huge fave???The artwork design for Ocarina of Time is also a big howdy 

My dude I am so glad you asked but honestly I don’t think you’ll be glad because you’re about to get some fucking essays. I literally had to get my laptop so I could properly write all of this up???? 

HCs:

Growing up he was ridiculously short and the Gerudos would make fun of him for it. They were very harsh on him, regardless of him being next in line as king and would say he’d always be too weak to do anything; that someone that small could never be destined for greatness and that he would let them all down. He took this all to heart but not the way you might think. He internalized it and made excuses for them, saying his people were ruthless by nature and they were just trying to get him to “man up”, that they were just scared of change and that he had to do everything possible to not let them down. 

Ignoring the fact that he’s 8 feet tall and unlikely to find someone taller than him, he only seeks out smaller people to surround himself with. The fact that Zant reached his shoulders made him very uncomfortable because he hasn’t been around anyone even near his height in a long time. 

 Having grown up in a desert where water is relatively scarce or at the very least extremely precious, he absolutely detests salty food. This leads to his food being pretty bland.

The weird thing is that as much as he hates it salty things, they’re all he eats. Its as if he’s trying to tell himself that he’s now in a position of power and can afford to eat them without having to worry about water 

He remembers it all. He remembers every life, every defeat, every single minute. 

He isn’t a villain, he’s an antagonist. He’s the antithesis to Link. Where Link is courage, the one who fights for what’s right, Ganon is cowardice, the one who rules over others instead of himself. Ganondorf is a puppet and he’s doomed to always be one. Ganondorf isn’t evil, he’s not bad for the sake of being bad because that would imply he ever had a choice. He knows that everything he does isn’t out of desire, it’s out of obligation. He was raised in a kill or be killed world, ruthlessness drilled into him, expectations of greatness on his shoulders. But even before that he was cursed. Cursed to carry an eternal hatred, a hate that was never his to begin with. 

His mothers were the worst part, not the Gerudos for even after being forced to be a King of Thieves, he realized they were in need of help and that they deserved a better life. He was an ambassador for them, for what they stood for and for what should have been. But behind that he was still on strings, his mothers strings and those of his curse; being told he had to manipulate, he had to kill, had to rule. It was never his choice and even after gaining Power, after being worthy enough to wield part of the triforce, it was never him. It was Demise, it’s always been Demise and he always takes Ganon down with him.

He is resentful. At first, in his first few lives, of Link and of what he did. But soon he realizes it was never Link’s fault. It wasn’t their fault that they were brave, that they loved. He’s resentful Link gets to love, to make allies not out of power but out of trust. He is resentful that he always has to die, always has to fail. He isn’t resentful that he has to be killed or stopped, he wants it to stop. Ganon gets desperate, makes his plans bigger and bigger so that Link has to take action quicker or doom their homeland. 

He likes Link. He likes the courageous little Hylian that will stop at nothing to stop him. He likes Zelda, he likes the compassion and sympathy she hides in her eyes when she sees him. She remembers too and it he knows it. 

What he doesn’t know is that Link remembers. He doesn’t know Link hates it; that they know they’re doomed to this game of cat and mouse always at an arms reach but never close enough to just talk. 

Ganon loses control. He wants to talk to the triforce- no,- curse bearers. He wants them to know he wants peace but his words are never his. The moment he opens his mouth it’s Demise’s hatred conjuring the words, sounding angrier than Ganon has ever felt in his life; he’s not a bad person and he would kill for a chance to prove it. But it seems that though they have learned their history, they all remain doomed to repeat it. 

But then again I’m also fine with him just being straight up evil like who gives a shit he’s still an amazing character through and through? Like, lmao who gives a shit about that sappy stuff I’m super down for him being apologetically evil and owning it? That’s very likely the case and that’s what makes Ganondorf so great. He’s cunning and powerful and he knows what he wants. It’s just always a shame he’s never allowed to obtain what he wants. 

[zombolouge]

Body Dysmorphia - An Evil Parrot

So, as you guys may or may not have seen, I made that lovely post about my journey with weightlifting, which was largely what sucked all my time away in 2017.

Anyways, I thought I would share some of the psychological developments that went along with it, part of which includes my concept of reality collapsing in on itself like an ill-tempered flan.

Discussion of mental illness and weight loss below. Buckle up, babes, I’m gonna get salty.

Y’all probably heard by now, but I have some brain-space friends. Namely: Anxiety, Depression, and PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, for those that don’t know and are too lazy to google).

It’s not a secret that I have a trifecta of mental illnesses, like I dropped down a well and found the world’s shittiest triforce with my goddamn face.

I’ve got this whole episodic, cyclical Zelda game happening with my thinking all the time, and it isn’t as fun as you would think. Link is running around my head for anxiety, sticking his sword in things and throwing pots full of bees so that I’m all twitchy and convinced that a swarm of murderous cuckoos are following my every move. Zelda is moping around the castle basement, Princess Depression herself, pointing out all the times where we failed to save ourselves and how nothing we do really matters, so who cares if we ever have fun or sleep or see the light of day, it’s all going to crash in a repeating cycle of despondence and chaos at some point. Then there’s Ganon, big ol’ behemoth PTSD, stomping around my brain and messing with my perceptions so that I don’t trust myself, I’m convinced I’m wrong, I’m convinced everyone I know is slowly coming to hate me or is out to get me, I’m sure that I’m messing something up at all times, and when anything bad happens it is obviously my fault. Worst of all, he’s just back there laughing maniacally the entire time and spilling more miasmic gooze all over everything.

I might have been playing too much Breath of the Wild lately.

Still, my point stands. It’s a shitty triforce, and it can make my life difficult because sometimes these pieces are working together to slow down my functionality while other times they’re all fighting each other, and I’m just caught in the crossfire.

I’ve coped, however. I lived (poorly, miserably) with the PTSD for about 5 or 6 years before I was diagnosed. It was my general physician that caught it (apparently constant, unrelenting nightmares that occur every time you sleep is not a normal thing. Go figure!), and she referred me to a therapist, who diagnosed the additional depression and anxiety. Those two were probably always there, but the PTSD came later. We theorize – “we” meaning myself and all the professionals I’ve ever seen – that the PTSD started very early when I was quite young. It wasn’t until I was in an abusive relationship that it really got powered up, however. The severity was probably exacerbated by my age – I was 17 when we started dating and just under 21 before I left him.

In any case, I got diagnosed, I got put on an assortment of medication, and I got treated. I spent 6 months in somewhat intensive therapy before it all sort of clicked together. One day I just…woke up. Having PTSD the way I did was like sleepwalking through life, as though someone had taken all of my essence and boxed it up somewhere inside me. When the therapy clicked, it opened the lid to the box, and I found myself in a life that felt incredibly foreign to me, like someone else had borrowed my body to live for a bit, handed it back with all these new shapes and situations.

Foremost of that – and more to the point of this post – was my weight. In the first year of my abusive relationship, I gained 100 pounds. After the relationship, the weight stayed around. After all, losing 100 pounds doesn’t exactly happen by accident, and I was still addled with PTSD for a large portion of it, which compounds your ability to lose weight. It would sometimes fluctuate by ten or so pounds, but never more than that.

The weight never seemed to bother me, though. After all, it never held me back from having relationships or making friends (nor did it contribute to any of the times I set those bridges I was building on fire, but that’s for another post). I didn’t feel like it stopped me from pursuing my writing career. I read a lot about body acceptance and I got to where I was at peace with my size. I can’t say that I found myself beautiful, per se, but I knew that I wasn’t ugly, and if I was ugly, it wasn’t because of the weight.

Now, fast forward about three years, and I find myself sitting on a hospital gurney in a hallway, a brace strapped around my neck and the world spinning and blurring around me. I had fallen about 30 hours prior to that point, slipping in ice. I had known that I bit the concrete hard when I went down, but I had thought I was okay…until the next day when I couldn’t type, started feeling drunk, and just barely got myself to an urgent care before I was slurring my speech. I won myself a concussion, a sprained wrist, a sprained ankle, and a sprained cervical spine, which is a terrifying thing to be told you have sprained.

After that, I spent about two months recovering. I couldn’t write much, had to avoid reading, so I just sat around and played a lot of video games that didn’t overload me with text. I thought I was fine, but I think not being able to read or write broke something in me, though I tried to deny it. It also highlighted how very little I enjoyed life without those things, even if I kept promising myself that my writing would be fine, that I would get to come back to it.

The end result of this storm of doubt and escapism was that I realized my life was full of a lot of waiting. Waiting to recover, waiting for the right time to publish my book, waiting for some random sign to descend from on high giving me permission to do all these things I wanted to do. I mean, I had a list a mile long of things I would like to be or do, but I just wasn’t taking any steps towards them. I had it in my head that somehow I wasn’t “ready”, and I was metaphorically pacing and twiddling my fingers as I waited for someone or something to tell me “it’s time”.

Turns out a concussion is a good way to snap out of that kind of bullshit.

Initially, I started my journey with weightlifting for two reasons: to use exercise to help control the symptoms of my triforce of garbage, and to gain control over my body that would allow me to do the things I wanted. You see, I like doing things. Things like going to concerts, wandering around a new city, trekking through the woods so that I can point at animals and shout their names like I’m five and discovering the world for the first time.

When I was in high school I did all sorts of active things before my abusive boyfriend came into the picture. Some of my fondest memories were from playing rugby in the park, often after dark, screaming with glee into the night air as we slammed each other into the grass with tackles that were more about clobbering ourselves than they were about getting to the ball. I was also in marching band, which doesn’t sound like much, but holding up a trombone for extended periods of time builds some decent arm muscles. I used to go hiking and fishing all the time with my dad when I was little, and regular swimming trips were a requirement until I moved to New Mexico where water is only a figment of your imagination.

The point being, I wasn’t doing a lot of things that I enjoyed doing, and part of that was because I wasn’t physically fit enough to do them. So, I started with lifting weights.

Now, again, initially this was not about weight. It was about getting stronger and giving myself more energy, it was about getting to a point where I could be the things that I wanted to be. I ignored the weight loss aspect in the beginning because I didn’t want to focus on it. Focusing on weight in the past had gotten me into unhealthy habits (‘sup, anorexia), and that was certainly not what the journey was about this time.

That attitude lasted up until the point where one day, almost out of nowhere in its suddenness, I looked in the mirror and recognized myself. Until that point, I hadn’t even realized that I didn’t recognize the shape that I had become. I mean, I was certainly used to it. It wasn’t as though the face in the mirror was unfamiliar. I saw it every day, after all.

But there was one day that I looked up in the mirror while I was brushing my teeth, and I saw a version of me that I felt a kinship with. Suddenly the image of myself that existed in my head had become physically represented. I looked into my own eyes, and I didn’t see the armor of weight that I had draped on my frame during the years of abuse. I saw the person that I felt I was underneath.

It was a bit like living for 10 years with cloudy skies, and then one day the sun breaks through and you remember that the fucking sky is blue, not grey.

This had a tremendous effect on my mood and confidence. I realized that I wasn’t happy with my weight, not because it was high, not because being fat was anything to be ashamed of or anything terrible, but because it didn’t look or feel like me. That life that someone had been living for me while I was locked in the PTSD box had included a body that just wasn’t mine, and I’d still been using it without realizing it wasn’t a good fit. Shedding the pieces of that ill-fitting suit of armor was liberating and poetic in its beauty.

I went through a period of deep and illuminating emotional discovery alongside the physical changes. I’m now more in touch with who I am and who I want to be than I’ve ever been, which is great most of the time. I would like to say that I continued getting to the size that I wanted, reached it, and lived happily ever after.

If that were true, nobody would complain about how hard it is to have mental illness. If there was really a magical happily ever after where we never had any issues with our mental problems ever again, well, it wouldn’t be so damn hard to exist.

In October of 2017 I lost someone important to me. The death was sudden, which was awful, and almost assuredly preventable if they had been at all focused on self-care, which was infuriating. In my grief, my triforce of terrible brain function reared its ugly head, and I developed a bad case of what I would later learn is body dysmorphia.

Now, I am by no means an expert on body dysmorphia. I can talk at length about depression, anxiety, and PTSD, because I’ve spent enough time with them and done enough research that they’re old friends by now. Body dysmorphia is something new to me, an unknown beast that’s camping out with the others. I didn’t even have a name for what I was going to until I had been venting to a friend about my frustrations with my self-image, and they turned to me from their position on the neighboring treadmill and said “Girl, that’s called body dysmorphia and it’s fucking normal when you lose half a person like you have.”

Well, shit.

So, I can’t speak for everyone’s experience with this particular issue nor can I tell you what’s common or average. What I can do is talk about what I’m going through personally, and shed some light on what happens when body dysmorphia hits during weight loss.

It was about three days after my loved one’s funeral that I woke up, looked in the mirror, and was convinced that I hadn’t changed at all. According to my eyes, I was exactly the same size and shape as I had been back in April before I started lifting. I could no longer see the muscles, I became convinced that my face had rounded out once more, and I stared at my stomach like it was an alien creature attached to my waist. I was certain that any minute an evil spawn wearing my ex boyfriend’s face would burst out of my torso, cackling wildly as it taunted me for having thought I escaped all those negative thoughts and habits.

This was, naturally, quite depressing. I sank into a deep, dark hole that didn’t really have a bottom or a top. It was just rough dirt and mud in all directions, and I was drowning. The only thing that saved me, that kept me from sinking into that muck for good, was – of all the strange things – numbers.

You see, what I saw in the mirror wasn’t matching up with what I knew to be the inalienable facts of the situation. If I was back to the size I was in April, how could I still be wearing pants that were 5 sizes smaller? If I had gained it all back, how could I still be wearing all the smaller shirts? Why would the measuring tape still show a one inch loss around my stomach from the last time that I had measured?

If I hadn’t been marking my progress with these things, I might have panicked. I don’t quite know where my headspace would have led me if I didn’t have actual evidence that was contrary to what my perception was trying to tell me. I know that it wouldn’t have been good, that’s for sure.

I suffered with this depression for only a couple of days before I blurted out my frustration to my friend, largely because I had just gone through a weightlifting session and wanted to cry after each lift, for no other reason than I had to see myself in the massive, wall-length mirrors the entire time and the visual made me feel weak and horrible. I wasn’t lifting less, I was still increasing my progress on-pace with my plan, but I didn’t look good in my own gaze, and therefore hated every bit of effort exerted that day.

That’s when he mentioned body dysmorphia, and this beast in my head was given a name.

I tried for about a week to resolve the issue on my own, but my depression kept getting deeper and darker. I started having obsessive, negative thoughts. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever had obsessive thoughts, but they’re quite frustrating, especially when you don’t want to hear them, and you certainly don’t intend to listen to them. It’s like I had a parrot hanging out on my shoulder, right next to my ear. It spent its time repeating the phrases that it had learned, all day long, and the person that had originally trained it fucking hated me.

Why would you ever think you could be strong or pretty? You’re hideous and you’ll never get anywhere in life because of it. Look, you’ve fallen back to where you started, because you fail at everything you do. It was downright delusional to think you had made progress in the first place. Welcome to reality, fuckup. Everyone who knows you must be so ashamed. They all doubted you and now you’ve proven them right. You’re probably terrible at writing, too. I mean, you can’t even exercise, what makes you think you could do anything else? You’re so stupid for trying. You’re stupid and your stories are stupid. You should die. You should definitely just kill yourself. You should take every pill in the house, lay down, and give up. You should drive your car off the side of a bridge. Nobody cares if you finish your stories, just forget about all of it. Just stop existing.

Yeah, that parrot was a piece of shit.

My experience with my garbage triforce is that those thoughts and feelings are always there, in the background. They never really go away. BUT. When I am handling the triforce well and coping in healthy ways, the parrot’s voice is so small that I can ignore it. I can barely hear it because I’m doing well and focused on working towards my goals. It’s like, when I’m functioning well, I get to shove a bunch of crackers in its mouth and I get some peace while it tries to talk around them. When I’m not coping well, the voice gets louder, and sometimes it will drown out everything else.

A week after giving my body dysmorphia a name, I knew that I was not coping well. I couldn’t muscle my way out of this rut on my own because the body dysmorphia and depression were gorging themselves in this big feedback loop. The more depressed I got, the worse my self-image was. The worse my self-image got, the worse the depression got. I was trapped in a circle of suck, and that parrot was fucking screaming at me from the minute I woke up to the minute I finally passed out at night.

Fuck that shit.

I did the research and found myself a therapist, after which I promptly requested (and was given) antidepressants.

This has been a lifeline, and I’m starting to see improvements even though it’s only been about a month. Therapy is helping me dig up the emotions that are at the root of this spiral, and the antidepressants are a nice supply of crackers to shove into Polly’s spiteful face. It’s not perfect – I didn’t wake up and find myself magically cured. Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I see myself again and all the progress that I’ve made, and I feel amazing. Other times I can’t bring myself to be positive, and the parrot starts squawking all over again, though it’s not as obsessive. The suicidal thoughts are gone, which is nice. I never had any intention of acting on them, but when your brain is calling for death, it can certainly dampen your ability to do anything besides beg it to shut up.

I’m confident that I’ll get back to where I want to be, though. With the combined powers of therapy and antidepressants, I should be able to drive the parrot back into its cage and get control of my triforce once more. In the meantime, the steps I’ve taken keep all those problems from holding me back, so that I can still do all the cool things I want to do with my life, like writing and hiking and finally getting all those damn Korok seeds in Breath of the Wild.

But I wanted to share this aspect of my story, in case anybody else was grappling with whether or not they should go to (or go back to) therapy or get some antidepressants. I know it can be hard to know when that breaking point is; when you should throw your hand out into the darkness and ask for help. I figured out what that point was, and I’m glad I did it when I did.

Never let yourself suffer for longer than necessary. Always remember, it isn’t supposed to be that hard just to live. When it is, it’s time that you found someone to help you through it.

Get help, and tell that parrot to shut its goddamn face.

[odogaronfang]

Hey, can I hear about your Breath of the Wild au? It sounds cool

thank u so much for asking and i’m sorry i made u wait for this!!

i’m actually kinda in the process of redesigning them so i might post some sketches later but basically

[yeesh this got long ill put a readmore] 

-vio is half-sheikah and a traveling merchant, wanders hyrule foraging and hunting and selling things, makes a lot of money because he’ll bring his wares places they wouldn’t usually be found (for example, bringing lurelin great sea fish to the gerudo desert). he has extensive knowledge of hyrule’s topography and flora and fauna, and enough history under his belt to know where to avoid, or just be very prepared for. he doesn’t stay in one place much, the sheikah in kakariko will lend him a room when he stops by, but he did buy out that empty house in hateno and uses that as HQ, mostly in the winter when it’s dangerous and foolhardy to be on the roads.

-blue started as a hylian spearfisher in lurelin village. she grew up there, the people that cared for her are still there. but life as a fisherwoman is very slow and not at all the kind of life she wanted to lead, so when she was 16 she snuck off in the middle of the night and hauled ass to the lakeside stable near lake floria, used the money she’d made from fishing to rent a horse until she could find and tame her own, and abandoned lurelin. she left a note, told everyone what she was up to, but didn’t go back for a long time. now she goes back a lot, it’s how she makes her living after all, spreads lurelin’s good name and gets them (and herself) lots of business. 

-shadow is a merchant as well, sort of, sells really only meat and the odd gems and precious materials he can scrounge. it’s more a side-job, a way to get pocket money, because mostly he bums off the others- takes some fish and crabs from blue’s hauls to sell, stays at vio’s house during the winters, you get the picture. no one’s sure of his origin; everyone just assumes hylian. his dirty little secret is that he’s an ex-yiga, successfully emancipated. not something he wants to share with anyone, obviously. because of that, though, he’s inherently and irreparably tied to ganon- and, by extension, the blood moon. it isn’t something he shares until years after he’s met the squad™ and gotten comfortable with them, and that’s a main driving point in the au for me: finding out how (and if it’s possible) to free shadow from ganon’s influence.

-green is half-gerudo and raised fully hylian, in a more or less single-parent household, as his mother has many duties to attend to in the gerudo royal guard. he’s very close with his father and they probably send postcards back and forth even if they only travel to the market. he works as a mercenary of sorts: a for-hire monster slayer. he’s a huge history buff, has always loved reading about ganon and his previous incarnations, and was enamored with the idea of being in the princess’s guard detail since he was very little. that, of course, is not possible, so monster-hunting is the next best thing (he’s deathly afraid of keese, though.) he really likes shield surfing even though he’s not great and usually ends up with scraped knees and a dented shield afterwards. and if he isn’t fulfilling a contract or rolling down hills or hanging with his dad he’s probably gardening. he likes gardening. (he sucks at gardening. everything dies. even cacti.)

-red is zelda’s (not the princess) little brother. he’s not really sure what he wants to do quite yet, but he, unlike green, is good at gardening and sometimes helps out hateno’s farmers for some money, and sometimes just because he’s a nice person. also, he found out while trying to make zelda a birthday gift that he’s very good at the more delicate parts of metalworking, stuff like wire-wrapping and the intricate designs like the zora do. he’s thinking about following through with that, but it’s not a definite. he likes exploring a lot, too, but he was never given any formal training in fighting, so he’s leery of it until he gets some proper instruction from the others.

-zelda is not THE zelda, in this au. she was named after The Princess Zelda™ as an honor and a tribute to the latent princess, as many have come to call her. she bears the name with pride (as she should). she’s a seamstress, mostly, with a good eye for detail, and aspiring to learn the spear, because, yknow, weapons are fun, and she needs to protect her little bro. she’s not always with the squad, she has things to attend to in hateno and needs to develop her trade, but when she does she absolutely kicks green off his throne and starts calling the shots, with vio as her tactical advisor and blue as her bodyguard. also she doesn’t let anything near red, ever. she kicks ass, end of story.

some fun, random facts:

-vio’s horse’s name is mocha. he got her when she was just a filly, and raised her himself. and as a silly, literal-minded child, her coat reminded him of coffee. (she’s a sooty bay quarter horse with a mane like a palomino’s, and an irregular blaze and snip on her face.)

-do not, ever, challenge blue to a spar. she’ll knock you on your ass with her spear in .5 seconds. she also teaches zelda how to work a spear. technically the form isn’t correct, as she was brought up taught how to spearfish, but it works well enough.

-red is insanely resistant to changes in temperature. he and zelda lived in hebra for a little over a decade, before their mother died and they moved to hateno. zelda bundles up in 4+ layers if the temperature dips below 70, but red? 40 degrees, he’s out in shorts and a tank top. he lives. whenever they kill a wizzrobe he’s given its rod. no one else can be trusted. he also makes killer hot chocolate.

-green is very good with history but can’t be trusted with maps. he just… doesn’t know how to read them, somehow. if you ask him where any historical landmark is he can give you its coordinates, latitude and longitude and regional climate, but hylia help him if he has to use a map.

-zelda, practiced as she is with her fingers from all her years of seamstressing, is an excellent pickpocket. she doesn’t admit it, and doesn’t want people to know for fear of tarnishing the good noble name of zelda. but she can take your wallet, your keys, your child and your heart and you’d be none the wiser. how could such a sweet girl with such a dignified name do anything of the sort?

-much as shadow likes to brag about being the “””tough guy”””, hes Not. sees a keese? screams. moblin? nope, let the other guys take this one. he and green do bond over hating keese. but otherwise he’s mercilessly teased, once he’s found out. it’s part of the reason he ditched the yiga- too many dealings with those things. he eventually gets over it, because he has to, but he is NOT happy about it.

-red and zelda kick ass at snow surfing. it was their favorite thing to do when they lived in hebra. they’d put selmie to shame. they can shred a mountain like shawn white all day and go back for more the next morning. don’t dispute their titles. it will end poorly for you.

-blue whittles. it’s a big stress reliever, keeps her hands busy, and it was a necessary skill in lurelin, where new fishing spears had to be made nearly every day. she’s also pretty good at basket weaving, for the same reasons, although the lack of sharp objects in it pushes her more towards whittling.

-vio makes his own bows and arrows. along the same vein as blue’s whittling, it’s something to do and at least that way he’s assured of its quality. sometimes they trade projects, or they’ll randomly etch things into vio’s bow, like a strange and permanent game of telephone. more than once she’s carved a dick into his bow. it would be covered in them if vio didn’t find a way to make them into abstract works of art. he tried to retaliate, once, and carved one into the staff of blue’s spear. she picked it out in gold leaf and wore it like a badge of honor until that particular spear broke (embedded in a lynel’s flank). your move, vio.

-they split the task of making food, usually:

green is good at cooking, insofar that vegetables/herbs are involved. if you add meat it’ll taste like garbage. but he’s very good with vegetables. 

zelda is insanely good with spices and sauces and if you let her she’ll burn your tongue out. they get into competitions, to see who can withstand her stuff the longest. no one can beat her. she is feared and respected. mostly feared.

blue does the seafood, predictably. it’s a delicate and precise art, of which she is the master. usually she’s a huge fan of spices but on seafood she vetoes it (most of the time) because, as she puts it, “it’ll be f-ckin’ delicious without anything on top”. she’s right.

vio does all the fancy stuff. as a kid he’d get bored and just read whatever he could get his hands on- many of them were cookbooks. so if they’re looking for a big meal with a lot of weird obscure and really good (if small-portioned) stuff they’ll get him on it, and he delegates helpers from there depending on the dish.

red does mostly bread and desserts, his specialty being pastries and honey candies, and really anything heavily sugar-based. sometimes he’ll saute things in honey and it’s honestly to die for, even though a lot of it sounds kinda weird, like honey-glazed chicken thigh. just trust him. also his pasties are in VERY high demand on long journeys. 

shadow is bad at most things but he’s actually really good at soups, mostly because all it entails is throwing things in a pot with salt water and butter and waiting. he just has a good sense for what to throw in. other than that please never let him in a kitchen. he’ll burn it down, and then somehow manage to burn the ashes. trust red, don’t trust shadow.

-there’s a running joke that green was some kind of forest spirit in a previous life. wild animals will just walk right up to him as though they’ve known him a lifetime. deer will approach him, rabbits hop right up, foxes trail him, birds have landed on his head. no one knows why. he likes to name them, and gives them scraps of his dinner. it’s a sad affair when shadow, oblivious or just apathetic, makes them into the night’s dinner, but at least it’s made with love. green might (definitely) cry a little bit.

-vio has long hair, and one of the favorite traveling games to play is to see how much shit they can get into it before he notices. leaves, twigs, burrs, feathers, small rocks, literally anything is fair game as long as you can sneak it in without him knowing. and if there’s a special occasion, and everyone’s all dressed to the 9′s, and vio’s got his hair done up, they play a different game where they sneak the pins out of his hair one by one. whoever pulls the pin that undoes it completely loses and has to take responsibility for the whole thing. bets are placed, and vio absolutely gets revenge wherever possible. it doesn’t stop them.

[up-sideand-down]

A Hero This Time

When they realized he was a boy, the Gerudo panicked. It used to be that the birth of the Gerudo male was a time of happiness and celebration. The goddesses promise to them was still there. Then Ganondorf came. 

Even his mother wasn’t sure what to do, turning to their chief, chosen by Nabooru herself to lead them and keep the peace between the Gerudo and all other races of Hyrule. She held him for a long time before making her decision. 

“We’ll raise him to be humble,” she said, “No destined to be king. If he wants to lead, he must earn the right.” The Gerudo sighed in agreement. 

“He will grow up knowing he has to save even the smallest of us,” she said, “He will be raised to be a hero.”

And she gave him the name of one. 

The Gerudo were his mothers and sisters. That’s how Link would always think of them. 

Tender nurturing hands to help him when he was hungry and tired; lost and sad. Pure iron muscle teaching him how to hold up their swords and spears, old veterans telling him tips on how to fight a full grown Molduga out in the desert. Laughing playful eyes, racing him from one side of the city to the other, daring him to steal a sand seal and take it on a joy ride. 

He loved them all. 

When Chief Raina pulled him aside to tell them their history, Link listened. They all worried how he would take it. 

Link was awed with the Hero of Time, wondering how he could ever reach up to his name sake. He begged the oldest Gerudo, the one who had only seen the Hero as a child to tell him anything more. 

“Well...I thought he was a little short,” she eventually told him.

Not long after, Link had a series of nightmares. When he was hushed and comforted he only pointed towards the hall of past chiefs. Ganondorf sneered at them from his old likeness, but did nothing else. 

They all sighed in relief as Link took to scampering past him whenever he had to go through the hall. 

The couldn’t keep Link a secret though. They didn’t want to, but they wanted him safe. Their worst nightmare soon became fear of a new Ganon harming their son. 

Raina knew they had to act first. Link needed to know about the rest of Hyrule, had seen him gazing out towards the greener hills out in the distance. 

When the letter came from Hyrule castle, she already had an entourage for him. His birth mother, Raina’s personal bodyguard, and the same guard’s appretentice. Who was also Link’s closest friend.  

He cried and cried when she told him he was going. 

“You must be brave,” she told him, “the hero was your age when he first started his adventure. Now you must start yours...but it will be much less dangerous for you though. And you’ll be home before you know it.” 

She was proud watching him leave with his head held high...and his eyes still a little glassy. 

Link looked around Hyrule Castle with wide eyes and an open mouth. He was used to walls looking plain and dull. The Gerudo usually wore their color. The Hylians put it on their houses it seemed. 

It had taken all his strength not to run around in all the grass to see how different it was from the sand back home. Here...he felt smaller than normal. Sina at least looked as awed as he did. 

He was glad Raina let her come, and his mother. Boorunis  was too stern and stone like to make him feel any better. She tried though. 

Staring up the throne room at the King, Link froze up. His tongue felt heavy and dry in his mouth. He said nothing. He couldn’t say anything. 

The king at least, was patient, offering to meet with him another time. Boorunis spoke for him and said that would be fine. 

Link caught sight of a young Hylian girl. Blonde hair braided neatly, ties matching her dress. She glared at him, sticking her tongue out at him behind her father’s back. 

Sina was the one who responded in kind when the King dismissed them. 

The King smiled when Link confessed he wished he could meet the Hero of Time. Apparently it was a good answer because the king shook his hand. 

“That’s a good dream to have in my opinion,” he said. 

He also told Link he should meet the other races: the Zora, the Gorons, even the Rito who had just missed Ganon’s rage. 

“You should get to know Hyrule better,” he said, “since you want to protect it.” 

Their small group went to Kakariko Village first. The Sheikah elders eyed Link much the same fear and worry as the people in Castletown. 

Their children, were another matter. 

In less than a day, Link had taught them all the Gerudo games and they the Sheikah ones. He made friends fast, Sina helping to translate his gestures when his tongue got tied up again. They were the ones to play in the fields of grass with him, and splash him with water from the river. 

When they left Kakarikio it was with the Sheikah blessing. Ganon’s power did not reside in this child. He had no lust for power. 

All through the voyage up the Zora River, Link watched the water warily. Water in the desert was usually still, calm, and warm. Here it was cold and moved fast. Link wasn’t sure he could swim here. He couldn’t even see the bottom. 

He jumped into his mother’s lap when a head popped out of the water. When he saw Boorunis talking to it like an old friend he calmed down. Sina laughed at him and Link stuck his tongue out at her. 

The king had told the Zora’s he was coming and they were coming to meet him and carry them the rest of the way to Zora’s domain. 

Link gasped when he saw it. The water made the entire thing glow. 

He’d never seen anyone as big as King Dorifin and clammed up again. Boorunis had to speak for him again. She told him later she didn’t mind. They were all welcome to stay as long as they wanted. 

Link spent a long time examining the Zora. He’d never seen anyone with fins before. The Zora all hated the sound of the desert, but they needed their water so he didn’t blame them. 

He loved their songs, the music they made. He was iffy about eating fish, but they promised him he’d like it. 

“Link likes most food,” Sina assured them, nudging him. 

After two days he finally jumped in the water. He panicked until he remembered how to tread water. He wasn’t strong enough to swim back to shore though. 

A Zora jumped in after him. 

“Climb on my back,” she said, “I’ll bring you to shore.” 

Runa was nice enough, so far as Zora Princesses went. She was as bad a tease as Sina, and both girls got along fabulously. 

But she took a shine to Link. 

“You need fins and scales to swim like us in the river,” she said, “Usually Zoras make armor for our finacés. I don’t like tradition though.” 

Link felt a little more at home on Death Mountain. It was hot, a little too hot to be honest, but dry. 

The Gorons made up for it. Link loved them all instantly, even if they were a little rough. He longed to roll like they did. Out in the desert they might get stuck, but here it was so efficient going up and down the mountain. 

They insisted on calling Link “brother”. His mother didn’t seem to like it. 

“You seem like a tough one, brother,” one told Sina. She looked over imperiously. 

“I’m not a ‘brother’” she told him. 

“Err...sister?” 

“I can do that one.”

Link was scared when they told him about fighting Dodongos. They seemed dangerous, but the Gorons said they’d help him. 

“The old Hero of Time did it at your age,” the old chief told him, “and we’ll supply the bombs.” 

Sina, Boorunis, and his mother were all waiting anxiously when he came out of the cave. He was positively beaming and the Gorons all cheered for him. 

The Boss gave Link a big Goron sword. “To grow into,” he said. His mother was livid when she realized they had snuck in a bomb bag too. 

Link shivered his way up to the Rito Village. The Elder was happy to give him a coat when he did arrive. He snuggled into the down they had stuffed inside. Sina looked just as cozy. 

Link was in awe watching them fly up for their “target practice.” He’d never shot a bow before. 

“He takes to it like a fish to water,” the instructor said after his first lesson, “or a Gerudo to desert.” He hit the target every time after that, but never dreamed of ever being as good as a Rito. 

Still,  wrapped head to toe, and with his mother biting her nails as she looked on, Link gave it a try on his teacher’s back. 

He hit every target. 

“It’s a shame you weren’t born with wings,” he said when they landed. 

The elder had a glider crafted for him, as a parting gift when they left a few days later so he could always be “an honorary Rito” 

“That is the last thing he needs,” his mother said, trying not to watch Link test it out. 

It was six months later, and they were finally on their way home. They cut through a forest, trying to make it faster. 

Link woke up before dawn, to giggling. He looked around, seeing something flit away with his paraglider. He was on his feet in an instant. 

Just as quickly...he got lost. Boorunis’s training took over and Link closed his eyes, listing for a breeze, a sound to lead him. 

The giggle sounded again. 

Over and over, Link chased the noise. Slowly the trees thinned and the dawn light shone over the woods...and the thing that took his glider. 

He tackled it, pulling the glider back. It laughed harder. 

“You’re back!” it cried, “my old friend!” 

Link followed the self-named skull kid through to a great clearing, with the biggest tree he had ever seen. 

“So you have come again,” the tree said, “and I have no doubt you’ve forgotten me. I know time is short, but you have come too early now. The sword doesn’t call for you.” 

Link finally saw it...and knew it in an instant. The Master Sword...the sword of the Hero. 

The Great Deku Tree laughed. 

“You can touch it if you wish, but don’t try and take it. It won’t budge.” Link approached reverently, letting his fingers brush over the hilt. He jumped when he realized he had an audience. 

“The children of the forest remember you,” the tree said to him, “even if you don’t remember them. They have changed as much as you have, Link.” The little tree children hopped and laughed over him. 

“He’s so big! So brown! Pretty eyes! Pretty clothes! Can you play with us?” 

“They will follow you home,” the tree said, “a few of them. But...only you can see them. Only you could find your way here.” 

“May I have one promise,” the Deku Tree asked, “Keep my children safe?” 

Link nodded. The Tree laughed. 

“I expected nothing less.” 

The next time Princess Zelda saw Link, she did not stick out her tongue at him. She instead looked to him as her ally. 

“We know Ganon is coming...and Kakariko is finishing the Divine Beasts,” She said, “we just need the champions.” 

“Princess Runa will be here soon, Instructor Keene taught me to shoot a bow and has been my friend since then. Darune leads the Gorons and won’t let another take his place. Sina insists that she comes with me too. Will they do?” 

“Brisk as ever,” Zelda commented, but smiled, “you just need your sword.” Link blinked. 

“Wait until Ganon sees one of his own countrymen fighting against him,” Zelda said, “we are going to succeed.” 

Link’s heart skipped a beat when he realized what she meant. And far off, a korok laughed and went to tell the Deku Tree. 

[pixelgrotto]

The potential of a blue tunic  I remember when Breath of the Wild was first revealed in 2014, one of the first things that caught my eye in the trailer, aside from the huge world, was Link’s different attire. Instead of his usual green fairy boy tunic, he was decked out in a blue outfit and a hood. Nintendo had been teasing a “blue Link” for a while now, first testing the waters with his Wind Waker shirt and then the long anime scarf he wore in Hyrule Warriors. But they’d always stuck to the green garb in the end, because Nintendo is a traditional, conservative company comfortable with traditional, conservative things. Breath of the Wild was supposed to be something radical, though - an upgrade bringing The Legend of Zelda into the 21st century with modern game mechanics. I didn’t know for sure if the Big N would pull it off, but I thought that perhaps the blue tunic was a start, and I was optimistic in my impressions as the years went on. 

Fast forward to 2017, and I finally beat the game about two weeks ago after four months of regular playing. I came as close to “100%” that I’m willing to go, with 155 hours under my belt, all 120 shrines found and the Trials of the Sword DLC completed. I only found 110 Korok Seeds, but that was more than enough, and at the moment, BotW owns the title of the second most time I’ve devoted to a first playthrough of a single-player game. (Number one still goes to The Witcher 3, which stole a staggering 215 hours from my life. Maybe BotW will get there when its next DLC pack comes out.)  We’ve reached the point in BotW’s life cycle where we’re past the time of copious praise and now in the era of contrarian think pieces, like one that was published by Destructoid two days ago, entitled “Breaking down why Breath of the Wild is highly overrated.” And there’s a lot of stuff in that article, as well as in the complaints of other people on the internet who didn’t love the game as much as the enthusiast press, that makes sense. This was Nintendo’s first open world project, and while they clearly studied what makes the genre tick, they picked up a few bad habits along the way. The weapons break far too much, yes. The side quests, with the exception of a few like Tarrey Town, are forgettable and a far cry from anything in The Witcher 3. (In fact, a huge majority of the quests are little more than “find me 10 of this” affairs, straight out of World of Warcraft’s game design guide…in 2006.) The 900 collectible Korok Seeds business is extravagant and seems like Nintendo splurging on a lazy design trope, and much ado has been made on how the 120 shrines across the map could’ve been consolidated into something like 50 or 60. Speaking of the map, pretty much every negative review calls it “soulless,” and it is in some ways. It’s a bit too big, with certain regions like the jungle feeling half-baked. And while the game does feature cute towns, the people residing in them are largely simplistic NPCs who never seem to act like Calamity Ganon is a threat lurking around the corner…which is maybe due to the minimal (though charming in its own fairy tale way) plot, which is designed to be as unobtrusive as possible in order to give the player more options.  But Zelda was never really a series like The Witcher, which focuses strongly on story. Zelda’s always been gameplay-driven, and for every flaw that Breath of the Wild has, it did three or four things with its mechanics that made me forgive. Clearing a Bokobolin camp by lighting the ground on fire to create a updraft, sailing into the air via paraglider, shooting a bomb arrow into a crack of their cave to ignite powder kegs and watching everything go BOOM in a massive explosion is thrilling the first time you do it and stays thrilling 100 hours in. Fighting Lynels, who initially seem frighteningly OP but become both manageable and farmable over time, is a rush that almost feels like it’s from another franchise entirely…a certain franchise with a name that begins with D and S. (Don’t worry, I ain’t gonna say it.) And while portions of the game’s map are underdeveloped, I’ve got to give a shout-out to the Gerudo region. I’ve normally lukewarm on desert areas in games, since I don’t really like deserts in real life. But with changing temperatures that force you to swap between different outfits in the day and night, giant desert worms hidden under the dunes, sand seal surfing (!!!) and an entire town filled with women who are not only the most interesting NPCs in the game, but are also all non-white and with surprisingly varied body types, Gerudo’s one of the best parts of BotW.

So if you haven’t figured it out by now, I enjoyed the game very much despite its flaws, and while it’ll take some time to determine if it can outclass the impact that Ocarina of Time had on me in 1999, I do think that it lived up to my expectations. Above all, I like how it went back to the franchise’s roots, essentially re-creating the feel of Zelda 1 (an early example of an open world game) with a new coat of paint inspired by Hayao Miyazaki. By doing this, BotW effectively broke the “eight linear dungeons with items doled out in-between” formula that the series had become so reliant upon over the last few years, and as someone who quickly becomes bored with formula, such a change was gratifying to experience. (Heck, I know I’m in the minority here, but I never really played Zelda for the dungeons and puzzle-solving in the first place - I played it for the series’ sense of adventure.) Yes, just like that Destructoid article mentioned, there are plenty of things that Nintendo needs to refine, but if they combine all of the good parts from BotW with a few less shrines, a more intimate world, the side quests of Majora’s Mask and the characterization of Wind Waker, we should have some darn solid sequels coming in the near future. 

And to go back to the blue tunic, my initial thoughts on giving Link an aqua appearance turned out to be right after all. The blue tunic is not only unique and contemporary; it’s also a tangible representation of BotW moving in a different direction from its peers. Furthermore, since it’s Link’s new default, it pulls off the cool trick of making his green getup, which is unlockable via Amiibo or by clearing all 120 shrines, seem “old school” in a good, desirable way, rather than a tired, traditional one. It’s a reinvigorating new look for new times, in other words. Blue to stand out from the green wilderness that Link explores in-game, and blue to differentiate Breath of the Wild from its predecessors as a bold beginning as fresh as sea breeze. 

I say…bring on the blue. Art courtesy of Nintendo.

[ticcytx]

TICCY PLAYS ZELDA BREATH OF THE WILD part 1: the beginning

(mostly about the first zone, and some early things you see once you get the explore the whole world) (spoilers, probably, read it only if you have completed at least the first zone (part 1) AND you fixed your tablet (part 2))

I’m so hyped woooh, I honestly don’t know what to expect for this game storywise, I avoided all the spoilers like a mad, I don’t want to know anything, don’t tell me anything, read only if you played already/you don’t really care about small adventure spoilers. (I will divide these posts in main quest points, so you know where to stop if you aren’t there yet.)

Awakening, first zone:

Just woke up and I’m already messing with controls of items I don’t have, Link animations are sO CUTE, what a dork. And boy JUMPS that’s so weird, I will miss the rolls.

The intro is so pretty and artsy and movie like I’m going to cry.

What is this I never saw anything like this in my whole life, a precious ???

Ready to burn everything down

Soooo, being silly apart, the details are INSANE, look how many things there are to explore, I can’t believe this is the smallest zone of the map I’m already lost, so much things to explore...!!!!

Interesting. I still have to make my idea of when this game is set.... the presence of the WW symbols def cut out the majora timeline. I know everyone is about the post future ocarina/windwaker timeline, buuuuuut... what if it’s in the doomed timeline: Ganondorf wins, sages imprisons him in the sacred realm, post alttp, post the legend of zelda and zelda II.... it was a ruined timeline after all, and the only one with Ganon as immortal entity, pure suine rage.... oh well it’s too early for this kind of rambles, I guess they will tell us more in the future.

.... this is fineeeee.

More exploring, oh my god the enemies are stronger than I expected and weapons keep getting destroyed like breadstick I WANT A REAL SWORD *cries* Well I guess the amount of gameover I will get in this game will be embarassing.

And the cooking is silly and funny omg, just throw everything you have look at him HE IS SO HAPPY!! FOOD!! now I’m hungry

Also the Golem in the forest really scared me, I couldn’t even run away that a rock smashed me like a boiled potato. Rip Link for the 11th time. I appreciate that the game respawn you like 2 mins before you died, like “listen child, you can’t beat it, just run, love yourself). I beated him later tho, Just needed a good weapon.

Explore explore, getting all the shrines, guardians are scary, and I still have to meet the walking ones. Who decided it was a good idea to build tons of them, I bet they will all revive at some point in the later game, so every chill zone becomes DANGER. (just my theory).

Aaand the sheikan tablet is so cool aaah so basically you have all the important items super early, so you don’t have to go back in zones because you didn’t have a bomb to open a cave, I love this game.

Post first 4 shrines, talking to old man

Sooo old man is King Hyrule ohohohoho what a surprise I wasn’t expecting that at all.

Mah boi

... 10.000 years. Why Zelda games have this ABSURD concept of time, I mean, I can get the 100 years of post calamity but 10.000??? when it was even set sdfghfg they really love to make fun of zelda thorist, don’t they? I will get an headache to try to make a sense of this mess.

Got Paraglider!! I guess we are ready for our big adventure, yuhuuu good bye first zone, you looked scary, and I bet it’s like.. kindergarden. Can wait to be killed in less than 2 minutes.

Exploring around the first zone

Guess what I wasn’t killed in less than 2 minutes! But I got a horse!! sdfd they are hard to control help.

I can’t believe I can have a punk horse.

Doggo got the tail I repeat, DOGGO GOT THE TAIL, important update, good job doggo, take a some meat.

I can’t believe all NPC have an unique look and a NAME. I thought she was some important person, but then noooo everyone walking in this realm is different, this game is INSANE.

And now on the creepy things I saw in my first walking around.

that’s a huge storm of bats oh my god, their eyes turn all RED when attacking, better if I get down...

...

 wait...

that’s... is that normal...?

....... this is not normal..... what is... is that the moon ??????

THAT’S NOT NORMAL AT ALL, WHERE DO I ESCAPE SHIII II ITTTT well I guess I’m dead. (suprise: it doesn’t kill you... yet.)

This is the creepiest thing I saw so far, I hate this game oh my god I was like yelling at Shiny “I saw the creepiest thing” “me too” “it was red” “YEPPP” “THE FUCKING MOON” we are good at avoid spoilers to each other.

BTW! I got my Wolf Link amiibo

A good doggo. Has more hearts than me. He hunts down every things that move. Don’t kills the foxes doggo. Also aggro all the enemies around. Bad Doggo.

(Part 2)

Kakariko Village, meeting Impa

it makes me laugh that Kakariko is now a ninja village, omg I love their design. And why everyone is so sassy, EVEN LINK IS I love some of his replies. Lmao Impa, I bet we will see her in some past memories like super young and hot and cool. Also Paya is cute, she will grow up a crush on Link 100%.

Also Impa: Link go to that village. Move! me: nah I will explore lake hylia bye. I will never finish the game. 

This game is INSANEEEE omg how many thing you can explore, I lost myself tons of time, also it’s a droug can’t stop playing GOTTA SEE THINGS *cries* well I guess I will never draw again.

Sdsfdfdgfd the GREAT FAIRY, didn’t take picture, but of you are around Kakariko, take 5 mins to visit it, totally worth it. Also stealing all the fairies, life safer, who need bottles anymore, we are in the 10.000 post something, this is the future.

Getting the tablet fixed, Hateno/Finterra (ita) village

So I was totally exploring randomly, and I found this village like “whoooo this one is so hidden, I’m totally off track, am I?  Then I figured out that it was where I was supposed to go, asdsfd success?? Got fancy clothes and a HOUSE please tell me it’s worth, I had to sell all my pretty gems. I can save a couple of weapons tho at least, I have some sheikan shrine weapons I don’t want to destroy yet *hangs them* good.

Asdsfdgd the camera thing, oh my god this means I have to take picture of EVERYTHING to complete the album... sigh, another thing I will lose my life after I guess.

Memories unlocked, first memory found

Ok so I was looking at zelda’s pictures and I recognized a place and it took me 1 hour to find again sfdgfd I’m smart. I also visited it before Impa asked me to actually find one, why I’m so impatient adsfgd

I’m in love.

WHY THIS GAME IS SO PRETTY AND MAKES ME CRY INSIDE sdfdgs I will never stop to yell about it... omgggg also this scene was super nice and sweet aawww, now I cry more. Also ita dubbing confirmed to be nice enough to not make me cringe, thank you *prays*

Stay tuned for more ticcy adventure, I love this game help.

Also Bonus thing I should be quiet about because it’s spoiler (? not about story tho) and I was so WOW when I saw it,but I also want to yell about it so beware. Hints: it’s green, it flies and it was near the lake.

..

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.

.

.

.

.

So I was chilling around getting some strong weapons from lizarfos and....

... what is... that???

Oh my gOd It’S A DRAGON. A GIANT DRAGON IS FLYING SUPER CHILL  ON THE WATER. WHAT.

GIANT DRAGON!!!!!!!!!

I hadn’t the camera yet then so I couldn’t register it in the tablet MMMMH I hope to see it again! It also killed me, good thing I had a fairy with me. I discovered later that is not a boss, and can’t be killed, you just get a scale from it for future sake. And apparently there are others around the worls, o h my god this game Is INSANE

goodbye dragon ;0; sorry if I shoot you with an arrow

[gallyg]

Extended Thoughts on Breath of the Wild (spoilers below the cut)

Breath of the Wild simultaneously feels like an idealized distillation of what Zelda is all about, and a very un-Zelda-like experience. The resulting experience feels both nostalgically celebratory, but also unfettered by traditions that don’t benefit the experience. I went into the game with some degree of cynicism, as I don’t care for survival mechanics and the game seemed to be drifting further and further from a formula that I basically liked as a Zelda fan, but I was pleasantly surprised on both ends.

Perhaps I would have known  more about what the survival mechanics in Breath of the Wild were going to entail if I had paid more attention to the pre-release information, but I was trying to stay away from it since I am a doormat for Aonuma and will buy the game anyway, even if I thought it'd be bad, just to keep up on what's going on with the franchise. Or maybe it was never clear. Either way, I don't really care for the idea of having to hunt for food to feed myself because I get hungry. I was relieved to discover that there isn't actually a hunger mechanic. You hunt for healing items or elixir ingredients, but you only need to cook them if you want to heal yourself or create a potion to give you specific buffs. Cooking is a rather tedious, boring process, but at least you only need to do it on occasion to stock up on healing items and elixirs. You can even just eat the fruits and meats raw for a small heal if you don't want to cook anything.

The interesting consequence of this is that you don't have straight-up hearts to collect anymore. Grass drops almost nothing in this game and monsters only drop cooking and crafting material. This is part of a trend Zelda has been on lately with cutting out random consumable drops like arrows and bombs. It all started when Twilight Princess decided not to have random bomb drops, and it comes to a head now when enemies only kind of have random arrow drops if they had a bow and arrow. This makes me curious what exactly the "hard mode" DLC they have planned for Breath of the Wild will entail. Hero Mode is the recent Zelda standard hard mode, and its main feature is the lack of heart drops. The only difference here would be increased enemy health and damage, which really just makes the game more annoying than hard. Here's hoping for more of a Master Quest approach to the game's difficulty, as the puzzles in Breath of the Wild are significantly less demanding than the combat.

This leads me to the other big part of Breath of the Wild's survival mechanics: weapon degradation. The Master Sword is the only weapon you have that won't break, and even it will need to recharge every once in a while. Everything else? Shit breaks after a few skirmishes, at best. If you're fighting a stronger enemy like a Guardian or a Lynel, you will often have to burn through two or three swords just to take a single enemy down. This is substantially more annoying than the cooking, as it is an omnipresent fact that every single weapon you find that you like is either going to be relegated to "too good to use" territory or be quickly disposed of, as there isn't even a way to repair damaged weapons in this game, as far as I could find, anyway.

This is a small annoyance that never really stopped nagging at me, but it is basically the only negative to this game's combat. Wind Waker gave the combat a more fluid feeling, and Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword gave you more ways to act in combat, but the core issue of enemies being weak and passive has only ever been slightly addressed. In Breath of the Wild, running from a fight is not an easy get-out-of-jail-free option, because enemies tend to be quite aggressive in chasing you down. Rushing headfirst into battle is also not a mindless exercise in button mashing on most enemies, because the monsters of this game actually attack when you'd expect something trying to kill you would. Nothing like Twilight Princess's bokoblins dancing and screeching an inch from your face for thirty seconds before finally doing a half-heart attack. The enemies in this game will mess you up if you let your guard down. If you decide to invest in stamina over hearts in the early game, you can find yourself regularly getting one-shot by normal monsters. I think this change is especially welcome in The Breath of the Wild, as it does make the more substantial resource management of its survival mechanics feel more relevant.

I mentioned earlier that the puzzles were a bit easier than the combat, and while I stand by that, I don't want that to come across as a slight against the puzzles, because the puzzle design of this game is absolutely brilliant. This game takes full advantage of its systems when it comes to the puzzles. While you might find a Sheikah shrine that clearly wants you to use all your abilities to move some blocks in such a way that they stay in place and finish an electrical current, you can also just throw all your metal weapons at the circuit to make the connection. You might be expected to use stasis to launch an object at a button across a long body of water, but you can also just build yourself a little bridge with ice blocks, three at a time, until you can push the button yourself. You might be expected to manipulate the room geometry to carefully maneuver yourself higher up, but you can also just use your high jump if you've already completed the dungeon that gives you that. This all technically makes the puzzles "easier", and even the intended solutions tend to be pretty straight-forward, but the way you are allowed to experiment and abuse all the games mechanics to achieve success makes for a great system of player expression. Or to put it less pretentiously, it's fun.

All in all, I like the exploration in Breath of the Wild. It's freedom from the moment you finish the tutorial, and there's always more to find. My only complaint really is that the visuals can get a bit boring. The vast majority of the overworld feels the same with the repeating theme of fields and trees and mountain ranges. There's a few areas that are a bit different, of course, but it's mostly just the dungeon quests around those aesthetics, so most of the exploring still happens in that eternal green field. Fun to traverse, rewarded with finding tons of shrines with interesting puzzles, not a whole lot to look at while you're doing it.

I've heard people complain about the enemy variety, and I do think it makes the world feel a bit bland when combined with the above point, but I think it's made up for to some extent by how many references to the rest of the series there are. Nothing to Spirit Tracks, sadly, but Phantom Hourglass's cast has some islands named after them, Tingle's brothers get some islands, Koholint gets a mountain, Fi gets alluded to, the Wind Waker races are back, even Minish Cap gets a shoutout. And of course, Ocarina of Time gets referenced plenty because of Ocarina of Time privilege.

I am a timeline theorist, so the fact that all these references seem contradictory is exciting to me. It's been a long time since Hyrule Historia and we haven't really had a game that muddied the timeline since then. The Sheikah, Rito, and Zora all co-existing in healthy numbers like they do here makes no sense, even if we grant that every name on the map is just a coincidence. It's fun to think about, and the general conclusion I've come to is that if it is meant to make any literal sense, the Hyrule Historia timeline is useless in discerning that sense. Aonuma even confessed that the timeline he works off of changes to suit the purposes of whatever game they're currently developing. Three games and six years have passed since Hyrule Historia. The timeline they work off of has definitely changed as well. And that's even ignoring my general opinion that the authorial intent does not matter when it comes to theorizing.

That's just speaking literally, though. What the game feels like, to me, is the metaphorical resolution of the Zelda series. The last major game introduced the concept of Demise's spirit and felt like the true origin of the legend. This game features Calamity Ganon, an ethereal spirit/eldritch horror that feels like a spirit that has put up with dozens of lifetimes and thousands of years of anger and frustration. It has degraded into a horrific form, a return to that force of nature Demise was before being reincarnated as Ganondorf so many times. You are not fighting a man or a beast, you are fighting hatred and malice incarnate. This combined with the inclusion of may beloved elements from all the games, timeline coherence be damned, makes me believe that this game is meant to be the definitive end of the story, not just of the adult, child, or downfall timeline, but to Zelda as a whole.

Or maybe it's just after Adventure of Link, I donno.

Random Thoughts:

The Koroks in this game are tear-wrenchingly adorable in this game. Only the ones in the forest, though. The Koroks in the overworld don’t have any unique character or dialogue.

I played this game with my girlfriend and she put forth the amazing idea of having to find replacement Champions for the Divine Beasts as an alternate version of the story. Riju pilots Vah Naboris, Teba pilots Vah Medoh, Yunobo pilots Vah Radunia, and Sidon pilots Vah Ruta. I love this idea and consequently hate that they just had ghosts pilot the Divine Beasts instead.

Remember not that long ago when Twilight Princess, Phantom Hourglass, and Spirit Tracks made it seem like we were headed toward a Steampunk aesthetic? Funny how the somewhat cybertech aesthetic of the Twili are what seems to have stuck around more, with Fi being basically a robot, Skyward Sword having literal robots, and now this game straight up just giving Link an iPad.

So the magic meter is never coming back, right? Right. Damn shame. I don’t like the stamina meter as much.

Much as I enjoy the more open games, I do hope that we eventually see more linear Zelda games. I love the more structured take on things as well. Both of the last two mainline games opted to give you every relevant item from the start over the traditional approach of gaining items throughout the game to unlock the ability to get to new places, which as a Metroid fan I love. Even if it is technically less freedom, it feels more rewarding because when you get somewhere and beat the challenges there, your prize is basically more ability to explore the world.

People complain that this game had no good music but Stone Talus is right here:

[saruteku]

Breath of the Wild Review

Breath of the Wild is the launch title for the Nintendo Switch as well as the Death Marker for the Wii U. It was one of the most hyped games when it was announced and promised to be completely different than the average Zelda title completely destroying it’s own formula. But you already know this. This is my view of the game with it’s strong points and weak points.

Graphics: 7/10 The graphical style works for a Zelda game. It is a midpoint between Windwaker’s cartoony style which makes the game seem childish and Twilight princess’ more realistic style which made it serious. BOTW is a game that can put you at ease with a lot of it’s beautiful scenery or it can put the fear of god in you when there are suddenly 5 Guardian Beams pointed at you. This lets the game be dorky and carefree as well as serious, plus the game would probably have been unable to handle Twilight Princess level graphics with such a huge world.

Music: 4/10 For a zelda game it was rather....Underwhelming. None of it’s track really grabbed me and pulled me in, there is nothing I want to look up. It was nice hearing a few tributes to other game songs, but it really wasn’t enough. And one thing that honestly annoys me to this day. With so many of Ocarina of Time’s tracks being used WHY WAS GERUDO VALLEY NEVER REMADE OR TRIBUTED TO!!!

Story: 4/10 Remember. I love the Zelda Franchise and games, but I couldn’t let this one slide. The story was extremely generic, probably due to it being an open world which is rather hard to make a story for. Most of the story is shown threw memories which, surprising for a Zelda Game has voice acted cutscenes, but without saying who’s who we have the Silent Hero as always, the “I can’t do this” girl, the I’m scared man, I love you always, ect, all rather boring characters with little real personality. I wish I could have known them a bit better but the NPCs you meet in every city have more substance than the mains.

Combat: 9/10 I HAVE NEVER DIED SO MUCH IN A ZELDA GAME!!!! Fighting isn’t like in other games at all. Usually you get your sword and shield and cut slice threw everyone or you use your special item to solve an obvious puzzle weakness. in this one you need to consider things before you run in. Arrows aren’t as easy to stockpiled as say Skyrim, every sword, shield, and bow breaks meaning even the iconic Master Sword and Hylian Shield will not save your ass forever, and the enemies do not have any item specific weaknesses except the Shikah Slate Runes you get in the begining of the game. Even as a 3 heart hero with a tree branch and a pot lid if you are skilled enough you can attack stronger foes and kill them, nothing is locked out, it’s just hard as hell. In this game even if your weapons and armor get stronger it’s only half of the battle, as everything you have that makes you stronger you EARNED and if can be taken if you are reckless.

The World: 8/10 The world is fucking huge. Some people may view the emptiness as a bad thing but the emptiness actually really add to the world. Yes, travel is annoying at times. We all side jumped to fast travel in the 64 titles, and the mountains can be a huge annoyance, especially when nature decides to start raining when you’re half way up, but with all of the Shrines and towers there are a lot of fast travel points when you discover them, allowing Nintendo to show off the world they created as well as not annoy players after they have already seen parts of it. Everything is available from the get go. You don’t need special items to unlock the power of the Great Fairies, the Master Sword or even to get to Ganon, they meant it when they said if you can see it you can get to it. This made me wonder about how the bountries of the map would be but players are stopped by mountains that are impossible to climb and oceans you can’t cross. The world itself also adds it’s own challanges including temperature, weather (Getting struck by lightning isn’t fun, but it can be weaponized) and the elements, as Fire spreads and the before mentioned lightning.

Dungeons: 5/10 It’s kinda hard to call them dungeons as this is another things that was changed from the normal formula. It’s more the entire world is a giant dungeon as getting to the Divine Beasts has it’s own challenges and trials, and honestly once you found out the puzzles in the game once they are simple as a lot of puzzle elements are reused quite a bit. Same as with Shrines as there are a ton of them and they each offer a different challenge, but they just aren’t that big, that hard, or honestly that interesting. I do miss the well planned out bigger dungeons, but hey, it gives you the stronger weapons, something of great use in this game. I gave it 5 because it’s nostalgia combating the changes.

Gameplay: 9/10 I’ll be honest, the cooking alone is brilliant. It’s not a menu based one and the food you make can be completely controlled. exacally as many hearts as you need, as strong a buff as you need, and Elixers help you not waste your precious heart regenerating items. Next is the clothing which gives link a lot of versitility not seen in other games. He has more than just water breathing and heat resistence, climbing faster, being stronger, seeing the exact number of an enemies health. Stealth is useful (The Shiekah Armor is my armor of choice in this game) and even though this could have been in combat stealth kills, perfect counter, flurry attack, the small additions in the game allow you to exist in the world, and the thing I love more than anything in a game is immersion, and though BOTW has nowhere near as much immersion as Skyrim Link can own a house, help build a town, camp (Kinda) and take selfies. The one reason I cut down gameplay is because, at least in my case, I can never 100 percent beat the game because one of my shrines crash the game, and sometimes in combat I get a framedrop so bad I freeze up making dodging hard. It seems to have only happened against Guardians which makes it a bit worse, but since it seems I can reproduce the issues and they aren’t common they don’t destroy playability.

Final score: 6.5/10

That’s all I can think of for now. I will not say it is the best game ever, but it is a great title for 2017, and an amazing Zelda game dispite the story and the ending in my opinion lacking