#if you ever played Zelda games growing up

[ruggiesbiologicalfather]

NRC Boys As Things My Students Have Said

context: my students are 3-5 years old. preschoolers can have more advanced vocabularies than people think so do NOT come in here saying "little kids don't talk like that" they absolutely do

Heartslabyul:

Riddle - "my mommy says tattoos are bad and you should never get one. why don't you listen to my mommy?"

Ace - "these are my Really Good At Running shoes, watch!" *immediately trips on the sidewalk and faceplants*

Deuce - "my head is really hard, listen!" *punches himself in the head*

Trey - "daddy, did you bring me a croissant?" [dad: "yeah, it's in the car"] *EAR SPLITTING SCREECH OF JOY*

Cater - "i made this phone so i can play games. don't worry, it's not real. i'm just a kid"

Savanaclaw:

Leona - "is it nap time yet?" [me: "not yet, we still have to eat lunch first] "uuuuuuUUUUUUUUUGH!"

Ruggie - "look, i found for real money! i found it in the sandbox so i can have it right? it doesn't belong to anybody 'cause it was just in the sandbox. and i didn't take it from anybody, i just found it. so i can have it, right? can i have it? can i take it home?"

Jack - "carrots make us strong and candy makes us weak... i'm gonna be really big when i grow up. bigger than you. bigger than the whole school. bigger than the whole earth!"

Octavinelle:

Azul - *after winning approximately two games of tic tac toe* "i guess i'm just gonna have to be the best forever. sorry everybody"

Jade - "look at all these mushrooms! ... let me eat them, PLEASE"

Floyd - "school is so boring, there's nothing to do except like... play and stuff"

Scarabia:

Kalim - *holding a wad of bloody paper towels against his nose* "nosebleed :D! i get a popsicle now, right!? YES!"

Jamil - "they're trying to show me their bugs and that's so mean! why would they do that!?"

Pomfiore:

Vil - "what would you like to order from my restaurant?" [me: "ooh, a restaurant! i think i would like-"] "you're getting poison spaghetti"

Rook - "look at my bow and arrow!" [me: "wow, that's really cool. just remember, we don't shoot our friends. you can shoot your arrows at the trees or the-"] "i don't want it anymore"

Epel: [me: "hey kiddo, godzilla needs to go in your cubby while we have group time, then you can get him out and play with him"] "what the fuck!?"

Ignihyde:

Idia - "have you ever heard of the zelda game? i know all about it, i'm really good at it. probably better than you are actually"

Ortho - "no, stop, you can't pretend to be my sister. no, don't say her name! that's my sister! NOOOOOOO!"

Diasomnia:

Sebek - *as loud as he can from the top of the climber* "I AM VERY ANGRY!"

Silver - "mommy said i CANNOT take a nap today 'cause i won't sleep tonight but that's really not true 'cause i can sleep all the time"

Lilia - [me: "your birthday's tomorrow buddy! are you excited to turn four!?"] "no, 'cause i'm gonna kill myself! :D"

Malleus - *whispered into another kid's ear after singing happy birthday* "i hope you never die"

[opennwindows]

If you can, could I request BEN Drowned fluff / smut headcanons like about himself, with his headcanon age, hobbies, facts, what he is into or would like & want in a relationship, and what he would be like with a gamer girlfriend/ s/o?

If ya taking requests rn still?✨😇😊💖

Ben Drowned general + NSFW hcs

A/N: yes!! absolutely. i love getting to talk about how the pastas do their pastaing in my mind. i have so many headcanons for everyone that im excited to share!! also sorry i forgot to include the gamer gf part but i don't think it would change a lot of what i wrote!!

btw sorry for fucking dying i have been busy 😭😭 but no one worry i will still continue to work on requests!! if anyone has any marble hornets stuff they wanna request i will zoom you to the front of the queue so fucking quick. anyways enough of me yapping.

cw: 18+ nsfw, toxic relationships, crying kink,

GENERAL

ben is mentally and physically 22, but he can be quite emotionally immature at times. when he died he never stopped growing and maturing, his soul was just stuck in limbo. think like the worst waiting room ever.

he's surprisingly tall, standing at about 5'9. he's lanky but not bone thin. could easily get pretty far in a fight without his ghost powers.

the link costume only appears when he’s in his ghost form. so for example, when he’s messing with someone on their computer he’ll appear as the canon BEN we’re most familiar with. when he’s just chilling in his physical body, he mostly wears beat up hoodies and sweatpants.

contrary to popular belief, ben's not the hardcore gamer everyone thinks he is. sure, he'll play some overwatch or whatever when he's bored but he honestly just prefers to watch tv and browse the internet. understandably REFUSES to play any zelda games. if you were trapped in a video game for decades would you ever wanna touch it again? exactly.

ben loves to draw little comics and troll (see: horrifically traumatize) people online. god forbid you get into twitter beef with this man because he will crawl through your monitor at 3am and leave you with a crippling fear of technology. dude thinks it's absolutely hilarious. a true knee slapper.

lowkey has a sugar addiction. will slam down 4 cans of pepsi in one sitting. he's very lucky that he's basically a ghost because the kidney stones would be plentiful.

ROMANTIC

you know that guy with the blown out speakers in his car, lives off of energy drinks and burnt blue razz ice elfbars, swears aphex twin is the modern mozart and works on the grill at your local wendy’s? yeah thats ben. or at least would be him if he was still human.

“why would you need a chair, my lap is literally right here babe.”

would absolutely wear your skin if given the opportunity. not in a weird way. he’s just EXTREMELY touchy.

he needs someone who is significantly more organized and motivated than him. he can go almost a week without showering and it should honestly be considered biological warfare when he tries to smother you with affection during these episodes.

after awhile of you guys dating he LOVES the idea of y’all showering together. he has a fear of water and while showers aren’t too much of a trigger, your presence helps ease his anxiety.

favorite pet names: bro, dude, dawg, babe, bitch (non derogatory)

not really a romantic but he tries his best. a perfect date for him is just getting some takeout, watching youtube, talking about stupid shit and play fighting. if you want something more traditional or extravagant then he’ll oblige to make you happy but those types of dates make him feel quite suffocated and nervous. try to save those for special occasions.

now let’s talk about his problems because just like the other creeps he is ANGSTY.

he’s probably the most emotionally stable and healthiest of the group but he definitely still has his toxic traits, after all this man is a ghost that mentally tortures and kills his victims through manipulation.

ben would never ever get physical with his partner no matter how enraged he is but he absolutely is the type to do some mental damage when he gets carried away. ben drowned? more like ben gaslighted.

the type to say some shit that would keep you up for years and then kiss you the next morning like the argument never happened. he finds it easier to ignore problems than to actively talk and fix them. you’re gonna have to teach him some important communication skills or else you’ll grow to resent him after all the bottled up rage.

a bit too brutally honest and blunt for his own good so if you have thin skin the relationship would fall apart pretty quickly. he wants someone who can drag him twice as hard as he dragged you. bonus points if your insults are consistently funny as hell.

please watch anime with him and discuss it. he would propose on the spot, especially if you play with his hair.

pro player tip: if you want him to clean his disgusting room, help him and make it fun! he just needs a little push and motivation at times. and being around you makes him want to get his shit together.

big fan of late night make-out sessions. i’m talking like 45 minutes straight of just slobbering on each other’s faces with tongues down throats. if you don’t want his hands running over every inch of your body then you’ll probably have to chain him to the wall.

NSFW

okay. so he’s a little inexperienced with his hands. he’s just a slow learner. be vocal with him about what you like!!

ben's about 7inches and slightly skinnier than average but he will have you seeing stars in record time. the dick game is no joke. he tends to go fast and deep most times.

i can see him being a switch in the idgaf-as-long-as-i’m-fucking way. dude will go with the flow and will try mostly anything.

definitely one of the least aggressive pastas during sex. he has sadistic tendencies but he’s more of a edge/overstimulate you until you cry versus a beat the shit out of you and rip hair out of your scalp type. he’s pretty vanilla given his occupation.

despite his love of roasting the fuck out of you on a daily basis, the only words that come out of this man’s mouth is heavenly praise. he looks at you like you’re the most gorgeous being on the planet and he’ll let you know it.

he loves to whisper praises into your ear while you ride him.

he's more of a receiver than a giver when it comes to oral. he'll absolutely spend hours between your legs if given the chance but nothing beats the sight of you on your knees and teary eyed with his length in your mouth.

he can be a bit of a head pusher but just let him face-fuck you every now and then, hearing his loud moans will be worth it.

did i mention how much of a crying kink this man has? you guys could be on round three and if he stares at your teary eyed fucked-out face for longer than 10 seconds he'll immediately get hard again. you'll have to beg him to give your poor body a break.

he's also into choking but only if he's the one doing it. if you try to restrict his breathing he'll panic and the mood would get ruined.

[a-bit-too-much-of-a-zelda-fan]

I really like the decision to set TotK a few years after BotW, as opposed to the few months we’re used to in direct Zelda sequels. It gave the world a substantial amount of time to change. Hyrule is livelier. In the years of relative peace since Calamity Ganon was vanquished, it’s been allowed to grow and thrive. Hateno Village, the largest Hylian settlement, is becoming economically significant as a tourist destination and food supplier. It’s especially cool to see Riju, Tulin, and Kass’s kids mature into their adult/teenage years, respectively.

Building on that, I think it’s neat that Link is in his early twenties now. This is the oldest Link we’ve ever played as (Skyward Sword held the previous record at 17.5 y/o). He’s had time to adjust to life post-calamity. His traumatic mutism seems to be all but gone. You ever notice just how much he talks in this game? Dialogue options galore, he’s constantly explaining things to other characters, all that. And he’s more expressive, too. He outright laughs when he fuses weapons.

Link’s relationship with Zelda has also had time to grow. Guys. Fellas. Broskis. They live in the same house. In which there is only one bed. They are together. The implication here is that they share most of their meals together, and remember, it’s key to his characterization that he opens up emotionally when he’s cooking or eating. That means there has been a lot of quality bonding time between them.

Before and during the Calamity, Link served as Zelda’s royal bodyguard because the king demanded it of him. Given how he went mostly mute from the pressure of being entrusted with the princess’s safety and being chosen as the Hylian Champion (at age 17, mind you), I’d wager he didn’t particularly like the assignment until he started bonding with her. He looks downright sad when she snaps at him in that one memory at the shrine. Hell, he doesn’t smile once in the memories.

But you know what? I get the feeling that Link protects her now not out of duty like he used to, but out of love. That’s powerful because “love conquers all” and all that, but also, there’s no external pressure to be her bodyguard. Until the Upheaval, he was done being a special little hero. He was just a swordsman, but he still went where Zelda went to protect her. So instead of being crushed by that pressure, protecting her is an expression of his love for her. It’s a choice and he’s doing it because he wants to, not because it was forced on him.

That’s a lot of growth to go through, and it was paced over several years. He doesn’t appear to have aged much, but enough time has passed that Hudson has a daughter who can hold a mature conversation. That’s what, 5 years old? Yeah, Link is in his early twenties. Fucking finally, the task of saving the world falls on the shoulders of an adult (although speaking as someone entering his mid-twenties, that honestly isn’t much better).

I’m starting to ramble here so I’ll leave a parting observation of Link and Zelda’s house in Hateno. Zelda has redecorated a fair bit since moving in with Link, replacing his weapon racks with photos of her horse and various Hyruleans (her subjects who she cares deeply for), but the photo of her, Link, and the Champions is still up. And that’s really cute.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

THE GERUDO POST

(aka an attempt at a critique of how gerudos were handled in BotW and before)

Oh no. TOTK being right around the corner, it might finally be time for the Gerudo Post.

(aka half of the reason why I made a Zelda sideblog in the first place)

So I want to preface all of this by saying that, as you could probably tell already, I’ve always adored the gerudos. They have fascinated my small child brain when I was 7; then the obsession made its comeback when I was 14, and now, here we are, almost 28, and I’m still thinking about the gerudos. I think they might be among my favorite fictional cultures for their potential and their understated storyline. I guess growing up in a very Arabic neighborhood, coupled with being bi-culturally latinx (?? does Brazil count?? you tell me), also always made them feel like home to me –especially when I was very young and there was not a lot of cool female representation flying around that managed to involve fiercely independent PoC women, flaws and teeth included.

This whole weird-essay-thing tries to do two things. First: analyze the place gerudos have occupied in the series, their initial problematisms and their subtextual narrative arc during the Myth Era coupled with their relationship to Ganondorf. Second: tiptoe to Breath of the Wild and poke it with a stick to see what happens –and in doing that, explain why I believe a lot of their characterization was defanged in service of smoothing their past with the hylians instead of deepening the culture on its own terms, and why I’m a little apprehensive about what that might mean for TotK even though I adore seeing the best girls at it again.

Those are the uhh terms of service??

And now, we must go back to 1998.

OCARINA OF TIME ERA

There’s so many things about the gerudos that are noteworthy and rich, and they’ve made for a complex piece of Zelda lore ever since their introduction –and when I say complex, I don’t 100% mean it as praise. The very racially charged decisions made about their inclusion have been discussed at length by the fandom, especially when it comes to orientalist and Islamophobic tropes being deployed pretty thoughtlessly in Ocarina of Time (their sigil being literally a crescent moon and star originally, the parallels are pretty obviously there).

We’re talking about a band of amazon-like, big-nosed brown women from the desert ruled by a single Scary Evil Man born once every hundred years hellbent on conquering Hyrule who they apparently worship like a god, characterized primarily as thieves, decked in jewelry and orientalist-inspired harem/belly-dancing clothing, hostile to the white good guys of Hyrule (especially men), unblessed by the Goddesses and so deprived of elongated ears (this is true for OoT –we’ll come back to that), also known as a demon tribe with their deity straight-out described as evil-looking by Navi (on my way to cancel you on twitter Navi you watch out), and secretly led by evil twin witches who can turn into a single seductress and, as two mothers, raised their Scary Evil Guy king who happens to basically be the devil.

In so few words, gerudos are the future that liberals want.

It’s worth notice, also, that Ganondorf’s characterization in this game is… kind of relentlessly uncomfortable to play through, especially before the 7 year skip. The utter assumption of depraved and evil intents from every character surrounded by dialogue that does little to hide its biases in spite of having generally very little proof to back them up –even though, in the game’s context, every character is correct to call his eyes evil and the darkness of his skin a moral judgment in on itself. The scene where Zelda demands that we believe her conclusion that the sole and only brown guy in the entire kingdom is evil and will do harm, and the game straight out refuses to progress until we concede that her dreams are prophetic and that this man must be stopped at any cost even though she has no more proof than her discomfort… hits different on replay.

I’m restating all of this not to pretend I’m making a novel and thought-provoking point, but to bounce back on a tumblr post I saw a while back (that I can’t find anymore!! I’ll link it if I find it again) –and so express what it is that gripped me with the gerudos in spite of their pretty damning depiction… and actually maybe thanks to it.

There’s a surprising amount of texture to Ocarina of Time’s worldbuilding that exists folded within the things introduced and left hanging, or in its subtext –and whether on purpose or not, I believe it is why people keep coming back to this iteration of Hyrule.

What was that about the king of Hyrule unifying a war-torn country? Why did the gerudos break the bridge connecting them to the rest of the kingdom during the 7 year timeskip while still worshiping Ganondorf, and why are the carpenters trying to rebuild it against their apparent wishes? What was that about gerudos imprisoning hylian men trying to force entry into their lands? What was that about the secret death torture chambers right next to the Royal Family’s tomb and connected to the race of people who were, apparently, born to serve them?

Nothing? Oh okay… okay… okay….

The same can be said about this strange depiction of this hostile tribe, consistently described as wicked yet suddenly friendly once you prove you deserve their respect once you... defeat them, so you now have joined them? Ocarina of Time isn’t very consistent when it comes to characterizing them as their occupation (thieves) or as a proper culture, with a king and a strange system of rulership that seem to involve at least 5 people: Ganondorf, the Twinrova, Nabooru and the unnamed random woman who decides you’re now part of the gerudos because you slashed enough of them with your sword and hookshot, which, uhh ok.

They’re but a ragtag and negligible group when discussed next to gorons and zoras and hylians, but they also clearly have their own religion and at least a 400-hundred years old history (probably far longer than this) and hints of a written language of their own. I’m not sure the game itself knows what it wants them to be, beyond: intimidating and hot and cool, but also wicked and, because of Ganondorf and the way you barge in their forbidden fortress (heh) with the explicit intent to dismantle their king, in apparent need to be saved from themselves.

Speaking of rulership and the Spirit Temple, let’s have a quick tangent about Nabooru: I always found her characterization when meeting with Child Link pretty strange. I refuse to mention the promised reward, which feeds into everything orientalist mentioned above, but I always found her moral compass so extremely convoluted for someone coming from gerudo culture. Nabooru says that, despite being a cool thief herself, she resents Ganondorf for killing people as well as stealing from women and children. Stealing... from women. Nabooru. Why are you this pressed that he steals from women!!! This feels so out of place, that the only girl of that hostile culture that betrays her king and befriends you, is the one that upholds moral values that only a hylian could possibly hold.

Either way: the strange unquestioned contempt of the game for them as a culture, mixed with the occasional bouts of heart, friendliness and badassery, makes it hard not to consider their depiction as pretty biased in favor of the hylians finding them at once exotic, scary and exciting, and could hide a more complex reality you might only get one side of –especially when you know there were originally plans for Ganondorf’s character to be more gray and motivated than what the campy final version ended up being. To be blunt: even in the context of a game for children, and maybe because of that fact, it all reads like a reductionist and imperialist/colonialist reading of a more complex situation.

This might seem like A Lot coming from a game where the actual game writing can be this overall flimsy and simplistic due to the standards of the time (it’s rough, it's so rough). But I would have never dwelt on that thought about a little children’s game if not for the mainline entries that came soon after, because... ooo boy.

The sense you’re not getting the whole story was certainly not helped by the introduction of Wind Waker Ganondorf, and the chilling emptiness of Gerudo Desert in Twilight Princess.

AFTER THE TIMELINE SPLIT

(I’m skipping Majora’s Mask, not because I dislike them in the game or think they’re not worth talking about, but because it’s a parallel universe and they’re never even called gerudos and their reality seems extremely different from their sisters in Hyrule so I think it’s okay to call them tangential and not dive too deep in this particular depiction)

Here’s something I want to highlight about gerudos and how they were characterized before BotW came along: their absence. Not only their physical absence, the lack of any gerudo character that calls themselves gerudo, but their absence from the text itself.

It’s not that Wind Waker and Twilight Princess retroactively scratch them off existence: we can clearly see Nabooru’s stained glass art in WW as well as recognize them being mentioned in Ganondorf’s final boss soliloquy, and WELL there’s quite a lot to say about their imprint over the world of TP. They are there –or at least they... were there. But nobody ever talks about what happened.

In Wind Waker, there was the deluge. It’s assumed lots of people died then, and those who survived scattered across the Great Sea. Are they sealed under the waves? Have they drowned? Is Jolene, Linebeck’s ex-girlfriend in Phantom Hourglass, a distant relative of one of the rare survivors? It’s unclear, beyond the fact that Ganondorf is the only living gerudo we see in this entire branch of the Timeline split.

In Twilight Princess, the desert which bares their name is empty. The hylians never mention that it used to be the name of a tribe: they’re not even named when Ganondorf is introduced for the first time, reduced once again to a mere band of thieves. We learn his plans to steal the Triforce in OoT were foiled, and that he may have turned to war. Then he lost the war, and was executed in Arbiter’s Ground: a strange structure in the desert, a mixture between a temple, a prison and a coliseum. What looks like gerudo writing coexists with hylian symbols, which often look much fresher. This dungeon is the Shadow Temple of TP: a prison hosting the worst criminals the kingdom has ever known, now haunted and cursed. Besides the locations, the only character that vaguely look gerudo in the entire game besides Ganondorf is Telma, a character with pointed ears that never seems to identify as anything but a hylian. What happened? Who’s to say. Nobody ever says anything. Not even Ganondorf bothers to mention them the way he did in WW –and though the game’s story is quite focused on another exiled tribe seeking revenge and dominion over Hyrule as retribution, the parallel is never explicitly drawn. So who’s to say what happened there. Who’s to say.

And in A Link to the Past and the games forward? The only mention of other gerudo characters are Koume and Kotake, resurrecting their son in the Oracles games through their own sacrifice and failing to bring anything back but a monstrosity incapable of making conscious decisions. Granted, most games in that extremely weird Fallen Timeline predate OoT and therefore had yet to make gerudos up at all. Still: canonically, between the gap of OoT and ALLTP, whatever it may be, gerudos disappeared here as well.

I think there’s something subtle and a little heartbreaking about the fact that no matter what Ganondorf does, the gerudos always end up dying out. His yearning for Hyrule, its gentler wind and the Triforce blessing its lands always costs him the kingdom that he does have already.

Now, does he care? A lot of people would argue that he doesn’t, that he used them like pawns for his own ambition and saw them as servants more-so than sisters, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Nintendo’s official opinion, but… One very powerful thing about most of Ganondorf’s incarnations (focusing on the human ones) is that he never seems to reject his cultural heritage. They could have gone for him wearing more kingly hylian stuff given the whole underlying theme of envy and pride surrounding his character, but never once does he try to look more hylian, beyond the ear situation that seems to be tied to the Triforce of Power? Either way: he is gerudo. Several of his outfits reference his mothers, as well as general gerudo patterning and jewelry. His heritage is something he proudly displays, even hundred of years in the future when there is no one left to remember what it means but him. I think it’s a very potent piece of characterization, an arc that crosses over multiple game and says something pretty intense about this character’s fate and his inherent destructiveness over the things he touches –starting with the Triforce, all the way up to his very own body and mind. His mental breakdown by the end of Wind Waker, when the king of Hyrule himself forces him to give up on the thing he sacrificed everything for, takes a new kind of weight with the whole picture taken into account.

(not to excuse genocide or general egomania-fueled madness and violence, but one thing doesn’t mean the other isn’t also relevant)

Regardless of whether this is a tragedy for Ganondorf as their uhh complete failure of a king, honestly, it is undeniably a tragedy for the gerudos themselves: a once-in-a-lifetime joyful event turned into a never-ending nightmare from which there seems to be no escape, their legacy now condemned to fade to black, leaving nothing behind but a demon boar forever laying ruin upon the world.

One may say I’m taking on the bleakest explication for the gerudos’ absence when there could be others. It’s true! Perhaps the gerudos are just chilling off-screen, completely fine, not interested in whatever is happening in the kingdom nearby and their disaster child having yet another temper tantrum about not being the Goddesses’ favorite boy. It’s possible! But regardless, what little elements we do possess as players doesn’t seem to support this, even if it remains possible –and regardless of actual gerudo lives, gerudo culture is definitively a goner in every single timeline.

Even if they did survive... Hyrule still won its unification war.

(I won’t mention Skyward Sword as they are not really a thing there, except for a butterfly that seems to suggest the Gerudo Province was a thing before the gerudo people –I don’t know what to do with this honestly– and the whole Groose situation, which, I’m not sure what to make of either beyond the fact that he may have gotten cursed by opposing Demise? And then went on to start the gerudo tribe, which ended up being an all-women group for some reason? Maybe? It’s not confirmed? I feel like it’s more of a fun tidbit than a central piece of the gerudo puzzle, so I’ll leave it there like I would a cool rock I brought back from a walk and that I don’t know where to put in my house)

Then, Breath of the Wild happened and changed things.

BREATH OF THE WILD

(Additional short note, but: while I won’t mention Four Swords Adventure, since it’s a weird one that almost nobody has played and severely messes with the Timeline, we kind of see the beginnings of what is about to happen in Breath of the Wild in this game –gerudos coming back without much explanation, then distancing themselves from Ganondorf to become friends with hylians because he was too hungry for power and now they are nice and have good reputation because they are our friendsss)

I was actually so happy to learn gerudos were making a comeback in a mainline Zelda game, and this got me more excited about Breath of the Wild than basically anything else the game involved. And getting to explore the Desert once again, meeting this new batch of impossibly tall buff girls, getting more about their language and their culture, Riju and the rest of the little girls are adorable, the grandmas are so cool, the sand seals??? sign me the fuck up??? And above it all, hanging around Gerudo Town at night and feeling as warm and cozy as little me liked to imagine how freeing it would feel, to stay there and watch the desert behind the safety of their walls in OoT… This was great. I loved it.

It was a huge compensation for the criticism I’m about to make, but did leave me with… questions regarding how their culture was going to be handled moving forward.

I’ll start with something small yet deeply revelatory, then work my way from there.

So... gerudos’ ears are pointy now.

This is pretty significant. Lore-wise, it’s been said that the elongated ears of hylians are there so they can better hear the voices of the gods. It’s considered a sign of holiness in-universe. There's a bunch of really thoughtful analysis on tumblr over that whole Ganondorf ear situation, which is a mess but also very interesting, but the short answer is: I think the absence of pointy ears was a clear design choice to originally signify them as Less Good. Even when Ganondorf gets pointier ears, they never get as long as hylians’. Worth noting: not every non-gerudo character has pointy ears: gorons, zoras and ritos (among others) do not possess this trait, and there are even some humans that have regular rounded ears in the series –though they always seem to be of lesser relevance, if not downright peasants in Twilight Princess. Pointy ears always tended to implied a strict hierarchy in the series: basically, the more pointy, the more Protagonist you become.

(also their eyes becoming green instead of the traditional yellow/golden, which looks more wicked and demonic --and cooler also tbh)

The pointy ears imply two things. From within the game, this could be interpreted in two ways: either that gerudos… converted, for a lack of a better term, and are now considered holy through their worship of the Golden Goddesses and/or Hylia, or that their mingling with hylians through tens of thousands of years had them acquiring this trait out of sheer genetic override (though they have kept their mostly-women birth rates, their big nose, darker skin –for the most part– and red hair). Probably a healthy mixture of both. Design-wise, it signifies something quite simple to the player: they are on hylians’ side now. They are good guys. We can trust them, even if they still have a little spice in them. They aligned themselves with us and against Ganon in all of its manifestations (even if he’s but an angry ghastly pig being parasitic to everything it touches in this iteration). They are on the side of Good, definitively, and will fight evil by our side.

On that note, I think it’s worth bringing out another major change from their initial iteration, which is their overt friendship with Hyrule as a whole, and with the Royal Family in particular. Despite not allowing any voe inside their walls (we’ll come back to this), their relationship with hylians is pretty neat. They have booming trade roads, travel and meet with the rest of the cultures, and are fierce enemies with the Yiga clan, who are renowned for being huge Calamity Ganon supporters. The tables certainly have turned. I want to bring out, in particular, Urbosa’s friendship with the queen and her role as the cool aunt taking care of Zelda and protecting her from evil (to be noted: I am not familiar with Age of Calamity so if I’m mischaracterizing her in any way, please let me know). The gerudo sense of sisterhood has been extended to the royals they used to fight against. I would go on and say the cultures peacefully coexist, but I think that what we’re looking at here is a case of vassal behavior, just like we used to have from zoras (in the non-Fallen Timelines) and gorons. This is a huge departure from gerudos being openly rejecting of Hylian culture in their initial iteration, and something that is worth returning to later.

Okay. Now it’s time to mention the weird obsession BotW gerudos have with romance. I didn’t take notice of my issues with their writing until I realized how prevalent of a theme that was. Now, the reason given for gerudos to refuse entry to males (of every race) has much more to do with preventing young gerudos to make mistakes than anything else, and is actively being put into question by the younger generations –which would make sense. But the amount of NPCs that either lament their lack of match, talk about their husbands (because they marry now apparently) or are invested in romance, and a very limited understanding of romance at that (heterosexual, closed, etc), makes for much more of the population that I initially expected. There’s no mention of what’s going on with their males, if there are new males being born and either exiled or abandoned, or if Ganondorf being technically still alive have have cut them off male heirs. Either way: no more kings, only girlbosses chiefs.

To have the gerudos so interconnected with Hyrule, not only through trade but through extremely coded romance where they have to make themselves palatable to a future male partner and enforce fidelity, was… a choice. The extremely brief and skippable mention of gerudos sometimes going to Castle Town in search for boyfriends in OoT became half of their personality traits in this game. We went from a race that was fiercely independent and mocking of the unworthy men who tried to mingle with them, to… this. Now I’m not saying some of the sidequests aren’t cute, or that I didn’t like the wedding, or that the grandma near the abandoned statue of Hylia (so she was worshipped at some point) clocking us and talking about her love life wasn’t one of my favorite gerudo conversations. I’m saying that the vibes have definitively changed. For the better? I’m not sure.

I once stumbled upon an article that said that Breath of the Wild gerudos were a huge improvement compared to their original introduction, because they were no longer presented as evil and hostile thieves groveling at the boot of a single man, but as a full culture allied with the protagonist and actively involved in the story, while still getting their Cool Girl Badass moment (again can’t find it anymore, I’ll link it if I stumble upon it again). I see where this comes from, but I honestly can’t help but consider it a reading that assumes something pretty major (though through no fault of their own, as the games tend to hammer this down as hard as they can), and that being hylians as the unquestioned anchor of Good.

Which, in spite of what the games want me to believe, I… feel uncomfortable taking at face value.

To me, regarding how gerudos are being incorporated in that goodie narrative, this is kind of a case of surface-level feminism trumping over colonialist/imperialist concerns. It becomes more important to perform the aesthetics of being cool and friendly and independent than scratching at any deeper problem that would risk making people uncomfortable. This is kind of Green Skin Ganon all over again: oh wait, isn’t it a little icky to have the evil bad guy being brown while faced by the most aryan-looking ass heroes of all time? Okay, then let’s take the brown guy and make his skin green so we don’t have to feel bad anymore that the conflict has racial undertones!! Solved!! There’s nothing questionable about changing a PoC's features to make it more monstrous and less human, right?

To me, it’s kind of the coward option: instead of accepting the messy reality those initial choices created (and their interesting nuances if taken at face value), let’s just… rewrite the PoC culture’s history to make it feel less uncomfortable for the white heroes. In many ways, it is an extension of what hylians have always done: scrubbing the weird and messy things about the past and shoving them deep down into the spooky well and far into the desert prison and away in alternate hellish dimensions, and then make up a very simple story where they get to feel good about themselves –except this time, it’s the fabric of the games, the literal reality, bending backward to make it happen. Which, in my opinion, makes it much worse than before. Now, there’s no conversation. The fabric of reality is changing their own history so that there is nothing to discuss anymore. Ganondorf was always evil incarnate. He never had any point. It was always 100% his own fault, his own hubris, his own fated wickedness. He was always demonic (and green, very important –having a flashback to people on twitter accusing artists restoring the TotK green skin to the original brown of wanting to make Ganondorf black, and like….. how do I put it gently…..)

And, above all else: gerudo are to distance themselves from his legacy so they can stay in the club of the Good and Just and Holy.

Because here’s the messy thing: as much as I love seeing the gerudos again in Breath of the Wild and as much I love for them to have survived the Era of Myth (??? somehow ???), this… kind of changes Ganondorf’s character arc. No longer do we have the story of a king who wanted more, either for his people, for himself or both, and led his culture to its destruction in his search for absolute Power, while remaining ironically incapable of maintaining what little he already had. This starts from him kneeling to the king of Hyrule in OoT and leads to the deluge, Arbiter’s Ground, his own mothers dying for the sake of his failed resurrection. Breath of the Wild changes this: now, the gerudo were apparently fine without him? They apparently did their own thing and became suddenly and inexplicably disconnected from his actions? I know it’s kind of implied they side with hylians at the end of OoT, but it’s honestly never really explored why they would cheer for the death of their king while never seeming to resent him before except for Nabooru –there are mentions of brainwashing for those who resist him (as well as “other groups in the desert”, tho they are never mentioned again), but it’s hardly a proper plot point for the majority of the tribe, aaaand they still die by Wind Waker in the Adult Timeline, in spite of their potential alliegance…

(again, this shift towards submitting to Hyrule actually started with Four Swords Adventure, getting crisper with each iteration)

There used to be this polite blur regarding Ganondorf’s relationship to them, how much he used them and how much he acted in their name (with arguments for both sides), and I think this messy and debatable question mark was one of the most compelling aspects of his character. Gerudos rejecting their relationship at a near-cosmic, reality-bending level, removes a huge layer of complexity to both parties… all for the benefit of making hylians come out cleaner out of this whole exchange, their moral grayness barely a whisper in the distance.

I’ll kind of go on the record and say that I suspect the addition of Demise to the canon to serve a similar purpose (at least in part): if Ganondorf becomes but the manifestation of a demonic curse, and is no longer an extremely messy character brimming with agency and drive, forcing the heavens to reckon with said agency in a way he was never meant to access, born from a complex set of circumstances from which we clearly get only a limited and biased perspective, then it becomes extremely clear that he’s a Bad in a way that isn’t worth exploring further. Even if he does have some points, he is a Bad. It’s what matters most. Not to say I even hate what this angle can bring to the table or that I want him to become Good (I don’t –I’ll talk more about why I dislike most takes on him being a helpless victim to the curse), but once again, who benefits from adding another Unquestionned Baddie to the equation to rest upon? Not him, and not the gerudos, that’s for sure.

So. Why did I, me, personally, like the gerudos in the first place?

Beyond the inherent coolness factor of their culture and the fascinating mysteries of what is merely suggested, I think… I think I loved gerudos because we were obvious outsiders. Because their rejection of Hylian culture was so sharp and extreme, their value system so different, and their writing, their religion, their relationship to power and hierarchy and worth wanted nothing to do with hylians. They didn’t need hylians, beyond them having potential resources to steal. In fact, the threat of hylians influencing their culture was such that the entry to the Fortress was forbidden to everyone (I don’t think men were ever singled out, by the way, even though they are mocked relentlessly). I think there was something inherently hopeful about this semi-matriarchy resisting the outside world, and especially its notions of what girls were meant to be –it was 1998, and every other girl character in OoT, besides Impa and Sheik that?? is another can of worms entirely, is either helpless or someone to save. For them to reject this narrow vision of femininity was, in my opinion, much more radical than what we got in BotW. Less nuanced, more problematic perhaps? But also much more powerful. Gerudo Valley is home, not to a town, but a Fortress.

Hylians were worth being resisted.

In Breath of the Wild, their refusal to let men enter their town is kind of boiled down to a fading tradition over-focused on romance, a meek little game of chase. Their entire goal seems to be finding a hylian to settle down with. Say what you will about the single man and the many girls (never explored and completely open-ended in its implications, btw), but at least it wasn’t… that. At least it opened the way for different ways for people to exist and imagine culture and civilization, outside of the heterosexual couple, the christian-infused patriarchy and its trickling down implications. What I want to say is: let my girls tell hylians they ain’t shit!! That they aren’t the end all be all of reality! This is what made gerudos so compelling in the first place! Where is that bite now? Where is that self-definition?

It’s gone, because hylians need to be Good. So we tee-hee at the creep running laps around the town, we disguise ourselves to breach their trust and infiltrate their town (though there is nuance to be had there, gender be complicated etc), we watch them pine after shitty dudes and take classes to become the perfect approachable woman and make love soups with ?? strange ingredients honestly, and we witness them get very friendly with the Royal Family they used to conspire against, dying to protect the princess against the manifestation of their ancient king reduced to a raving puddle of Bad Boar.

Hyrule, unified against him.

TEARS OF THE KINGDOM

For posterity’s sake: this post was made before the game was released. I’ll probably update my thoughts on a separate thing later on.

I don’t think gerudos allying with the hylians and burying their own legends about Ganondorf as deeply underground as they can until it blows up in their face is a bad setup at all. It’s actually pretty juicy, and there’s a ton of fascinating stuff that could happen here –even some involving gerudos taking a firm stand against him while still reconnecting with their past and the choices they made once. This is my hope with the title of the game: Tears of the Kingdoms. Let’s examine them all, account for the damage, and decide how we move forward from there with the full knowledge of where we come from.

What I am afraid of (and I already made posts about that) is the scenario where gerudos rallying against Ganondorf, which I expect will forcefully try to take back his place as their king, is used for cheap feminist points that completely fail to examine, well. Everything mentioned above. Where reality bends itself out of the way of the Goddesses, and hylians’ responsibility in any of this mess, so that everything bad is 100% Ganon’s fault and so he must be cast aside and torn away from the Cool Gerudo Girls and this is 100% justified and deserved because we are Independent Women Who Take No Shit from No Men (unless they are the king of Hyrule or any random hylian they wish to marry apparently).

I’ll say this here because it’s been burning my mouth every time I see discourse about Ganondorf and the gerudo: gerudos declared him as their king. To make a really bad comparison that I dislike: he didn’t run around to assemble girls and make a cult around himself, he was born with the cult already formed around him (and it’s not a cult, it’s just a different mode of governance –hylians also revere the Royal Family like gods, don’t they?). This heavily changes the dynamics at play. Not to remove any agency from him to do a little invasion about it, but chances are the ancestors to BotW’s gerudos fully expected him to behave in this way, at least to a degree –in OoT you see very plainly that they value physical prowess, feats of thievery, witchcraft and general violence. It’s more complicated than him being a Bad and making the poor helpless women go along with the plan uwu –even taking the brainwashing into account, AND Koume and Kotake counting as gerudos too, even if they might not be not fully innocent in shaping the culture and the man himself. If manipulation and forced servitude is the explanation given, I’ll be genuinely mad –because, once more, all the nuance and messiness would be flattened for the sake of making Ganondorf Bad and the gerudo Good (= on hylians’ side).

It bears to be said: I think feminism stances that require, not to criticize (which is fair), but to fully dehumanize and bestialize men of color to make any sense are uhhh bad, and it's worth questionning who they end up serving in the end.

The flip side of this would be to make Ganondorf a poor little meow meow that was secretly controlled by the evil Demise all along, and... I’ll be real. I really don’t think it solves our problem at all. It might even make it worse.

My problem with how gerudos have been handled thus far, being mostly connected to how they behave in relation to hylians Good, is that they’ve been systematically defanged not to threaten the status quo as much as they used to. I think it’s pretty clear why I’m not a fan of Ganondorf being a mere victim of cosmic circumstances; I have a post that goes more in depth about this, but to simplify: my man has legitimate grievances. To make him a mere puppet to Evil Incarnate would, to me, be just another attempt to erase the despotism of the Goddesses, the unjust hierarchy of the world, what hylians have historically done to the races they were in conflict with (looking at the Yiga for the most recent example…)

I’m not saying his fight is clean or even legitimate, that he isn't driven by his own sense of self-importance above anything else, or that he should win (he has no plan beyond domination and victory, that's not a future). But I think there’s something really important about having someone being willing to fully consume himself and everything around him for the simple fact that someone should resist the order of the world. Even if that makes him a heartless, cruel, and egomaniac demon-pig. Even if there’s no Hyrule left to rule. Even if his own people despise him, or are long gone and forgotten.

Is it a little heart-wrenching? Uhh yes to me yes most definitively. This is why Wind Waker Ganondorf hits so hard, and remains (I think) his favorite entry in the series so far. But… I still find this fate of eternal resistance more resonant and empowered, and far less grim, than if Hyrule’s lore absorbs his hatred and rage, gives it to another entity that would be Badder (= more opposed to hylians and the goddesses), and scrubs it off anything icky and uncomfortable, rendering it completely domesticated and non-threatening to hylian domination; rubbed of his skin color, of his complexity, of his own emotions, even made... kind of sexy now, in the same way his sisters have been made before him? I am very, very afraid of him being turned from furious and an unapologetic subject in his own legend to a "redeemed" (according to whom??) and palatable object in somebody else’s, that you now end up having to… save from himself.

Again, I want to trust that Tears of the Kingdom can walk that line and preserve everything sharp and contrasting and profound and thrilling about this fascinating setup. I don’t expect a philosophy course, this is a game for children –but it doesn’t mean Nintendo didn’t do an astounding job with similar setups in the past. Again, I’ll invoke the Wind Waker conflict, but Twilight Princess did a lot of great things as well (Zant’s speech, if you can get past the weird stretches and stumping and NNHYAAAs, is pretty fantastic) –and the subtle writing of Majora’s Mask is also proof enough this series can be complex without being impermeable.

So this is where my hope lies. Not really with BotW’s writing, which, I’m sorry to say, but I found to be below what the series has done in the past (I have no problem with the setup and how the story is explored, I think it was a great idea, but wasn’t ever sold on the actual writing the way I may have been with previous titles –it felt… very tropey to me overall, with a couple of highlights). But Nintendo has shown to know how to write compelling stories for children that know where to sprinkle its darkness and how to preserve its hope, and this is this side I’m relying on for this delicate storyline moving forward.

And now? Now… I suppose we wait and see.

(thank you for reading my impossibly long essay what the actual hell, at least I got it all out of my system, see you in part 2 for when TotK comes out I suppose aaa)

[ezlo-x]

“Wow I hope BotW gets a sequel someday…” - my TotK summary <3

It’s been a year, and honestly. I did not complete that game at all. I watched lets plays and cutscenes in youtube and a few playthroughs of my friends. And every time, my regret of buying this game grows ever so slightly. I know I sound mean and harsh but I prommy I got nothing against ppl who actually enjoyed TotK. This is more of my personal experience of how my excitement playing this game completely burned me out less than halfway through the game.

Gameplay

I’ll start with gameplay first, as I have issues with it. Let’s start with the physics of the game itself. Ngl, there was a small worry in the back of my mind when I realized there would be in-game physics and that you have to rely on those said physics. I personally don’t have a good experience with game physics and they usually tend to frustrate me. Which somewhat happened when playing the game. It didn’t happen too often, thankfully, maybe because the zonai parts didn’t tend to last long. Speaking of Zonai parts and builds

I wish building Zonai stuff was a bit more fun. Or at least give us more time to experience our builds. We already have a disadvantage by having a limited amount of batteries that you have to slowly upgrade throughout the game. So, seeing that one of your Zonai pieces starts to flash and disappear is annoying. I understand we can obtain more zonai parts throughout Hyrule, but I wish it lasted long enough. Also, the fact that you can’t really travel a lot in many of the builds, oh how disappointing it was to build a cool Zonai truck with big ass wheels but get frustrated that it couldn’t pass through a few bumps on the road. I feel like the Hoverbike is the best Zonai build of the game.

The Ultrahand is fun when trying to solve puzzles or merge random items. Fusing weapons, on the other hand, is my favorite thing in the game. There’s something really satisfying about fusing a really powerful weapon together. I really don’t mind that the weapons are breakable if that means I have a spot to make a strong weapon. Weapon durability never really bothered me. Both games push you to explore around to look for weapons. I think it would be boring if they weren’t breakable.

The shrines are a big improvement from BotW's shrines. I wished there were more challenging Shrines over the many King Rauru blessings. I can't really say much about the dungeons as I only completed two out of the five. But I think there was a bit to be desired; it's almost a Zelda dungeon.

Sage abilities. I want to speak to the game designer who thought it was a great idea to activate the sage abilities with the same button you click to pick up items on the floor. A total downgrade to the way you’d activate the Champion abilities in BotW.

Rupees. I would like to speak to the game designer who thought it was a great idea that you now have to manually press A to pick up rupees from the floor rather than casually walking in front of it to automatically pick it up. From my previous point, do you know how many times I’ve tried to pick up rupees only for Tulin’s ability to fly them away from me?

The sky islands, ohh boyyy, finding out that they had to reduce the amount of sky islands is disappointing, but I understand in a game design aspect. BUT it is disappointing that the game was advertising itself for the sky islands, only for there to be very few in the final. Like remember back in 2021 when they were advertising SkSw HD, and then i think a year later a totk teaser dropped and Link was falling from the skies? Good times ❤️

The Depths: I enjoyed the Depths a bit more than the Sky Islands. But it does get boring after a while if you’re not there to fight monsters or look for treasure, which is also disappointing. I love the OST descending down a chasm and entering the depths. Also, don’t get me started on how frustrating it is to use Zonai builds there compared to the surface or sky islands.

I think those are all my thoughts on the gameplay. I still have a few more issues with it but I feel like it mixes with the story so lets get that over with

Limitation vs Freedom

My biggest issue with this game is that it gives you the freedom to do whatever you want. However, there is still a story attached, and the story still wants to play out linearly. So, we have a game that grants you total freedom on how you want to play this game, but the story is still linear. But even if you decide to experience the story while doing dungeons and shrines. The game doesn't update with the piece of information that you discover.

The Dragon Tears are a really flawed way to experience the story. Zelda's memories are scattered across Hyrule; the number of times I've seen ppl say they accidentally got the tears out of order cause they thought it was similar to BotW's way of getting the memories. Basically, if you happen to be near one memory, you might as well get it cause it'll get annoying to go back and forth. Only to the person's shock, they got a cutscene meeting the Queen and King and then going up the Hebra region as that's the closest memory from the previous one. Just to see Queen Sonia dead on the floor.

What also bothers me is that the game doesn't update when you make a discovery in these memories. For example, I found out that Phantom Ganon can transform into Zelda in the memories and walk up to the NPCs in hopes of a change of dialogue. But getting nothing, walking up to Purah, Tulin, then Yunobo, and seeing no change of dialogue got really tiresome. It's as if the game doesn't believe you're smart enough to connect the dots.

Also, for people who decided to explore and get the Dragon Tear memories before entering any dungeon. There is very little change of dialogue, suddenly the game strangely punishes you by not letting the npcs acknowledge what you just discovered. While it's not an actual in-game punishment, you're stuck with characters asking a million questions that you already know of. Suddenly, the game's freedom to do whatever you want gets put to a halt because you decide to have the freedom to experience the story however you'd like.

NOW I get to move the part that I’ve been waiting (dreading) for!!

Lore

Sheikah Tech…I don’t care how simple the explanation is on why they are gone. It is probably the dumbest explanation I’ve seen. The fact that it wasn’t even questioned in-game and by the developers baffles my mind. How does it vanish in thin air? Their explanation is that the Calamity no longer exists doesn’t make sense to me either. The Sheikah tech has been there for more than 10k years but only in a dormant state. I don’t want to ask any more questions, or I’ll be here all day, but it drives me up a wall how the lore of the Sheikah got shafted to the side for the new stone technology aesthetic. Speaking of which-

Zonai in general. The fact that WE DONT EVEN GET LORE from the Zonais aside from being viewed as gods is sooooo ughhhhh I wish there was more. Why are there two remaining Zonais? (This probably got answered tbh but idc to look) Who’s the ancient hero and how come he looks like a Zonai or just in fact a different race we’ve never seen before?

Draconification…god. I have many thoughts and also many thoughts about the secret stones. It is an idea that I find interesting and could’ve worked for me. If it didn’t contradict itself in many aspects, as in how becoming a dragon, you will lose your sense of self. I think it would be a nice foreshadowing of the fate Zelda could’ve had. I think making the other dragons take a role in that and expand on it would’ve worked. Idk I think instead of implying it, it could’ve been expanded and shown a lot more severity of the situation.

Apparently I don’t got much on lore, but you know what I got much of????

STORY

This one is going to be a FAT one so bear with me. God where do I even begin here, I'm going completely omit the part where the game feels like it’s gaslighting you through the npcs cause I feel like everyone knows that.

My biggest frustration with this game is that it has such interesting story concepts and cinematic moments. But I can’t but feel like these moments were there first, and everything else was built around it. However, whatever suspicion I feel about how they created this story, only to my shock and horror that there isn’t a credited group of people in the credits, only an outside team (company?). Before I continue, I think it’s dumb when people say TLoZ didn’t have much of a story when previous Zelda games had a storyline to follow (OoT, MM, WW, TP, fucking…even Link’s Awakening, and more). So yes, TLoZ does have stories. It’s not just about the dungeons if I'm being honest.

What I find so odd is that Monolith Soft has games such as the Xenoblade games, where the latest game of that series does have a credited team of writers. Hell, BotW had two credited writers. But I won't go far speculating why they decided to hire a company outside the team to write TotK; it is only interesting to me why they did that. Since there really isn't a solid team of writers, I will focus my issues on Fujibayashi as a story writer; after all, he is the director of this game. And I've seen multiple interviews after the game's release where he explains a lot of the game's "lore" and story that should've been easily explained in the game in the first place. I think this will be me sharing my opinions rather than critiques... boy where do I even begin...

Sages—the ancient sages, not counting Mineru, are pointless. I felt no connection seeing the Ancient Sages meet their predecessors. Can't believe Age of Calamity made me feel more strongly about the Champions meeting their predecessors than the ancient sages did. - I also think they really don't share anything important. Maybe the first time, yes, but you could easily remove their cutscenes and just have Mineru explain how everything went down, and nothing will change. - Now, to the present Sages, I can't really say much, sadly. Tulin and Yunobo were the only characters for whom I completed their quests, and I enjoyed their character arcs, especially Yunobo's. If I could pick up TotK again, I would try to do Riju's arc, as it seemed really fun to play from the playthroughs I've seen my friends do. I don't really care for Sidon. Before I dropped the game, I was going through his quest and got really irritated fast for many reasons that I have mentioned here previously.

King Rauru and Queen Sonia – There has never been a character that I've enjoyed where I think they deserved much better than what they were there for. I get it; Sonia was only there as the character to be killed off to move the plot forward, but oh my god...I could've saved her. I wished we could've seen her more involved in the story than just standing by Raruru's side. - King Rauru, my brain turns foggy when I think of this man, and sometimes there are too many words to explain my issues. But to water it down, I feel we centered ourselves too much on these characters who don't even affect the main protagonist to some degree. Sure, King Rauru first appears at the beginning to show you his magic hand abilities. But I guess I was hoping something like how the previous TLoZ games had your companion help you throughout your journey and are the key fact of many things in the story (Midna and KotRL appear in my head when I mention this).

Zelda—sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I think this game would've been 10x better if she had been the protagonist. I know it probably wouldn't make sense because she turns into a dragon by the end but Idc. What frustrates me about Zelda is that she's given very few options. It's a war or nothing. It's becoming a dragon or being stuck in the past forever. I guess that's the tragedy of her story, but instead of me feeling sad, it frustrates me.

Link—Oh god, here we go. Link has a very small role in this, and you can disagree with me. But how is it possible that this is one of the few Links that has little involvement in the story? Link just happened to stumble into a bigger mystery than it already was. Link didn't even prove himself to Ganondorf why he's a threat to him aside from the first cutscene and Rauru.

Ganondorf - .........I hope this is the last time we see Ganondorf in the series. I know that sounds shocking, but if Fujibayashi is going to take the lead in storytelling for future games, I don't want him to make another iteration of Ganondorf. To me, Fujibayashi works better by making completely new Zelda villains. Ghirahim and Kohga are perfect examples. Ganondorf in this game was so underwhelming and disappointing. He never directly confronted himself with either Link or Zelda. Gameplay wise, he's great, but the story? What is he doing here? Literally, it feels like they only brought Ganondorf back because people questioned about Ganondorf back in BotW.

Conclusion

There are many aspects of the game that I enjoy; however, in my case, the bad outweighs the good. That's why this game frustrates me: There was a lot of potential to be seen. There is probably more for me to say that I'm either intentionally leaving out or just forgetting cause there are many things. Happy one year TotK 🎉🎉🎉

[twiixr4kidz]

PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE ANYTHHING FOR YOUNG NEIL!!🙈🙈🙈😁😁😁 maybe like boyfriend headcanons :3!!

YESYESYES i love young neil he's so severely underrated

young neil bf headcanons!!

he's the silliest goose you ever will meet

most of your date nights will consist of either playing video games or watching movies

he doesn't mind if you wanna do something else though!! if you wanna go out for like, pizza or something, he's totally onboard

he infodumps to you about the legend of zelda and there is nothing you can do to get out of it

he gets a little nervous in public sometimes (he's kind of a hermit) so he clings to your side like a little kid

he's either holding your hand so tight his knuckles turn white or he's fidgeting with the bottom of your shirts

neil isn't necessarily shy though

if a creep is trying to get in your pants, he will literally start a fight wherever you are

he also talks a lot since he feels so comfortable around you so he'll probably just ramble about silly things that pop into his head

i hc him as a total stoner (sorry not sorry xD) and i can imagine he'd always invite you to shmoke with him if you were feeling up for it

and if you're not, he won't force you at all

one thing about neil is that he is very easily entertained

if you want to get him into your favorite show, just put it on and he'll eat it up

he LOVES. LOVES LOVES LOVESSSSSSS when you borrow his close

you're sleeping over at his place and you forget to bring pajamas?? whatever, he has an extra hoodie for you to wear

his eyes won't leave you for the rest of the night

he's not the biggest cuddler at first but when he realizes you like it, it begins to grow on him

sometimes neil will sneak up behind you and he'll stick his freezing cold hands up your shirt just to scare the shit out of you

he thinks it's hilarious

he loves you so much, but he also loves getting on your nerves

[aheathen-conceivably]

🎶'Cause he held in his arms, and he taught me to be strong 🎶

Although Zelda and Giorgio’s efforts on the farm were growing less dire, there were still days when some of them had to go without meals. Rather than leave Violette there with empty cupboards and exhausted adults on days when she wasn’t at the schoolhouse, Antoine would bring her to Abraham’s ranch with him. 

It comforted him having her so near, seeing her run unencumbered on the sand without any of the worries that plagued his or Zelda’s mind. She seemed happy and comfortable there, but sometimes it terrified him that she was growing older and there was nothing he could do to stop it. It seemed like only months ago that she’d been born, not over seven years before. Soon enough she’d be a young woman, and the thought alone was enough to make him panic. He wanted nothing more than to freeze time at exactly this moment, before anything could hurt her or take her away.

He was happy that she had William, who was such a kind and soft spoken boy that was always happy to play whatever games Violette suggested.  But even his presence reminded Antoine that one day there would be a boy he couldn’t protect his baby girl from, one who would break her heart and make her cry, just the way he had done when he was young. 

He only hoped that he would be there when it happened, to help her pick up the pieces and stay as strong as he knew she was now. Every day he could see his mother and sister not only in the color of her eyes, but in her temperament too. She was strong willed and stubborn, but she allowed herself moments of such fancy and wonder, that he couldn’t help but see Zelda in her too. Each and every one of them triggered a fire in his soul, a pure rush to safeguard them against the rest of the world, that all of them combined in his only child was enough to make his heart burst.

He told himself at least he had her there with him now, that if he could focus on exactly the girl she was now and give her everything she could possibly want, he would show her the type of man and life she deserved; because above anything, he knew that she deserved the world.

He wanted to give her the best sides of himself, the moments in his day that made him feel happiest and uplifted him from the drudgery of the world. So of course, he took her to meet Silver. He had been worried that the horse would respond to Violette the way she did with everyone else, but she seemed to immediately sense that the child was Antoine’s, and thus an extension of the trust she already had for him. With amazing softness, she lowered her head toward Violette, and the child’s usual harsh bravado softened in turn, transforming into a gentle, hushed amazement as she looked into the horse’s eyes. “Poppa, I love her!”

He could feel the pride welling in his chest, threatening to burst into tears, when she looked back at him with excited eyes, “Can we take her home, Poppa? Please? Please!”

“I’m afraid she lives here, Princess. But I’ll get you your very own pony one day. I promise.” Her face transformed even more, brightening with excitement as she continued to pet Silver. The horse seemed so content, that Violette brought her face against her nose. Antoine panicked, bringing his hand forward to stop her, but the horse stayed calm, looking back at Antoine as though to tell him to calm down for once.

With her face still close to Silver’s Violette turned her eyes up at her father, “Can we at least ride her then? Pretty please?”

Antoine had asked himself that very question every day since Abraham had offered. But he didn’t want to tell his baby girl he was afraid, or that the stories of the men she had kicked into the sand were more gruesome than any Western he had ever read. So instead he simply said, “Maybe one day….”

Even a child could hear the wistfulness in his voice, but then Abraham’s curses from outside punctuated the moment. Antoine knew that meant one of the horses was refusing his commands, so he gently moved Violette’s hand away from the horse and opened the stall gate. “You go and play with Will now, alright? We’ll visit her again tomorrow.”

She looked up at him with her big olive eyes, trying to stop him as his boots headed for the door of the barn. She needn’t say a word to besiege him to stay; but he mustered even more strength than needed against the most stubborn of horses to drop down on one knee and kiss her goodbye, promising that he would come and find her at the end of the day just as he always did.

Previous / Next

[tw1l1te]

I didn't know you took asks! If it doesn't go against your rules, could you write a yandere reader trying to hide their more possesive/obsession side from the chain (Wind being seen as a younger brother, ofc), only to figure out they are all equally as obsessed with them? There's not enough yandere reader in the world 😔

Take care of yourself, and drink some water if you haven't in a long while ♥

Why have I never considered this. Like-

⊹ ࣪ ˖

Ok so like I envision this working well with a modern!reader/guide, since well, y'know, Zelda's a pretty large franchise in the gaming industry and in general

Reader has been a fan since they were young, maybe starting at the ages of 6-8 and have played through most, if not all of, the Zelda games. They become obsessed with the lore, characters, possible theories, the timeline, Link.

So if they land in Hyrule of all places one night? They are searching.

It doesn't take long though, its almost fate considering how fast the Chain find the reader.

Obviously the reader tries not to seem overly jumpy/fan-like, so they shut away their thoughts for now, trying to gain their trust

They are honest about how they're not from any of their Hyrule's, and eventually tell them about the franchise but don't tell them about the fact you've spent so much time, money and energy on them.

It takes another while for them to get used to that idea, but Reader was honest, so why wouldn't they trust them?

The growing bond, of course, causes... feelings, or rather more extreme feelings, to bubble up.

Longing smiles turn to sitting next to each other turn to holding hands turn to cuddles-

Reader's so jittery. Like, they've been waiting months for this to happen since they first met the Chain. And now that they are getting into romantic territory? There's no going back.

Once the Chain collectively admit their feelings to yandere!Reader, Reader is locked in. They get so overprotective, Wind in particular, as they view him as their little brother. Nothing can ever hurt him again.

Constantly cuddling or touching someone.

A reckless accident happens, mostly by your instigation, as something was going to harm Time and you had tunnel vision. This life was the one thing you wanted, and you wouldn't let a measly Lynel take away a part of it.

The battle was bloody, some of the Chain looking at Reader in shock in love after the battle, blood caked onto their chin, hands, anywhere that wasn't covered in clothing. They burst out crying, admiting to how attached and bonded they felt to each one of them and that they wren't going to let any more harm come to any of them.

They all had a bit of whiplash to how genuine and terrifying you sounded, but... they couldn't say they felt any different.

After all, they watched you when you slept, softly cooing at you when you were in the process of waking up or if you were having a nightmare

Wolfie was always with you, watching looking over you.

Wild almost always made your favorites, occasionaly adding some sleeping elixir to your portion so you could catch up on lost sleep so he could brush through your locks.

Time never allowed you to go anywhere alone, most times accompanying you to protect you, to be there with you.

Wind clung onto you, viewing you as his older sister/brother/sibling. He needed you there when the memories or nightmares came back in the night, petting his hair and singing a lullaby from his home.

The mutual attraction made it so much easier, for both you and the boys! No one had to worry about running away or leaving because they were never going to.

You were bonded forever.

⊹ ࣪ ˖

[negax79]

Thinking about the fact that it is entirely possible that there have been Links and Zeldas who have just...never experienced the events of a Zelda game.

Like, some random village people just name their kid Link after the many heroes with that name and the most adventure he ever gets is maybe camping out in the forest for a while or hiking up a mountain or something. Just has a totally ordinary life. And there's quite possibly a few Zeldas that never get threatened by any dark forces or whatever, they grow up living average Hyrulean royal lives and don't play a role in any prophecy.

Heck there may have even been Ganondorfs that grow up normal. They probably get a lot of bad reactions because of the dude they share their names with, but otherwise they might be chill. They might not even be aware of the guy because they don't live anywhere near Hyrule.

A Zelda game or whatever about just some dude called Link who happens to share the name of the hero, but is actually just some dude who runs your local item shop; a Zelda whose greatest threat is just some prince/princess/some other noble who's kind of a jerk but otherwise isn't as threatening to the kingdom itself; or a Gerudo called Ganondorf who isn't even AWARE of the dude with the same name causing trouble over in Hyrule (which is a continent over) but gets a ton of grief anyway... I feel like there's a lot of funny stuff you could do there.

[theresattrpgforthat]

Hey mint. For a long time now I've been looking for games that emulate Zelda. Now I know you've gotten a request like this before, so I'll add an extra challenge to help me find what I'm looking for - I'm looking for something that can handle the fantasy of playing as Zelda, or Link, or Ganondorf. Think wielding the master sword, sealing away monsters with holy magic, or playing projectile tennis with the baddies.

For bonus points: got anything with majora's-mask-style transformation masks?

THEME: Legend of Zelda; Powerful Characters.

My dear, dear friend, I don’t know if you realized this when you posted this question, but I think I’m working on a game that fits exactly what you’re looking for. (But never fear, that’s not the only thing I’m recommending.)

A Terrible Fate, by Mint-Rabbit.

The world is ending. A comet is falling; the moon is fading; the sun is growing dark. In three days, we will succumb to the heavens abandoning us to the cold and dark, or burning us up in a whirlwind of fire and ash. That is, unless the four Great Spirits can awaken.

You are heroes, called upon by the people to dive deep into the dungeons in which the Spirits slumber. Discover what has put them to sleep, and free them from whatever traps them deep within their winding halls. Keep your promise to the people, and the land will be free.

A Terrible Fate is a lightweight Forged-in-the-Dark game about cursed heroes using a time loop to free the land from impending doom. These heroes will use magic masks that they have been granted in order to open up cursed dungeons and free the Spirits that can save the land from this tragedy.

A Terrible Fate takes a lot of inspiration from the Masks of Brinkwood, and I was inspired to create it back when I received an ask about games inspired by Majora’s Mask. You are doomed adventurers granted supernatural powers through a series of magical masks, which will consume you should you fail. Venture through four dungeons to free the Spirits that can stop the sky from falling, and do your best to help people who will never remember your names. If you want a game about grief, anonymity, and time loops, then this is the game for you.

I’ll hopefully have the full game up by the time this post is live, but if not, the goal is to have this game released by June 8, because that’s when the Majora’s Mask Game Jam finishes up!

Echoes of the Broken, by Scribbles and Dice.

Welcome to Echoes of the Broken — a tabletop roleplaying game of elemental mayhem in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world.

It’s been 100 years since the Breaking of the Gods, when the world of Ranaskar was devastated by an apocalyptic war between the gods. Falling from the heavens, the broken corpses of the gods became the Remnants — colossal, monolithic structures of arcane power. From the Remnants emanates the Echo, the will of the Broken Gods, twisted by their violent end. The Echo warps the land, and corrupts the people, leaving Ranaskar a volatile hellscape. 

Now, 100 years later, the Sanctums grow weak, ever besieged by the Echoes of the Broken Gods. In desperation, the Remnants of Oros have called upon champions — the Wardens.

Characters have fairly powerful abilities granted to them by a dead god, as well as Burdens; weaknesses or curses that provide them specific disadvantages. Character creation feels fairly descriptive, building a layered history that culminates in a character with plenty of connections, gifts and responsibilities. Your characters also have attributes and skills that use a point-buy system to determine where you’ll pull your dice from.

When you want to do something, the GM will tell you what threshold is required for success. Players will create a pool of d6’s based on their attributes and skills, and attempt to meet or beat the threshold. What is really interesting about this game is that the group can choose to tackle an obstacle together, and contribute all of their successes towards the same goal. At the same time, the GM can set a higher threshold difficulty if a challenge is meant to be a group challenge, so the difficulty can scale. If you want a game with powerful characters who have a substantial amount of backstory, you might want to check out Echoes of the Broken.

Keepers of the Six Worlds, by carnel.

You are the Keepers of Harmony, beings of spirit created to guide and protect the six worlds by the All-Mother. The six worlds were created by the trickster Yorgi when he shattered the world gem in the serpent's forehead. Each of the six was a reflection of the true world but brought into equal and parallel creation.

The worlds were sealed away in a fold of the blanket of night where they would be hidden and protected from the manipulations of the gods and the temptations of the true world.

Take on the role of divine beings given authority over a pocket universe. Will you resist the temptation to become as gods? Will you preserve the status quo as you were tasked or will you help those in your care to find their own path?

This is a deck-based game that uses playing cards to generate the worlds that your characters will attempt to protect. Your actions will change the trajectory of each of these worlds, but at the same time you may also find yourself changed in the process. I think this carries the theme of transformation that you might be looking for, even if the transformation that came about is not through masks.

At World’s Edge, by Workpire.

Welcome to the edge of the world. At the final days of the final age, the fires of life have nearly been extinguished. The Sun is bleeding. The Kings are dead.Only a handful of beings are left alive - Immortals. Gods.  Whatever's left, make your way to the Temple of Fire, defeat the guardians within, complete their trials, and feed the Fire to restart life… or stop the cycle forever.

At World's Edge is a short, simple combat-based tabletop RPG with a new, unique combat system that relies on area of attacks and a dodge mechanic that makes for dynamic combat.  You are Gods, and you fight as Gods.

This is primarily a fighting game, complete with a grid to move your characters around on and attack modifiers that relate to numbers on your character sheet. Your characters are also not just hyper-competent people; they are Gods, with specific Aspects that will improve your rolls whenever they are relevant. Unfortunately, you cannot be the God of Courage or the God of Wisdom; the game works better if you have a domain over Lightning or Fire or something more tangible.

Firmament, by Veil’s Edge Games.

FIRMAMENT is a rules-lite action fantasy RPG about the conflict between the Champion of an ancient order and the various factions that wield the corrupt magic of Affliction. Players embody the powerful Champions of the Order of the Firmament as they join the fight against Affliction.

The Champions are opposed by the factions that use Affliction as a weapon. From the industrial Braxon Alchemical to the implacable Hexhunters, these enemies are the most dangerous foes the order will face. Combat is fast and deadly in FIRMAMENT—for the order's foes at least. In combat, Champions wield weapons of sunlight and moonlight in battle, and spend a resource called Celest to use powers unique to their Discipline.

If you want highly-competent characters, LUMEN is probably a good system to consider, as I’ve mentioned before. Characters are rather sleek, with three Attributes, a health and “magic” bar, and a few abilities that make your character special. The core part of this game is fast, high-action combat, and the fight against Affliction kind of reminds me of Link’s attempt to cleanse parts of Hyrule in games such as Twilight Princess or Breath of the Wild.

POWER | WISDOM | COURAGE, by UnabashedlyRose.

Whenever the Shadows rise there will always be three points of Light that oppose them. They will fight, sacrifice, and overcome the Shadows at a great cost to themselves.  But that is what makes them heroes. It is up to you now and we know you will not let us down.

POWER|WISDOM|COURAGE is a GMless game for three players about being chosen by the Light to face off against the Shadows and save your home from destruction. 

There’s an obvious reference going on with this game, although all of your characters are considered heroes, including the Ganondorf analogue. I’m not entirely sure how much setting is packaged into this game; you can probably draw the connections between the three parts of the Triforce if you want to, but I have a feeling that they’re not necessary. The other limiting factor is that this game is exactly for three players, so if you have more or less, it’s not really an option.

You might also be interested in…

My Legend of Zelda Recommendation Post.

The question that started it all. (Majora’s Mask)

Dawn of the First Day, by Riley Hopkins.

[greghatecrimes]

Baby Ducks AU Teenage Headcanons

(Only Chase and Thirteen this time since I'm still not exactly sure how I'm going to put Kutner in this AU, but eventually I will write some for him too)

Both Chase and Thirteen are one hundred thousand percent 'nerds'. In both the academic and the hobby sense.

Both of them are quick as a whip (they're House's kids, how could they not be?). On the Honor Roll, all honors and AP classes, that sort of thing. There's never any pressure from House or Wilson to be high achieving; they're very self motivated, but it's not for the grades or the GPA. Growing up with House meant that his thirst for knowledge rubbed off on them. They always want to know more about the world, the body, the brain, etc.

Chase is quiet about it, but he's a bookworm. He's always got one in his backpack or on his bedside table.

Thirteen enjoys reading too, but she's a bit more of a TV nerd. I think her favorites would be Xena: Warrior Princess, Buffy, most of the Star Trek series, etc. (Probably also really liked the '80s She-Ra as a kid, even though it was a little bit before her time in this AU)

Thirteen and some of her friends get into D&D when she's 12-13, and she LOVES it. She (lovingly) bullies Chase into trying it despite his many, many complaints, but he ends up adoring it, too. They manage to convince House and drag Wilson into doing one-shots with them a couple times a month, and eventually start trying to wheedle their way into a full campaign. (They succeed. House DMs and has too much fun with it.)

(Wilson is supportive of the nerdiness and D&D, it just takes him a while to wrap his head around how to do TTRPGs)

Neither one of them is quite as into video games as House is, but they both enjoy playing them. There are definitely many extremely intense family Mario Kart nights, and Thirteen and Chase have one hundred percent gotten into a physical fight that started over Mario Kart (lmaoooo).

Thirteen is into the Legend of Zelda games whereas I think teenage Chase would enjoy faster paced games like the Sonic franchise. Both of them like the Pokémon games and would probably play the ones you could link up with each other on (the ones on GBC and GBA, and maybe later the original NDS) together.

Tweenage Chase and Thirteen (14 and 12) stay up way too late to play Pokemon together. There's a period where almost every night they're hidden in one of their bedrooms, lights off and covers pulled up over their heads, with a flashlight and their Gameboy Colors.

Teenage Chase takes after House and plays the guitar. He can definitely carry a tune (read: he has a great voice but he's modest about it/doesn't ever tell anyone outside his family about it), but he'd keep singing as something for himself, just at home or in private.

Thirteen takes up the piano to improve her dexterity and fine motor skills once she's old enough to understand that she's at risk for Huntington's. Music theory isn't her style, but she does love the challenge in teaching herself progressively harder and harder pieces, and the control and detail it takes to master something particularly tricky.

House has absolutely shown them anime and manga. More on that in a later post for sure.

[jxsterr]

ghhghgb pre calamity zelink but zelda grows a quiet rebellious streak after her father forbids her from engaging with sheikah technology and link volunteers as her ‘grew up as a regular village boy so of course he’s a terrible influence’ sidekick so they sneak around and do all sorts of things kids their age do because they yearn to feel at least a little bit normal despite all the pressure on their shoulders. also because i’m still hung up on why the hell his royal cap was in her room

i’m a slowburn truther but hear me out

i’m talking about link soothing an upset and understandably frustrated zelda as she rants about how unfair being forbidden to engage in something she enjoys by suggesting they simply just sneak out and enjoy it anyway. by telling her that he knows the patrolling routines well enough from being around the other guards so often that he can evade them. that he’d take the brunt of it if they were ever caught and watches how stars burst in her eyes at the prospect. he tells her that if rhoam is willing to void her of any sort of hobbies, any kind of relief from the stresses of her duty that they will simply make it themselves

so they learn to sneak around. he takes her out late at night to marvel and prod at the inactive guardians, jotting down notes and making sketches of the mechanisms as he keeps watch for her. she sneaks into the guards quarters to see him whenever she’s been too caught up in prayers and duties for him to be around. he sneaks into her bedroom to sprawl out on her bed while she dishes the castle gossip idly or drags him into her study and miserably details her struggles at growing a silent princess herself. they essentially become each other’s source of respite

but you know what i eat up the most?? them having the thought that. damn. they’ll never get to experience what a lot of kids their age get to because of their positions and responsibilities. they’ll never get to experience proper physical affection from another person, or steal wine from the kitchens and deal with the consequences of being a little too overzealous with it, or even experience what it’s like to be kissed. they’re just two kids desperate to feel normal just for a little while

so they’re like fuck it. the world could genuinely end tomorrow so why not start ticking off the list. they’re two people stuck in a shitty situation against their own volition who’ve grown close because of it and trust each other with their lives. why not help each other live a little

so they do it. they let tentative fingers tangle themselves whenever they dare stand near, cuddle on zelda’s bed after a long day until they fall asleep by accident and have to figure out a gameplan to get him the hell out without being suspicious about it, steal a bottle of wine to take turns drinking from on the battlement between her room and her study and cough at how damn strong it is because they didn’t realise you had to sip it, and exchange lingering kisses behind the safety of her bedroom door because why not. they lose even when they’re playing good, so why not take a little bit of control of their lives and do something for them when the calamity could appear at literally any point. they may as well live every day like their last when there’s so much to lose and nothing to gain.

it doesn’t even matter if they catch feelings from any of it anyway because they can figure it out if they even get past ganon. nothing is for certain when her cursed powers refuse to answer her so what the hell does it matter. so what if it starts with kisses that only occur occasionally when they’ve stolen wine again and their hearts can’t seem to stay off their sleeves for long enough to realise just how close zelda is sat next to him. so what if they use it once while completely sober to reassure the other in a last ditch attempt to calm them down and it just kinda sticks. so what if it becomes a game of how many they can sneak in small fleeting moments where every second counts and they only just about avoid getting caught. it’s a little bit of fun and goddess knows they need something good for once

they’ll figure out what all of this means after everything—and that’s if there’s still anything to come back to

[choochooboss]

Introducing your station master & Magma event host!

Since there's already a lot of passengers visiting this station and I haven't spared much time to get to know my fellow submas fans over Tumbrl yet, an introduction would be in place!

I'm Jun, nice to meet you! *offers a hand for for a shake* I am a devoted submas artist & a monthly Magma event host! I go by ChooChooBoss everywhere (Twitter/Bsky/Twitch/Ko-Fi)!

This will be a long post! I will write a short intro as well which you can just skim through but here is a more in depth view how I got into submas, my other interests and life in general, in case you'd wish to know more about your conductor on this silly train!

How did I get into submas in the first place?

PLA. I met this certain mysterious & cool fellow time traveler and got curious! After the cave scene I went to read his Wiki, found out about Emmet, and... yeah. The emotional impact blasted me right out of a miserable cycle I was going through back then and set my soul on fire!! A month later I set up my first art account on Twitter, and the rest is history. They've become my greatest source of strength and inspiration and I enjoy drawing them every single day!

I love both twins very much! I tend to vibe with Ingo a little more than Emmet, but I draw Emmet more. People say I remind of butler Ingo the most, hehe. I certainly don't mind because I'm a big fan of butlermas!! In fact I got into submas & started playing Pokémon Masters EX in April 2022, a week before butler Ingo banner rolled in, so they truly got a special place in my heart ahah! (pssst draw more butlermas for me pls pls pls-)

However I don't draw warden Ingo as much as I would like to. I still get pretty emotional over his fate ahah, I can't draw him without a single tear! This sweet & kind man leading a good life and being an inspiration to others has been torn from literally everything he had for seemingly no reason apart from his name, clothes and the muscle memory and even those are barely intact. It seems like a miracle he's still standing and breathing after put through everything judging by the wear and tear on his uniform and body. Despite all that he carries a positive attitude, assists everyone in need, and does his best to help people and pokémon understand each other, unconditionally... Oh, my face is wet again...

My other interests besides submas?

Monster Hunter! Zelda! Genshin Impact! Super Mario! Trine! Crash Team Racing! And many many more! My favourite genres are platformers, kart racers, and action games, with a side of rhythm games. I'm a big fan of co-op games! I also watch my sis play JRPGs!

Monster Hunter is the dearest to me out of all. I've been hunting for well over a decade starting from MHFU. The games have charmed me with their incredibly satisfying combat system, world building, creature design, great attention to detail, character customisation and the games being nearly fully co-op!!

Other things I do:

Pokémon is practically the only turn-based game I enjoy, mainly because of the characters and collection aspect. However!! I adore Pokémon Colosseum (the first pkmn game I ever played!) and it's double battle focus, so The Indigo Disc has been a delight after the long starvation for double battles, coming up with different combinations makes the battles much more fun to me!!... I sound like Emmet here do I ahahah! We also share the fact we are both left-handed!

Shuffle dancing, daily pull-ups, and expanding my ever growing VGM collection! I also enjoy traveling and taking photos to keep as a diary! I've played piano in a music school for 9 years, and I can also play kalimba. I've done casual boxing, gymnastics, horse riding and medieval swordfighting. I used to read comics/manga and watch movies and anime but nowadays I barely do that, I just rather use that time for drawing instead of just sitting and watching, unless I have company!

I share the apartment with my anxious brother and our two sweet female cats, Laku (11, stubborn and cuddly) and Kalevi (21, demanding and full of love) in a city center. My parents are both entrepreneurs and run a farm in the countryside & I have 4 siblings with me as the middle kid!

Where can you meet me?

I am a game artist by profession, with 4 yrs of studies and roughly 7 years of EXP in the field doing game art, UI design, character/prop design, in mobile games as well as PC titles, 2D and 3D. At the moment I am looking for work; I keep up the motivation and learn new skills by running my art accounts while looking for new opportunities.

I hail from the land of darkness, snow, salmiakki, metalheads and renownly reserved people, Finland! (UTC+2)

Despite having my roots here I am pretty much the opposite of a typical Finn in almost every sense ahah! I'm a small guy who's not afraid talking to strangers and laughs a lot. And I dislike coffee for the contrary, it's very popular amongst finns.

With the inspiration from submas I've finally stepped into the world of cosplay so you can usually meet this small and excitable Ingo in the biggest local conventions, Desucon and Tracon! Come say hi!

About my social battery:

I'm both social and socially anxious ahah! I love making new friends and talking to all sorts of people and writing comments, and gathering together with my mutuals to do cool stuff together! However my social battery is very small... I often struggle with my AD(H)D and anxiety issues, so my replies can be extremely slow. I'm easily overwhelmed when life gets busy and I deal with it by withdrawing to minimise the the stimuli and then sorting my stuff out one by one. This is a frustrating shortcoming, but I'm working hard to find a balance I can maintain without getting exhausted. Please be patient with me! If you don't hear from me in a while, please don't take it personally! In fact, it makes me really happy if you contact me, for any purpose!

Which pronouns do I go with?

I go by they/them! I am also aroace, so if I appear to show any sort of romantic interest, it's definitely not that. I love meeting new people and am quite interested in people in general so I'm excited to get to know you better, but the thing is... I have been confusing people on several occassions for saying things that could be taken as flirting. I am terribly sorry for that, that's just the way I show how I care!

I don't really identify myself by any specific gender either, but rather by my roles or interests (Magma host, submas fan, game artist etc.). Submas encouraged me to enjoy dressing formally even if I'm just sitting at home, because I love formal clothing in general and wearing them makes me feel confident and stand taller! I usually wear collar shirts and black or white slacks.

More about my AD(H)D:

I don't have an official diagnosis but deal with the same problems as AD(H)D people do; poor work memory, dissociation, hyperfocus (drawing and people), sleep deprivation, impulsiveness (juggling too many things and going with the wind), getting sensory/information overloads, and feeling like I don't fit in. I figured it out after I finished school & lost my job for that I am unable to handle big tasks without anyone giving me directions. It has taken a while but I've figured out things that help me manage my daily life as well as have a medication that mainly boosts my capability to get things started which is another great struggle ahah.

How do I manage to keep myself on track?

I use a Pomodoro timer to keep up a good flow and remember to take breaks! This is what I use the most:

I should set it up on my tablet as well. I think it's really cool to see how many hours I have actually put into drawing! Last year I clocked in well over 3k hours, ahaha!

How to catch me?

Right now I have great difficulty managing replies, but usually you can reach me by DMs! I check Discord and Twitter the most often! However I must ask you to respect my current DNI status. It means I am really overwhelmed so I wish nobody comes asking for my attention until it has been lifted, unless it's really necessary. I really love talking to you all but I also have to accept and deal with my own limits strictly like this or it won't work out.

What am I working on at the moment?

Besides the holiday set I have several short comics under works as well as one big comic (100+ pages!). That one is my personal greatest goal! I started working on it in June 2022 and I have currently 40+ pages sketched and 60+ thumbnailed.

I was afraid of starting any comic projects before submas, but the sheer excitement over them carried me over that personal wall ahah!

The story's beginning and end are looking good and somewhat functional but there's still a lot to work to do and holes to fill in the middle before I dare to start fleshing out the pages. I have little experience in writing or comic making so I hope you forgive if some things don't make sense or the dialogue is a little on the nose so to say ahah!

The story will be packed with action with the overall tone being on the darker side, but it sure won't be lacking in humor! The project's main goal is to make it a celebration of all things submas & to prove to myself I can handle a big scale project despite my shortcomings!

This train has reached the terminal!

Thank you for riding my silly submas train!! I adore reading all your tags and comments! They brighten up my day & fuel my passion even more!! I hope to bring many more fun things for you to look forward to!! See you again soon!

ALL ABOARD!!

[beatthegame]

I just beat the Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Exclusively on the Nintendo Switch. It's a direct sequel to it's predecessor, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is a first for the franchise? Perhaps Hyrule Warriors? Or Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link could be an exception but even that was a huge pivot from the original Zelda. But I digress...Storywise, Zelda games typically occur generations apart from each other. But this game is unique in bridging two games together within a couple of years. Nowadays, good sequels are rare. We usually go backwards through the prequel route but this game takes place just a few years after the events of BOTW. Not many sequels live up to outshine their originals. Often falling short in certain aspects. And Breath of the Wild, as a stand alone game, is an absolute masterpiece. One of the greatest adventure games I personally experienced. So when the developers announced that there would be a direct sequel to one of the greatest adventures ever made? It left a LOT to be desired. But does TOTK truly live up to the hype? Let's try to fuse all these elements together and try to make sense of it...

In a nutshell: It's like Minecraft in Hyrule! You take the same open world template from Breath of the Wild. Triple down on the map & add heavy emphasis on crafting abilities. Combined with hundreds of side quests, treasures, characters and challenges sprinkled across the largest open world in gaming history. (If you can find a larger open world in a game, please let me know.) When you boil it down, Tears of the Kingdom should be considered tears of joy!

The Good: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a BEAST of an adventure game! The cel shaded anime inspired graphics are simply gorgeous. These screenshots would be good enough for the artwork inside the 8-bit game manuals of years past. Trying to imagine those details on a 8-bit platform was great for the time. But being able to control those stillframes now like a beautiful moving painting is like a dream come true. Most open world games are pretty rich in terms of a playable area with missions sprawled across the land. But I don't think I've played a game world this deep? And I mean that literally. You have the vast continent of Hyrule to explore. Same map from BOTW. All of it's valleys, lakes, mountains, islands and more. And when I say more, I MEAN MORE. Because now you have islands hundreds of feet in the sky to explore. In addition to the underworld depths hundreds of feet below the surface. The deepest bowels of a planet you can think of? And it goes DEEPER than that! I find it difficult to express myself through words, how packed this game map is. But you have the freedom to explore it all, however you like! And boy, does this game offer a rich variety of CHOICE. Something I feel is an gift AND a curse in this game? For now, let's talk about how AMAZING it is to create almost ANYTHING your imagination can handle...based on the items scattered throughout the land.

Your Sheika technology from the previous game has been replaced with new Zonai fusion technology that will allow you to combine all sorts of objects, monster parts and broken vehicle pieces to construct all sorts of cool contraptions. From simple suspension bridges to complex flying automatons with rocket launchers! There's a bit of a learning curve to manipulate pieces and placing them in functional spots. But once you get the hang of it, it becomes 2nd nature. You can even save your creations to quickly assemble duplicate machines, which is convenient at times. But that is only ONE fraction of your creative capabilities. You are also able to create custom weapons, armor and arrows to expand your arsenal. You will need these abilities to explore the land, skies and depths of Hyrule. It's an experience that can grow beyond your imagination. Which sounds amazing. And it is, in so many ways. However, it also one if this game's many problems...

The Bad: I hate to say it, but this game is the very definition of "trying too hard". Breath of the Wild is off the charts fantastic! Almost a perfect game. So when you're tasked to make something great even better? Sometimes adding more ingredients to a stellar dish ruins the meal. Like, imagine the best 5 layer cake in the world...perfectly frosted, with sprinkles and a cherry on top...and now add a tomahawk steak, and a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, and nacho cheese fries with frosted flakes sprinkled on top of that? A bit much, right? That's how this game is... You have an entire world of objects and machine pieces and monster parts. But there's only so much you can do to actually function well in the game. What's the point of building an elaborate hovercraft when a crude assembly of logs & rocks can get the same job done? Which leads to the weapons. One of the main things I hated about BOTW are the fragile weapons that break after a few swings. This game not only brings back the shitty fragile weapon system, but now you have the burden of crafting your own weapons. Which is FUN... for about 5 minutes. But when you are in the heat of battle? Quickly assembling weapons or sifting through my entire inventory under durress was more annoying than it was fun. And don't get me started on the Blood Moon. A couple of times would have been ok but like every 10 minutes?! Give me a fucking break! Let me build this wooden helecopter in peace LOL!

But refocusing on the positive, overall, this was a fantastic gaming experience! But even though this play-thru was satisfying. There were too many flaws that effect the final score. Tears of the Kingdom would have been a decent spin-off game. Like, focus on the Sheika Lab team and have them rebuild Hyrule and deal with the Ganon threat with building gadgets. Harvesting minerals underground. Rebuilding towns devastated by the Calamity. That would've been cool. But as a Zelda adventure? It falls short when you compare it to the other masterpieces throughout the years. But when you put aside the competition? Tears of the Kingdom is a stellar game experience!

A-Class

[nerdyraven]

28 Days of Tarot:

The Magician

The fool arrives at a vibrant rose gardens of the imperial palace, growing all around him, red roses and white, much like the white flower the fool still had on their own person, there was also a man stood in the clearing adoring a red cloak over white robes, stood before him, as though he had being... waiting for the fool to arrive. The man appeared to be ageless, the look in his eyes he was a man who knew things, a wise man, a sage or a magi perhaps, but yet still young in appearance, as though he like the fool too had gone on adventure, and was now in position to offer assistance to others for their paths ahead. The man held a short white baton over his head, to the fool it seemed this man was placing some form of blessing upon the four distinct items on the table, or perhaps it is an altar to some forgotten deity, the items involved a golden coin with a pentagram carved into it's smoothed service, a single silver sword gleaming in the light and a golden cup filled to the brim with water, and what appeared to be a simple stick, but anyone knows that a stick can be anything you wanted it to be, a sword or even a wand for example and the table already had a sword on it.

These items on the magician's table or altar, represent the four minor arcana's Cups, Wands, Pentagrams (or Coins depending on which deck your using) and Swords. Each play their part in the story of the fool, but we will discuss those at a later time, for now we focus on the mysterious magician waiting patiently for the fool to arrive, reminds me a little of the man in The Legend of Zelda (1986) waiting in the cave for Link to show up so he can give him a sword, or our favourite Professor Oak in the Pokémon games Red/Blue/Yellow/Green who offers a Pokémon to you so you can be safe on your adventure, you just have to choose which one you want. (I had the Red, always picked Charmander then picked up a Mankey in the grass left of the Viridian (towards the Pokémon League) to take down Brock...anyway where were we?)

But back to the card for a moment, I do not ever feel the magician was offering the fool anything on that table, I mean why would he? If he himself was once the fool, think of the symbol over the magician's head, it is the symbol for infinity, endless and ageless, symbolising perhaps the story had being told before, countless times a fool goes off on their journey, meets a magician who has these items, now one of the definitions of the word 'magician' besides the obvious.

A person with exceptional skill in a particular area.

Which makes me think that he is not giving the fool all he has gained over the years, and make The Fool's journey end there, when with all his years of wisdom and experience he can merely guide the fool, and share with them, how he as a younger man, was able to get all of the things and The Fool can choose to take their advice and venture forth or not.

The word magician comes from the word 'Magi' and these were wise men, teachers, scholars wise in many things, advising kings of their time, well going back to our old dear friend the esteemed Professor Oak, he did not give you eight badges, a complete Pokédex filled or a PC filled with fully evolved lvl 100 Pokémon, you had to earn that all by your self, he didn't even tell you (or Ash) there was more then 150 in the world did he, no...no he did not, but he certainly helped you get started on that journey, and that is what the magician is doing here, giving the fool the knowledge he needs to continue on his path safely, knowing from his experience it'll end well if the fool follows his advice, but it is up to the fool as how they will go about implementing that advice into action.

The magician can represent someone in your life whose wise and experienced, a family member, a friend, a co-worker, someone you need to seek out and get advice from as you venture on life's journey, you may come back to them a few times, here and there, but that's the beauty of our elders, they have knowledge and stories which may just help you, if you choose to listen to them.

I don't know why but the magician made me think of Professor Oak, he just did and this GiF was perfect.

That was a bit of a ramble, got side tracked a little with the Professor Oak comparison, but the magician was tricky for me to understand when I first started tarot, and still is but I think I understand them more now, but as I said you may have to come back to your magician a few times in your own story, if you ever need more advice. Who your magician is well I can't tell you that, but I am sure your gut at this point has come up with a name or two?

The next post about The High Priestess is now up, click HERE to head on over and have a read. For the comparison of the art work, click below...unless of course this has gone over the character count.

Safe Travels Adventurers

TNR

If you missed the 'first' post because you came here from your For You page as you have not yet followed the page, click HERE to read about The Fool.

Rider Waite Tarot on the Left, the artwork was designed by Pamela 'Pixie' Colman Smith under the direction of A.E. Waite; Killstar Tarot on the Left designed by (I have no idea and I looked if someone knows then do tell me so I can credit them.)

Not too different again in their imagery, so won't require too much different thoughts, the one described above was the Rider Waite artwork.

In the Killstar tarot card version, it is a round table with the familiar pentagram, the sword or perhaps more an athame has being thrust into it and the wand laying flat and the chalice, placed perfectly in the centre of the pentagram, and a hooded skeletal figure awaits you, not the skeletal figure most people fear (albeit an irrational fear) but a skeletal figure who has a smile, well a smile for a skeleton anyway, as though pleased that you have come seeking his advice before you venture off further.

[skyloftian-nutcase]

Aside from Zelda, what are some other games you like to play? Or other fandoms you're into? I know you like Star Wars too, so I was just curious.

I'm personally obsessed with anime, though it's hard to find good ones these days that haven't been done a thousand times already

I don’t play very many games, but I used to adore playing Pokémon games! Ironically, my favorite ones were rescue/search and rescue ones, like the one on the GameCube where you rescue corrupted pokemon and steal them from bad trainers, and Mystery Dungeon where you lead a rescue team. Considering I got into search and rescue in college, I found it ironic and somehow appropriate 😂 but I think the pokemon game I played the most was sapphire on the good ol’ gameboy advance

I also played the heck out of Harry Potter games because I was homeschooled so Hogwarts was my school. I even wore a uniform sometimes and often used classrooms to study - anything to get myself to focus!

I’m not really into any other fandoms anymore. I was insane for Star Wars when I was younger, and I still love it, but the Star Wars fandom is toxic as hell so I steer clear of it. Though I did write fanfic for it when I was younger.

I too like anime! Or at least anime from when I was growing up, I don’t watch any anymore. I loved Dragonball Z, Rurouni Kenshin, Sailor Moon, Yu Yu Hakusho, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Digimon… that might be all the ones that I grew up with. The most recent anime I got into was Fullmetal Alchemist back in college and that is by far my favorite anime ever.