#so I’m playing on botw to clear my mind or whatever

[skyward-floored]

Finished a downfall iau fic but instead of posting it I’m playing botw heh

[fleetwood-cheese]

With tears of the kingdom coming out this year, I wanted to finally make a post about something that's been on my mind about botw. Namely, the memory cutscences, and specifically the one available at the Lanayru promenade. It's the memory players are most likely to find first (intentionally, at least, and its definitely the one I found first) and thus serves as an introduction to how the memories work and the characters within them, and it does this very very well in my opinion.

Firstly, it does an excellent job of being player's first immersive experience with the plot, specifically the story elements from 100 years ago. it introduces Zelda's struggle with her powers, that she doesn't have them and that's a huge deal (esp. bc so many prior Zeldas seem to have a solid grasp of their powers before the game even begins, or the development happens offscreen). It doesn't mention them by name, but it lets you know that there's something Zelda is supposed to be doing, something she's supposed to have or be able to do, that she can't. We know that whatever it is Zelda's struggling with is important, that the trip here was specifically for that, and that the results are disappointing. I'd probably have to replay the entire game (or at least the beginning) to confirm this, but I'm fairly confident this is the first time that Zelda struggling is brought up at all; before then the narrative has largely been that Calamity was so much more powerful than expected and no one was prepared for it and that everyone survived because of Zelda's sacrifice sealing Ganon in the castle. It's not wrong, its just the last part of the picture instead of the whole of it.

It also does a good job of introducing the Champions and their personalities to us. Its clear through the dialouge and body language that Daruk is determined, with a casually affectionate personality (he gives Link a nickname, immediately takes charge of the situation when Ganon appears, etc). Revali is clearly decisive and condifent, with his scoff alluding to his rivalry with Link. Urbosa is supportive but logical and practical, and her interactions with Zelda clearly reveal that they have a close relationship. Mipha is shy and her healer status is explicitly mentioned, with a very slight foreshadowing to her feelings for Link without being immediately obvious (it's very clear on a second play through). In just a few minutes we have a distinct, recognizable grasp on 4 different characters and their personailties, without ever needing to actually say their names out loud. Not to mention this is also likely the player's first introduction to thier voices and possibly the designs for their racing, depending on how thorough a given player is about spoilers.

It also introduces us to Zelda as a person, not a disembodied, guiding voice or a myth to be told to curious travelers. It doesn't start with her rocky relationship with Link, which could (and did, for some players, seriously shape thier perceptions of her), but as a girl under enormous pressure. Everyone in this scene expects something from her, and she's just failed to deliver, and we see how downtrodden and disappointed she is because of it. When the calamity appears, she knows she can't help fight but is determined to help in some way. She's almost desperate to be useful, despite her physical limitations and importance. This is a totally different way of potraying Zelda than most games give you, especially for a first look at her face. Most games introduce her as elegant or competent, such as Twilight Princess or Wind Waker, or as a friend you should care about, such as Minish Cap or Skyward Swords' childhood friend and companion. Botw Zelda is a radical change from that.

Overall, this cutscene does exactly what it's supposed to, especially if it's the first one you find. It gets you intrigued with the plot and interested in its characters, sets up Ganon's return as a major event and turning point, and clues in the player that what their seeing is the beginning of the end of this part of the story. This is memory #15 in the slate's memory, you've got a lot of story before this to find and time to create the rest of it however you decide to play the game.

[botwstoriesandsuch]

Master Kohga Age of Calamity Trailer Analysis

I’m a speedy boi time for some thoughts on today’s new trailer

Ok first off THIS SHOT. Very important. Look at the Sheikah Slate filter. Last trailer I was able to write it off as some thematic choice since Robbie and Purah were Ancient Sheikah Scientists, but THIS trailer does not have that same connection. Couple this with this screenshot [credit to @rachelsmusicallife​ thanks for pointing this out to me!]

I’m under the impression that these cutscenes might be part of an overarching theme of reliving memories through the Sheikah Slate. Kinda fleshed out out theory on how this might be related to eggbot here.

“Hehehehe... Look. What. You. Did...”

The camera motion here is handheld (yes I know it’s not literally handheld but it has that feel) with Master Kohga here literally holding the camera. I’m assuming because this scene is from the direct POV of another character, perhaps Link. Which would make sense, since he is apparently accusing us of doing something. The lighting is also super weird, we’re in the Yiga Hideout (the area with the large pit where we fight Kohga in botw) but the sun is just setting with a shroud on the area. Although, I can’t exactly place the time of day because I’ve been through the hideout my fair share and no time of the day really lines up with this scene (because of the snowy Gerudo Highlands in the background, so the glistening of the sun is different) 

This is by the Great Plateau. I’m thinking near the Outpost Ruins considering this isn’t Gatepost Town since they Great Plateau’s entrance is not in view. In fact, I could probably specifically place this right....HERE

Flag poles, juts in the Plateau walls, road directly perpendicular to the Plateau. If my three years of staring at the Botw world is correct, [please Nintendo it’s the only thing I’m good at] then I’d say they’re at the Outpost Ruins. The only thing is that the houses seen here are mainly wood, while the ruins have clear stone walls

Well...I don’t mind.

This is not Master Kohga. Different voice actor, new character design, new villain! I’m assuming he’s some sort of second in command or captain, given he duel wields Windcleavers. Also not how he doesn’t have a scar on his mask in this scene

Further note, look at that chimney!!! I love that chimney, I haven’t seen that chimney before... it’s in a style that I can only really place in Castle Town, but the location is clearly not there, so best assumption is that this is another prominent Hylian Village. The Hateno style archway at the bottom right seems to support so. The house shingles definitely mean this isn’t an outpost or military ruin...[this weekend I’d love to hope into the game myself and place it exactly] the background cliffs mean this isn’t Gatepost Town either. The rock formations look like a turn by Scout’s Hill, of the western breach by the Outskirts Stable...I wouldn’t put the Rauru Settlements out of the question either. All in all, I’m hesitant to connect this scene with the other scene because one clearly has a dirt path, and the other a stony road. Plus the house shingles are different

Ok I can pretty much place this scene exactly. At least the bottom one, the top one is a separate scene that doesn’t flow into the other one (you can just tell by the framing and continuity) 

You can see the Great Plateau entrance, the line of sight is at an angle, placing this backflipping Yiga man somewhere here. Only inconsistency would be the trees, but perhaps it’s just grown over after a hundred years, you can even see a building in the middle of this forest in center left of the map.

Link is chasing Backflip Benny over here through to the exit of town, (you can see the town entrance/exit archway on the bottom right, similar to the one seen in the chimney pic) AND you can see that Backflip Benny also has a fresh cut on his mask, presumable gained after fighting Link, which is why he teleports away at the end. 

So that places these two shots definitely after whatever conversation happened on the roof. Yay for timelines! 

The stupendous Chief of the Yiga Clan! Master Kohga!

This takes place at some ruins of some sort. The rocks on the top right actually look Edlin or Akkala, but that might just be the lighting. The stony slabs and etches actually remind be of Zonai, but that doesn’t really seem right...I’ve never seen those designs before I don’t think...you can see from the way the stone slabs are angled that they lead to a circular pattern. It could be the circular pit at the Yiga Hideout, but that area is just sand, not stone. The smooth, plain style of these ruins is actually more in line with Gerudo Ruins so that might actually be the case; we know the Yiga have a history of taking Gerudo Ruins as their own (The Yiga Hideout is canonically an old Gerudo architectural dig)

I’ll also note that this scene has the same lighting as the first shot, and the last two shots which we’ll see later. 

*maniacal laughter* Oo? TWO new characters I see???? O????? 

This is definitely the Yiga hideout, you can tell from the wall design, plus the lanterns, and the general comfort of Master Kohga and Backflip Benny in the background. But, elephant in the room...who are YOU dear sir? 

I’ll talk more about them later, but just keep that Calamity glowing thing in their hand in mind for later.

He’s gonna kill you all...to DEATH! 

This is Master Kohga speaking again, if you couldn’t tell from his....very dramatic and in character dialogue. Maybe this game will actually make me like him now alsdfkjsdlk

Obvious is obvious, this is the Yiga Hideout again, similar lighting to the first opening shot, I’m thinking this might be sometimes before it though, considering he has his minions around. Maybe Link fights off the goons, which prompts him to ask “Look what you did” but we can’t know for sure. 

Also there’s grass? So maybe that other shot isn’t the hideout. Also a spotlight???!? Jazz hands?!?!? Leave it to Kohga to defy the fourth wall huh.

Also I haven’t mentioned this yet but NEW MUSIC it’s so good aughghug I can’t wait.

And...we end on another Sheikah Slate fade out on this mysterious new character. Eyeliner says: Avatar Kyoshi

Ok but seriously I have THOUGHTS!! So firstly, they’re obviously working with the Yiga Clan, perhaps they’re the reason why the Yiga are in the Gerudo to begin with considering they have the Gerudo symbol on their cape. [Cause am I the only one that thought it was weird that the disgraced Sheikah people are living in Gerudo, and not like...closer to Kakariko, or their suposedl arch nemesis of the Royal Hylian family?] Also note that this scene most definitly takes place in the Lost Woods. Perhaps they need something with the Master Sword...or are ambushing someone...hmm..

Based on that rock formation in the background I’m thinking somewhere in one of these three general areas but I really need to just pick up my switch sometimes soon and find it exact...so bare with me it’s only from memory but I’m pretty sure of myself when it comes to locations

My money’s on this being the true mastermind and antagonist, notice how their eye circlet is the same of that of the Calamity goop eye 

This person has...yellow? Brown? Hazel eyes? And light hair with a braid? I don’t think they’re Sheikah, but definetly not Gerudo either. So that leaves them to be some Hylian. A Hylian with an evil Ancient Core. 

[It’s definitly some form of Giant Ancient Core. But there’s runes on the side of it that I have yet to translate]

Thinking on their idenity for another second, you’ll notice that they wear a black robe, but their cape with the Gerudo crest is actually torn and tattered. So, perhaps they were disgraced? A runaway? Or perhaps it’s a disguise, perhaps a spy playing both roles on either side of the war? 

There’s an old theory that the fortune teller who initally told King Rhoam of the prophecy was actually part of the Yiga Clan. Seeing as, their actions led the King to dig up the Guardians, and cement the deaths of thousands of people. So, putting points in order here

Evil Magic dude

Works for the Yiga

Has connected to people in power 

Has an evil Ancient Core

Could it be that this mastermind fully knew that the Guardians would eventually be corrupted? Could they be the “fortune teller” that encouraged the King to excavate the Sheikah Technology? Sheikah Technology, that would be an insult to the Yiga Clan considering their people were banished for creating them in the first place? Hmmm....

Final NOTE! Remember that one scene in the other HWAOC trailer with Zelda holding a mysterious object? 

Hmm...Sheikah Scientists, weird egg robot, and now an evil Ancient Core...you may also remember Daruk mentioning in dialogue that something was wrong with Rudania...and cutscenes from Urbosa and Revali might point to the Yiga being close to the Divine Beasts...lots to chew on. I’m thinking the plot of this game will heaviliy revolve on the idea that there was some sort of plan that led to Ganon corrupting the Guardians and Divine Beasts, but we’ll see!

[quillandink333]

Scarlet Carnations ~ Epilogue

BotW Link X Zelda ~ Detective AU

Rating: T

Word Count: 1.7k

WARNINGS: death, murder, loss, trauma, blood and gore, terrorism, organized crime, self-harm

Summary: Inspector Zelda Hyrule, assisted by the faithful Constable Link Fyori, is infamous for cracking the most confounding of cases in a town dominated by crime. Her latest assignment is to solve the murder of her own godmother, Impa Sheikah, the late CEO of Sheikah Tech. Incorporated, while staying under the radar of the dreaded Yiga organization.

Part I • Part II • Part III • Part IV • Part V • Part VI • Part VII • Epilogue • Masterlist

The first couple of weeks following the incident that had taken my long-lost mother from me was misery in its purest form. Link and I didn’t speak, not even by phone, during that whole stretch of time. In fact, I could rarely bring myself to answer the phone at all. The memory was still too vivid, the wounds still too fresh.

He’d gotten off scot-free in the end as he’d been deemed to have acted in the defence of others—namely, of me. It wasn’t long before I learned of his plea, that if I hadn’t come along quietly, I would have suffered the same fate that he’d brought upon her, and they had believed him. How I felt about this was still something I was struggling to wrap my endlessly pounding head around.

As dark and deep as this seemingly bottomless pit of despair that I’d found myself plummeting down was, however, someone did eventually toss a rope down for me. The time I spent apart from Link gave me the opportunity to properly reconcile with those whom I myself had wronged: Auntie Purah and Paya. The former and I found comfort in our mutual grieving, and even as Paya had never really known my mother well enough to mourn her loss (though, arguably, it seemed no one had ever truly known her), she was more gracious and understanding than I or anyone else would have been, which only made me regret even more deeply my past transgressions toward her.

One day, during one of our continual conversations, she shifted to the topic of the Yiga leader’s executioner. How she could even think of him at a time like this was beyond me, but I digressed. I told her everything from start to finish. It was the first time I’d allowed myself to talk to anyone about it at length. As I spoke, she listened calmly and carefully. Despite what I’d have liked to believe, she had always been the more levelheaded one out of the two of us, save for when it came to discussing things about herself.

By the time I finished, I’d begun bouncing my still healing ankle back and forth, which I’d crossed over my other leg to keep it from touching the ground. I didn’t stop even after I noticed what I was doing.

“It’s painfully clear to see how conflicted you are about all this.” Coming to sit beside me on the sofa in the Sheikahs’ sitting room, Paya placed an affectionate palm on my thigh, bringing its restless jittering to a halt. “I understand how hard this must be for you. But the way I see it, there’s only one question you need ask yourself at the end of the day.”

Whatever she was about to say, it wouldn’t be an easy pill to swallow, would it? I straightened my posture. “And what would that be?”

“Between the two of them, who do you think was the better person?”

She was looking me dead in the eyes, her hand still resting upon my leg. I uncrossed them.

I’d never thought to compare the two before. What reason would I have had to do so? But now that she’d mentioned it, I hadn’t realized how few memories I even had left of my mother, and the ones that remained were blurry and vague beyond any hope of being recovered. If only she hadn’t left me with the Sheikahs all those years ago, maybe I could have remembered more clearly what kind of person she had been.

On the other hand, Link had always been there for me. Even during the times when circumstances had driven us apart, the thought of him was what had kept my flame burning strong and hot throughout each arctic day, and what had protected me from myself, keeping me from doing the irreparable. He had stayed by my side to the bitter end.

No matter how I’d reflected back on that day previously, the sight of his steely, focused stare and the sound of his crazed breaths, short and sharp, had been ever dominant. But now, I recalled the way those eyes had then glazed over with unadulterated horror. How his arms had shivered as they’d clung to my broken form and how they’d continue to cling for what would feel like millennia until the rest of his unit would finally stumble upon the scene.

My stepsister-of-sorts gave my leg a soft squeeze as I looked back at her with a tremor in my lip. “He s...saved me,” I whimpered. “Didn’t he?”

After a month apart, I made plans with Link for a night out on the pier, where we would celebrate the end of the Organization. The ice cream I’d promised him was at the top of my list of priorities for the evening. Tonight was a dessert-first night anyway, I’d decided. From there, we went and found ourselves a bite to eat at a seafood restaurant within walking distance. I’d hoped eating with him would feel like old times, but he hardly spoke a word throughout the whole meal. I tried lightening the mood with some banter, but this proved ineffective when he brushed off everything I said with mere one or two-word replies.

It wasn’t until I’d gotten us both a bit of something to drink that he finally broke the silence. “Have you...” he started, but lost the confidence to continue.

I perked up at the sound of his voice, wanting to hear more of it. “Have I...?”

“A-Ah...” His fingers poked at the copious amount of chips piled onto his plate next to the practically untouched fillet of fried fish. “I was just wondering if you’ve thought about what you’re going to do now, since...you know...you’re not a detective anymore.”

“Ah, right. That.” I took another sip of my drink, its contents long having fled my memory. “Actually, my auntie talked about it with me and she said she’d consider letting me inherit the company once I’ve acquired the proper education. So to answer your question, I’m thinking about going to school for engineering.”

His brows rose. “Oh! My, that’s—” He cleared his throat. “That’s brilliant. I’m happy for you.”

I thanked him with a hesitant grin, then asked, “How about you? Do you plan to stay on with the force, or...?”

“Ahh, well...” What little there’d been of an upward turn in his lips vanished. “I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. It’s something I’ve been mulling over for a while now. Whether to stay on and honour my father’s work, or...whatever other options are available, I suppose.”

“Do you want to hear what I think?” He raised his head. “I think you should do whatever you think would make you happiest. That’s what you’re father would have wanted, I’m sure.”

This finally, finally, got a real, unsubdued smile out of him. And I intended to milk that smile for all it was worth.

After dinner, I dragged him back down to the arcade on the pier, where I managed to ring a few laughs out of him while we were still a bit tipsy. We steered clear of the toy gun target-type games, favouring other stands like the ring toss where he won me a plush frog that I could only just get my arms all the way around. His aim was spectacular, especially for someone who wasn’t entirely sober. Not only that, but I could never have imagined how sweet and charming he would be like this. For a fleeting moment, it felt as though we’d gone back in time again. That, or the light from the setting sun was playing tricks on me.

But by the end of the evening, he’d reverted back to that quiet, reclusive version of himself that I’d quickly grown to detest. We were out on the docks now, facing the sea. The breeze carried a mist of saltwater within its bows. I breathed it in, soaking up the feeling of it hitting me softly and coolly in the face. A hint of pink in my partner’s cheeks caught my eye, and I wondered whether it was the cocktails or my arms, which were currently wound about his waist from behind.

“Beautiful sunset,” I tried, hoping I could get him to spare me a glance at least. “Isn’t it?” But to no avail. He only continued to gaze westward at the rippling flames reflected in the water. “Hey...” Before I knew what I was doing, my palm had found the warmth of his cheek, and there was hardly an inch or two of distance between the tips of our noses. Without giving myself time to think, I tilted my head, leaned in, and started to close my eyes.

But when I realized he wasn’t doing the same, I halted. On the contrary, he’d been leaning back and away from my advances, his back so rigid and shoulders so stiff it were as though he would sprout wings and bolt were I to make any sudden moves.

“What’s wrong?”

A harsh, jagged exhale. “Zelda, I just can’t—” He grabbed both my wrists and wrenched my arms off of him. “I’m sorry. We can’t do this.” He was bent over the railing, arms folded in on each other. “Not now,” he said, dwindling, “after I’ve gone and...murdered your only family.” A weary chuckle shook him by the shoulders before he raked his hands through his wind-tousled hair.

I fell into quiet thought for a moment. Then, taking a long, thorough breath, I placed a feather-light set of fingertips atop his own. “That woman was never my family.” I’d made up my mind. Figuratively or otherwise, my real mother had moved on a long time ago. And it was time I did the same.

Link must have seen the resolve in my eyes or heard it in my voice, because now he was looking back at me openly, his body turned to face me. Though there was still an air of uncertainty lingering about him as he ran the crease of his cuff between his fingers again and again. But when I brought my arms around him and held him close, he sank into my lips, returning my embrace at long last. A lone pair of tears fell from my eyes the moment they fluttered closed—a culmination of all past ordeals—and as they fell, I couldn’t help but smile.

[oceansmelodysblog]

A Dream of the Past

Post-botw Zelink Fanfiction

version française : Un rêve du passé

Together we rode through the wind and weather as the rain whipped into our faces and soaked through our clothes to the skin. From then on, I watched Zelda to see if she managed to keep up, or if the heaviness from the relentless rain affected her too much. She was too stubborn to admit that she had reached her limit and pushed herself beyond it. As far as I could remember, she had been like this before the calamity, spending hours in the sacred waters of the springs to awaken her strength.

Slowly a memory crept into my consciousness that I thought I had forgotten:

I watched over the entrance to the spring of power while Zelda prayed until the early hours of the night, however without success. She opened her heart to me and revealed her sorrows and grief, then when I heard her voice tremble, I knew she was fighting back her tears and turned to her. As her chosen knight, I was not allowed to watch her pray, let alone look at her during this sacred ritual in her white dress that had become transparent from the water. But I had to do it, as her best friend and closest companion.

The bright moonlight illuminated her bare shoulders, while half of her face remained in darkness. Her right green eye reflected the light of the moon as tears ran down her face. So far I remembered through the images in the Sheikah Stone, but what came next struck like a fallen star to the ground.

I sheathed my master sword and, defying the resistance of the holy water, ran to her. I barely managed to catch her as she collapsed clutching at my arms. She was exhausted, physically as well as mentally. Sobbing and trembling, she cried her soul out as I held her head tightly against me.

"Link, why does it hurt so much? This burden on my heart, I can hardly endure it and feel myself drowning. Link. Please reach out your hand to me and pull me out of this darkness of uncertainty!" Zelda's voice trembled and broke off as she lifted her head in my arms and looked up at me. Her eyes were reddened from her desperate effort to hold back the tears and now they shone like the surface of spring water reflecting the radiance of the moon. Gently I stroked the strands of her hair behind her ear, worrying that I might shatter her. I leaned my forehead against hers, looked deep into her eyes and exhaled my desperate breath. It was hard for me as well to carry the burden of the hero, when all I wanted to be was a simple knight from Hateno, living modestly and untroubled with my family.

I noticed a heavy tear running down my cheek and how tenderly Zelda wiped it away and looked sorrowfully into my eyes, tears gathering at the edges of the corners of her eyes.

"Shhh, Zelda mark my words. I will follow you into any darkness, however dangerous and hopeless," I whispered against her lips, but before I could give in to her pleading eyes and break the chivalric oath, I reached into the water for her legs and lifted her into my arms. I stomped through the hip-high water, shifting my weight with each step, deliberate, so that I wouldn't fall into the wet with her.

 

"Link? Are you all right? You just said my name and then spoke of dangerous darkness... isn't it safe here?"

Her concerned voice snapped me out of my reminiscence. My heart was pounding and my breaths were heavier than usual.

'What was that just now? It felt like I was there again!’ it flashed through my mind. 'It felt so real, I could sense her lovely scent!'

"Link!"

I looked up with a jolt and gazed into wide-open eyes. In the shadow of the rain clouds and her hood, her normally emerald eyes now shimmered in the dark green of the Gerudo Desert plants. Not sure I was back in reality, I squinted my eyes and shook my head slightly to clear my head.

"Forgive me princess. I saw a vision of sorts, I'm not entirely sure though, it felt like I experienced it once. If I startled you by talking while I was doing it, I'm sorry. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before, at least there was no one close enough to say it did."

I saw her looking at me curiously and puzzled, but she didn't ask what it was about. She always gave me the space I needed to open up on my own, which I appreciated about her. Only once had she pushed me to give her an answer to my silent behaviour before the calamity, but after that she began to understand me even without words.  I didn't even know if she could remember it, if it was really a memory and if I had just fantasised it, which wouldn't necessarily make it more pleasant to tell her that I was having strangely intimate dreams about her.

She gave me an encouraging smile and I returned it with the same. But then her pale lips caught my eye and abruptly stopped her mare while I signalled my mustang to halt.

"Let's rest in the old barn up ahead, our horses need a rest.  The rain is draining their strength too." If I had told her to take a break, she would have looked at me defiantly and ridden on without me. But so I made her pay more attention to the feelings of her companion animal and secretly persuaded her to warm up.

In the old barn we found some hay, which of course we scattered on the ground together to give us and the horses a dry and pleasant-smelling place to lie down. Altay and Himawari lay down on the hay mats that Zelda and I had laboriously scattered, almost as if we had agreed. We looked at each other simultaneously and smiled at the cheeky behaviour of our animal companions.

While I knelt down next to Altay, I asked Zelda to sit down next to me, between both of our horses. I dried and cleaned Altay's coat as much as I could with a scrap of cloth, while Zelda took off her mare Himawari's saddle and groomed her. It was quiet yet comfortable between us. We heard only the pounding rain hitting the wooden façade and the sleepy breathing of our horses. Even though the unpleasant wet cold came in through the lack of a door, I felt myself getting toasty warm. I turned my head to Zelda to make sure she was warming up. Leaning against Himawari, she zapped through the Sheikah Stone, ignoring her reddened fingers. Sighing, I put down my master sword and shield, took off my hood and tunic and laid both on the ground to dry. As I thought about building a small fire, I felt her gaze on the back of my neck. She stared at me with her mouth slightly open while I looked at her questioningly.

But then I realised that she was looking at me somewhat absent-mindedly and she was looking through me, to a time that had long since passed.  'Did the scars on my body, trigger the memory of the day of my defeat?'

Carefully, I touched her on the shoulder. "'Zelda, I am here, I am alive and it is because of you. Please come back to me. Zelda!"

She blinked hard, pushing tears from her eyes.

"Link? Oh, by Hylia, I'm so glad you're alive!" she trilled between tears and a relieved laugh as she fell around my arms, throwing me onto my back with them.

I hardly dared move, my arms hovering discreetly over her back as she snuggled closer and closer to me, hiding her face against my neck. I shouldn't think about how it felt for me, no, I wasn't allowed to think about it. But I could not deny that I was deeply relaxed at that moment.

Relieved, she sighed against my neck and looked up into my eyes. At first she looked at me contentedly and even played with the strands of my hair, but suddenly this veil before her eyes disappeared and the expression in them became clear, like a cloudless sky.

She startled to her feet, fell to the side and held a hand in front of her sensuous mouth.

"Link! I'm sorry... I... I don't even know why I did that!"

Slowly, I sat up and run a hand through my hair, troubled. From the looks of it, her soul still couldn't distinguish what time she was in, due to the hundred year seal and the loss of space and time. I just knew I had to help her break out of this darkness, as I had promised in my vision. I let out a loud sigh and gave her a soft, honest smile.

"It's okay. Whenever you need my warmth, don't hold back." I slid close to Altay and leaned my back against him. He lifted his heavy head briefly and looked at me sleepily, but when I stroked his face he settled back to sleep. I turned my attention back to Zelda, who still looked confused.

Then I took the initiative and tapped my chest to show her that she could lean against me.

Slightly uncertain, she joined me and tentatively rested her head on my chest.

"It feels like a miracle to hear your strong heart beating in your chest. The last time I heard it, you were... you...." she whispered weakly. Just the thought of the word 'dying' caused her tremendous grief.

I felt that she was no longer herself; more fragile, more sensitive and full of sorrow. Her soul was shattered, and it hurt in every inch of my body. I felt her shoulders begin to shake, again struggling with her heart.

It had only been two days since her rescue from Gannon's clutches and yet she expected far too much of herself.

I pulled her onto my lap and tenderly lifted her face with one finger, I leaned my forehead against hers and sighed. At last, I was no longer bound by an oath.

With my fingertips on her chin, I stroked her soft, pure skin, her jaw, her cheeks, eyes, nose and finally I stopped at her lips. She relaxed noticeably and leaned closer to me.

"Whatever darkness you are in, however dangerous and hopeless, I will follow you there and save you," I breathed against her lips. My heart pounded and my breath trembled, I wanted to take away her pain, to help her heal. One last time I looked into her emerald green tortured eyes and closed the gap to her soft lips with mine.

I kissed her with the thirst of a desert wanderer who finally found water and the tenderness of snowflakes touching the ground.

Zelda interrupted our kiss; shaky breathing, she whispered my name.

It was all I could hear, nor did the drumming of the rain on the roofs reach me, nor the soft snoring of our horses, only her breath whispering, I once vowed the same words in the sacred spring of power.  

[averageagenderjoe]

Age of Calamity:

So, I had some thoughts on the first Hyrule Warriors, and since I got Age of Calmity as a gift over the holidays, I remembered that one post I made (that I can’t find for some reason) where I talked about my opinions on Hyrule Warriors and I got some opinions to share on Age of Calamity (which I haven’t finished and am still in the process of playing), so here goes—

—I will forever mock Hyrule Warriors with it’s plot that I believe I’ve said “reads like a bad fanfiction.” Just to make it clear—as a reader and writer of fanfiction—I think all fanfiction is kind of equally bad. I am so embarrassed over all the shit I read and write, and this is not just my fanfiction but my original work as well, like, the entire time I write, I am just cringing because somehow it’s embarrassing for me to write down what I am, and the entire time I’ve been playing Age of Calamity, I’ve been kind of yearning for many factors of that bad fanfiction plot line, but what it really boils down to is I wish Cia and Lana were in this game.

—No, I’m still on this. I loved Lana—I think I’m kind of gay for her. I know Hyrule Warriors isn’t canon and all, and I get it, but like, I want Cia and Lana to be canon characters and to find their way into another game, much like how tons of Zelda fans want Zant, Ghirahim, and Vaati to somehow manage to get into future games. I mean, I could talk for hours about Lana and Cia, and like, I wish they were in the game. The entire time I’ve been playing, I’ve been wishing they were characters.

—Lana is so hot. I mean, I’m aggressively bisexual, and I got a thing for colored hair but—like, fsahbjA, y’know?

—I remember seeing a post that expressed disappointment over how Nintendo’s been slowly toning down how buff Impa is, but like, I AGREE WITH IT. I mean, I know Impa started out as Zelda’s nursemaid or something, right? And she was an old lady, and then there was Ocarina of Time and she was a badass. In Skyward Sword, she’s a ninja chick and she’s cool. (I guess I won’t include Impaz because I mean, I guess they might be different characters and she had little to do with Twilight Princess’ plot.) In Hyrule Warriors, she was a general and she had a GIANT sword and she was so badass, and then come Breath of the Wild, she was a short old woman because the plot demanded so—and it feels like they put her in this one the way they did because they liked Paya a lot. Like, this version of her is cute, but I want the Impa with a sword that’s bigger than her and is a badass over the cutesy version I’ve seen so far. And in the first level, she needs Link to come help her? I think she trips or something? Stupid. (And even as I type this, I have to say that I do like playing as her, but like, still.)

—And Zelda’s so WEAK. Like, she does nothing in levels, I swear, and I can’t stand her weapons or her attacks. I found her slightly annoying in the first Hyrule Warriors, because it felt like she talked about hope a lot and stuff or whatever, and while I liked her in Breath of the Wild, in AoC, she comes across as weak, and I just find myself getting annoyed with her. I mean, her role in Age of Calamity does kind of match up with what I know about BotW, and I liked her in that game, but I think it’s the differece in game play and plot that makes it frustrating, because now she’s a playable character, and where I am, I feel like she does nothing worthwhile. And also, at first, I was put off by her voice in BotW, and then it grew on me, and now I’m really not digging it, but that’s more than likely just a me thing.

—With all that said, their relationship is coming across as SO GAY! Like, I know people shipped Impa and Zelda in Skyward Sword, and I know some people did in Hyrule Warriors too (which while I don’t ship it myself, I definitely don’t mind it as a ship depending on how it’s written, it kind of depends, and even then like, ships are weird in general—you Zelda/Impa shippers keep doing you, though!) But like, they’re so friendly! And I’ve decided, they’re gay! They just are.

—Does Revali seriously not like Link because they both fought each other in that one level? Or was that a part of it, on top of (I think, Revali having the hots for Zelda??? I don’t know how true that is, I’m not a hundred percent up to date with Breath of the Wild) just Revali having that personality like he hated everyone and everything?

—I’m ashamed to say it, but... Daruk? The Goron Guy? I think he’s boring. I got nothing against him, but I cannot, for the love of god, bring myself to care about him, and I wish I could... but I can’t.

Fuck yeah I’m gonna add to this later.

[spiritmaiden23]

Are all Princeses hylia reborn?

short answer: I DON’T KNOW MAN ZELDA LORE CONFUSES ME, PROBABLY!! WHO CARES?! The fandom seems to think so so like, whatever. 

I never go with fandom interpretation tho so Long Answer will be my opinion, I’m not claiming I’m correcting in this tho just... things I’ve gathered and come to my own conclusion on this aaaaaaa. 

Long answer: Phew ok bear with me because the lore of this series is all over the place and like I’m not a timeline expert, while I’ve played all the games keep in mind that before Skyward Sword, there wasn’t really too many connections with the other games and if there were they were kept purposefully vague (Aside from wind waker and maybe twilight princess but like that’s a while can of worms and we don’t have time to unpack all that) because originally each game was supposed to be a different interpretation of The Legend of Zelda, the actual legend that’s getting passed down about the princess, the hero, and the demon king who fight to save the lands of Hyrule. There was no timeline but fans kept making up their own. So, along came SS and Skyward Sword and the official timeline sorta rebooted that lore so certain things changed from what I remember but here’s what I’ve been able to gather from playing the games as I’ve never touched Hyrule Historia aside from quick articles that are on the web! Sky Zelda is the only reincarnation of Hylia as far as I’m concerned, hence why she’s called things like Spirit Maiden, The Reborn Goddess Hylia, Hylia Incarnate, Goddess, etc etc she’s literally a mortal goddess more than likely based off of Arahitogami because SS actually took some eastern Asian elements within the game so I wouldn’t be surprised if she was based on Arahitogami! She’s literally divinity in human form, literally Hylia but Human and her powers aka the sealing powers and light magic, in general, gets passed down to the royal family (Minish Cap eludes to the mysterious powers that members of the royal family has along with other games as well. Even in her speech where she confesses to what Hylia’s plans really were, you see Zelda constantly switching between “and so she... I mean... and so I” because they are one and the same. We don’t know how much of her memories she was able to get back but in my opinion, her memories work the same way as we look at memories where we remember certain key events and others are vague fuzzy recollections that are there but not really but because of magic it’s probably more clear the more she thinks on it. I digress. Point is: she’s the closest to Hylia because she is Hylia but without immortality and more uwu as well as gremlin energy to her. NOW with that out of the way, I mentioned that her magic gets passed down to the royal family. So in a sense, if we look at it that way, Hylia’s technically being reborn in each princess... or well, her powers are at least. Hylia herself though? Nope. We do maybe see her in BOTW in Zelda’s dreams too (reading her diary for this one tho) or maybe Sky Zelda but again same person, so yanno?! To me, that drives home the point that they’re not reincarnating there. And also, what Demise says too with his curse also makes me think “hey maybe no reincarnation here” too. I’m pretty sure no one’s really doing the reincarnation in the cycle aside from maybe Ganondorf because he’s boss like that. I say maybe because the Ganondorf we see in ALTTP, Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess is all the same man from Ocarina of Time. He sorta gets semi-reincarnated in the Oracle Series due to a botched resurrection spell that Twinrova tried to bring him back but as Ganon not Ganondorf... erm, what else, what else? LINK CONFUSES ME BUT I DON’T THINK HE’S GETTING REINCARNATED because there’s a whole lot to unpack TP Link and skeleton grandpa aka Hero’s Shade aka OOT Link and if he was reincarnating how on earth did those two meet? I know that each link shares the spirit of the hero according to demise’s curse so

God this is a mess, forget I said anything actually. Just take the short answer and go before I piss off anyone LOL!!! 

[kittenfemme27]

Genshin Impact

Breath of the Wild was a game I wanted to love. I love the Zelda games, always have, and I eat up open world games like candy. Yet, BoTW has sat on my digital shelf collecting digital dust for ages. Why is that? Well, to put it simply, I don't want to play as Link. BoTW has a beautiful world, rich combat and game play puzzles, tons to see and do and experience, it's a sandbox for the ages. But it's hampered so heavily for me by the fact that I have to play this very boring and to be honest kind of forgettable boy named Link during the game play. That may sound petty, but if I'm in an open world game I want to fully immerse myself into that and video games are where we all go to escape anyway. If I wanted to be misgendered, I'd simply forget to shave and go outside.

I don't mind playing other Zelda games because in those, Link is a self contained character in the world and they're relatively short and self contained games. But BoTW is a sandbox. And for a large majority of it, you're not going to be doing the story or being addressed as link. The size of the world and the sheer amount of hours you're going to put into it mean that for almost all intents and purposes, Link isn't Link, he's a faceless avatar that you're supposed to put yourself into. The game offers so much freedom in so many avenues and yet, in your choice of how to explore the world as someone you'd actually like to be, you're not allowed. You have to be a skinny blonde twink.

So, in late 2019, in comes a trailer for Genshin Impact. It's making its rounds on the Internet as a "PC Free to Play Gacha Breath of the Wild Clone" which, while a mouthful, was something I initially wrote off. Didn't see a point in checking it out, as I really don't like Gacha games very much. But in late September 2020, MiHoYo the developers released the public 1.0 build of the game to everyone. Multi-platform, too. iOS/Android, PC, PS4, and even a switch release down the line. And maybe its the pandemic, or maybe the Internet was simply too lured in by the cute anime girls, but it took the many by storm. It took me personally over 12+ hours to download the 11 gigs of the game because the servers were so swamped with people.

Now I do want to be clear: Genshin Impact borrows many things from BoTW, but it isn't a clone. It's not a sandbox in the same way BoTW is and aside from some general game play things such as gliders, stamina/wall climbing system, and general aesthetic, the games are massively different. Still, though, playing it has highlighted to me why I never felt quite right playing BoTW, and its that lack of freedom. That lack of ability to play the game on my own terms and explore the beautiful handcrafted world the way I want to. 

Despite appearances, Genshin Impact is a lot more like a single player MMO than it is anything else. Requiring tons of farming and grinding to create high level powerful characters in a world that gets increasingly more powerful and hostile as you do. The core game play loop of Genshin Impact is pretty phenomenal, essentially giving you a massive world to explore with literally thousands upon thousands of chests and rewards to find. Either by clearing out enemies, doing random in world puzzles, or even just sitting around. Being inside of and exploring the world of Teyvat is as rewarding as it is beautiful. The art and animation design of the game are stellar and do a lot to make you forget how much time has passed since you booted up the game in the first place. There's tons of different lore books to find, NPC's to talk to, quests to complete, the world is chock-full of lore and world building even down to simple weapon and material descriptions. Teyvat is a wonderful place to be and the developers MiHoYo deserve a pat on the back for how good the world of Genshin Impact is. The other side of game play is a simple system of Character Progression where you farm materials to make your characters/weapons/abilities better so that you can farm even more materials from harder enemies, much like an MMO, and you also acquire gear called Artifacts with randomly rolled stats much like an ARPG. In that regard, Genshin Impact is highly addictive. There are a myriad of weapons, talents, artifacts, and characters all to level up and build up over the course of your play, and every character can be made viable very very easily. The game also lets you keep a party of 4 characters that you can swap between at any point, as well as each character being attuned to a specific Elemental Type that reacts to other Elements. This causes the end-game to be centered around doing some of the hardest dungeons the game has to offer by theory crafting incredibly powerful teams that work off of each other and cause Elemental Reactions in enemies. It’s some of the most fun i’ve had in a game in ages.

All of that is fantastic but unfortunately its all also held back by one simple, huge problem: Original Resin. The game uses a currency called Original Resin that you use to challenge the harder content in the game. Dungeons, World Bosses, Elite Weekly Bosses, you name it and if its end-game content, it likely costs Resin. And not in insignificant amounts either. Dungeons are 20, Bosses are 40, and Weekly Bosses are 60. So, how do you obtain this material? Time. You start with, and are capped, at 120(Later 160 in patch 1.1). 1 resin takes 8 minutes to get back. If you spend it all, it takes 16 hours to get back. Given the rates you spend it, you can go from 120 to 0 in roughly 10-15 minutes. With no way to increase the resin cap, and the incredibly slow acquisition rate, that frequently means you only have about that much playtime a day of the game in the endgame. And that's, needless to say, incredibly frustrating. Thankfully its not an entire stamina system that means you can't play the game at all when you're out of resin, but it does mean that character progression itself is gated as all upgrade/progression materials are locked behind these dungeons and bosses that you must use Original Resin to face. Effecitvely, this means single characters will become weeks and weeks of work, with weapons and artifacts being only slightly less time consuming. I can only hope MiHoYo is looking to change this system in a way that isn't just increasing the cap as the feedback they've received has been very negative regarding it, but only time will tell.

Unfortunately, this isn't the games only problem with its players either. The game is a Gacha, there is no getting around that, but despite the fact that pretty much any character can become massively overpowered and viable in the endgame, people are going to want the rarest characters that exist. This is by design and unfortunately is more or less a glorified gambling system. And while the game is quite nice with its premium currency and how often it gives it, what isn't nice is that the rarest “5-star”characters cost a minimum of 200$ to get through money. With no guarantee you're getting the one you want.

Worse still, outside of a guaranteed 5-star drop at 90 rolls on the gacha wheel, the chance for a 5-star weapon or character is 0.6%. Not even a whole rounded up 1%. This is frankly ridiculous, as is the cost of real money to premium currency. For reference, most other popular Gacha’s doing well offer their rarest characters at anywhere between a 1-6% rate. In general, gacha's aren't known to be kind in their rates. That’s the point, they want you to gamble with real money. Genshin Impact, however, is so unkind and unfair that even other regular players of gacha gamers are very, very vocally upset. If it wasn't for the game play loop and the world, I'm not sure this would fly. And its certainly not flying in the west with the crowd that doesn't play Gacha's nearly as much. Neither is the resin system, as gamers in the west typically want to play for hours and hours at a time.

I’d be remiss if i didn’t bring up the story in Genshin Impact, as it’s genuinely fantastic. As previously stated, the world has a metric tonne of hidden lore in books, weapon/item/artifact descriptions, character stories you unlock as you use a playable character, etc. But the main story you can currently play from start to finish in the 1.0 release is the prologue.

This prologue stars very simply: Your character, the “Traveler” is an alien from another world. Not much is known about them so far, other than that the Traveler and their sibling were people with the ability to hop between worlds at will. In the opening moments of the game this power, along with your sibling, are stolen from you by an unnamed assailant. Thus trapping you in Teyvat and leaving you to begin a journey to find the Seven Gods of Teyvat, simply known as “The Seven” and seek their power and wisdom to find your sibling and potentially leave. This journey is how you meet Venti, one of the Seven in disguise as a simple human bard, and his best friend Dvalin. The events that follow have you help this strange bard, as well as the people of Mondstat, defeat the dragon Dvalin. Previously, he protected the lands of Mondstat for hundreds of years. However, as you meet both Dvalin and Venti, he has had his mind corrupted and been lied to by an order of evil mages known as the Abyss Order, and its caused him to go on the offensive against Mondstat and her people.

It's a fair bit emotional, humorous at times thanks to Venti, and overall very engaging. Mondstat is a city built on freedom, to the point that its own god Barbatos(Venti) refuses to rule over it and allows himself to be the weakest of the seven gods, as that would take away some of the cities freedom. Within this prologue, there is a huge focus on Mondstat being a city of Freedom, the prologue quite literally ends with Venti telling Dvalin after you have saved him from the corruption that even though he is "meant" to be the protector of Mondstat, he hopes Dvalin chooses whatever life he wants, even if that's not Mondstats protector, and that Venti simply wants him to be happy. Venti's own personal story quest goes further in depth about the foundation of Mondstat and its origins as a rebel city founded after the citizens overthrew the oppressive rule of an awful tyrant God and killed him. In a very pretty hand drawn "cathedral window" style cutscene, you get to see the end of this war and why Barbatos chose the form he currently inhabits and took up being a bard, which was to honor a dead friend from this very same war. This explains why Mondstat and Barbatos value its freedom so highly. I cried at this moment both times I played it.

For a free game, the storytelling here is off the charts. As i said before, Venti and many other characters have personal stories that both introduce you to a trial version of the playable character, thus letting you see how they work and play, and also giving you either more info on the world or an introduction to the character in question, or both. They're fantastic little stories and are up there with the main story in quality. One of my favorite parts of the game and something that will only be expanded with time. Each one takes you on a journey of discovery or even simple fun with a character and it all feels very personal and touching, as all of the main stories and character quests are very well voice acted.

The prologue being so focused on freedom makes it all the more awkward, then, that MiHoYo is a game developer based out of China, and as such has to follow China's censorship rules. Taiwan and Hong Kong both are censored in-game chat and if you're reported for saying them, you'll be banned for daring to speak the words. These aren't the only censorship decisions in the game, but they're by far the ones that struck me the most. I understand that the company is based out of China and thus has to follow the censorship rules, as they are the actual law of the land and they could be fined or even shut down if they refused. But the disconnect of knowing there are actual human rights atrocities being committed in China with the Uygher Genocide and Re-Education camps, the human rights violations in Hong Kong, the breakdown of democracy and the treatment of Taiwan, while this game that comes out of China boasts on and on about Freedom and the Human right to self actualize and choose their future is... troubling. It's one that I don't really know how to reconcile, if it can be reconciled at all. I'd like to believe that the developers really believe in their own story and secretly oppose those sorts of atrocities. But at the same time, banning players who mention Hong Kong or Taiwan isn't in the law. That’s a decision MiHoYo is making. Right now, China doesn’t have the freedom that Venti and Mondstat and Genshin Impact try to instill in you so hard as important and a human right. And knowing that and knowing the censorship is in the game make it very difficult to get a read on what the game actually wants you to feel.

Overall,i think Genshin Impact is a fantastic game. Its updates plan to bring in not only more story, as there are meant to be 7 Acts and currently the game features the Prologue and half of Act 1, but in those acts it plans to explain the playable areas and bring in new Events, Characters, Weapons, etc. And that makes me excited for the future of Genshin Impact! It’s a beautiful game of genuinely Triple AAA quality completely for free. But. Its also a Gacha game and by far one of the least rewarding Gachas you could play right now. Maybe that will change with time. I certainly hope it does. But it feels hard to recommend something that, once you beat it, disrespects your time so much and so badly. I hope Genshin Impact has a bright future, I really do, and I’m definitely going to continue playing it. But right now, I can’t say for certain that I feel confident in the developers to make it the game it clearly wants to be if it wasn’t shackled down by its Gacha.

[vinku-iikku]

Yay I finally finished 2018 inktober! If you want to just scroll through them all please go here, and if you want to see some comments on each please look under the cut.

Day 01 Flowey and Overgrown Ruins This prompt I picked as is because as far as I remember Flowey stayed behind when the monsters left. If you can’t find him, he’s near the big root on the left. All other days the second prompt got randomised by a die (except when I reached the last two).

Day 02 Grillby and Exotic Flora Grillby’s on a journey to look at all the flowers that aren’t living in a wet environment. Maybe he’ll make some wine from the non-poisonous ones.

Day 03 Chara and Cave Entrance They are still curious about morbid things and places that could be portentially dangerous, practically running at danger.

Day 04 Undyne and Astral Plains/Dreamland Welp I’d rather have had her with some other prompt, but now she has an anime showdown/faceoff with a mean monster that harasses a moldsmal.

Day 05 Asgore and Rocky Ruins Asgore had a trip down memory lane and visited the place where their castle used to be, before the war. Not much is left any more.

Day 06 Frisk and Ancient Tree They are still precariously looking for adventure. I saw this article about a 800 year-old Finnish tree, as soon as I saw that top I wanted to climb that, looks like a perfect spot to see everything around you and chill for a bit.

Day 07 Temmie and Nature Untouched I did some research in a nearby forest for this one, the sales-Temmie has made a nest in a tree that has fallen down in a storm. The soil is shallow before solid rock so trees have their roots mostly close to the surface, when they fall the roots go up as well. Temmie on the left is sitting on an ant nest lol. There are seven Temmies in total.

Day 08 Muffet and Crystal Coves Crystal Coves is either a place where crystal business is the main employer, a cove that has crystals, or a cove with crystal clear water, I think. I tried to implement them all just to make sure. Muffet has now made a business in making spider-products with glass expertise.

Day 09 Fuku Fire and Freezing Fjord Finally back to the ‘monsters travelling’ theme, Fuku is taking a longer trip and is currently on a boat by Norway.

Day 10 Gaster Blasters and Townsquare The blasters are on their own for whatever convenient reason, Pap’s one is figuring how things work by destroying them, Sans’ is... playing with local children. :D The fountain is loosely based on Havis Amanda.

Day 11 Nice Cream Guy & Shanty Town He’s travelling the world and selling nice cream! Definitely inspired by Beadle in BotW.

Day 12 Mettaton EX & Cemetery This combination took me a moment, Mettaton is a bit loud and showy for a cemetery. Then I remembered that Napstablook said they’re already dead when you try to kill them, so here Mettaton’s visiting haunted places and telling everyone about this wonderful body he got and where to get one if you’re interested in becoming physical again. I worked in a cemetery for one summer years ago, felt weird pulling those visual memories to this...

Day 13 Toriel & Hall of Deities In order to become a teacher I’d imagine she’d have to brush up her knowledge on lots of things that’ve happened on the surface, and here she’s in a secret underground place with some sacred scriptures or something, she reads them and writes down notes and then returns the scrolls.

Day 14 Annoying Dog & Volcanic Terrain Another weird combination, but eh, it’s the dog. It’s feeding bones to the vulkins and admiring danger up close.

Day 15 Monster Kid & Path Along the Water I made a huge area with different textures so I could try learn something new by scribbling around, and I’m really happy how the boulders on top of the waterfall and the water itself look like.

Day 16 Doggo & Ancient Altar Room Took a moment to come up with an idea, then I read Doggo likes squirrels. So now he’s travelling the world too, and he always has time and seeds for any squirrel population he discovers.

Day 17 Alphys & Summoning Altar I thought I’d not be drawing Mew Mew, but here was a perfect opportunity for that! Alphys isn’t travelling, but discovering new things in her home, humans have such interesting books! All of the Japanese text mean something; the bowl has the kanji for ’love’, books under it are Mew Mew manga, there’s two yury books, a reference to Free!, Digimon, Pokémon, Rose of Versailles, Natsume Book of Friends... and it’s fine if you don’t get the one that says ‘corn’.

Day 18 Photoshop Flowey & Windmills and Grasslands I think the modern wind generators look super cool. I tried to make Flowey as cute as possible so he’d be more fun to draw there, this is some dream stuff or alternate universe since Flowey did stay behind.

Day 19 Papyrus & Desserted Drylands I’m pretty sure that’s an accidental typo, but since it was Papyrus I wanted to roll with the new pun meaning. First thought was Papyrus somehow being in the drylands and dropping a huge cake, thus ’desserting’ it, but that would’ve been a bit mean. This cake is made with 100% organic sand (some of which he ground himself when grooming Rocky), the tiny cow ornaments are modified mouse skeletons. :) The chef hat would be straight but there wasn’t enough room on the page of the notebook I draw these on... I remembered he had a triangle on the battle armor, but didn’t remember what way it points so avoided it by replacing it with a heart. :D

Day 20 Sans & By the Beach Sans is getting some more sand for Papyrus with his shortcut, then he took a nap unfortunately close to the tide..? The shore felt a bit bare so I added some animals to keep him company. I h/c that animals don’t mind having monsters around unlike how they usually try to run away when a human is near.

Day 21 Shyren & Buried Statue(s) She’s doing that Disney princess thing where you sit down and start singing and all small animals within hearing range come to listen.

Day 22 Asriel & Underwater Temple Another dream thing since Flowey stayed behind, this is how he imagines the oceans look like outside.

Day 23 Lesser Dog & Market Place Some people have to learn the hard way to not trust a dog that has opposable thumbs.

Day 24 Box Mettaton & Merchant’s Store Any website run by a popular monster must get an insane amount of curious folk, which leads to ad revenue being a good way to fund the next tour. There’s some.. insider jokes there if you’re in any kind of website business.

Day 25 Rocky the pet rock & Eldritch Forest I don’t actually know what the latter means, looking at Google images it’s probably just a forest that’s very dark or something. Wanted to try a different perspective for a change. Rocky has a bowl of food there but I can’t really think of any non-sad reason for why it’s in this forest.

Day 26 Froggit & Inn in th Middle of Nowhere Had to take a break for one day, regardless I’m proud of myself on being consistent this far despite everything going on. I first only had the top Froggit and the bg in the sketch, and didn’t like how it looked. Somehow adding more Froggits made it look a lot better to me...

Day 27 Burgerpants & By the Docs Birsd with human arms and birds sitting like humans will never not be hilarious to me.

Day 28 Bratty and Catty & Deep in the Woods Tried to play with perspective with this one, it’s kind of the opposite of the Rocky drawing.

Day 29 God of Hyperdeath & Idle Portal I had a hard time coming up with anything for this, so now poor goat is somewhere in a completely white dimention and the only way out is not active, though he’s quite chill about it.

Day 30 Amalgamate & Abnormal Formations This and last one’s world I didn’t leave for the die to decide, I really wanted to do Tetris with Napstablook and out of the two still left this prompt suits Endogeny more anyway. There’s a forest in Poland where several of the trees bend to north like this.

Day 31 Napstablook & Puzzling Platforms Only one I did during morning, my hands shake more then so all the lines are more or less wobbly. Every Tetris piece has it’s own signature design except the L-shape which is just blank to keep it interesting. Napstablook is enjoying game music while inside the game, maybe ghosts can possess videogames..? This also shows the notebook I drew all of these in and the tools I used most of the time.

It’s hard to tell if I’ve improved at all when comparing these to 2017 inktober, I haven’t draw regularly through the year and the main focus point this time was on backgrounds and not so much on lines and characters. I did learn new things and that’s always exiting, I think my trees, glass and rocks look way better than before I started, and I did some progress in shading metal too. All of these took 3 hours or less to finish, some only took an hour. I didn’t need to erase pencils like last year because I used a trick where I placed the sketch under the notebook page and my tablet with 100% brightness and a white bg under them, and traced that with ink. The notebook paper is pretty thin, you can see the Amalgamate drawing’s clouds showing through in the Napstablook photo. Anyway, this was fun, and I think I’ll try do it next year too!

[shy-peacock]

RULES: tag ten followers you want to know better!

Tagged by @illeaslockedbluebox

TAGGING: I’m gonna cheat and say...everyone who scrolls past this post! That’s right, I MEAN YOU!!!

NAME: Jessy

STAR SIGN: Sagittarius 

HEIGHT: 5′10

PUT YOUR ITUNES/SPOTIFY ON SHUFFLE. WHAT ARE THE FIRST 4 SONGS THAT POPPED UP?

Always Be My Baby - Mariah Carey

Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) - The Offspring

Over You - Daughtry

Incomplete - Backstreet Boys

GRAB THE BOOK NEAREST YOU AND TURN TO PAGE 23. WHAT’S LINE 17?

“This is an amazing place,” Violet said finally, breaking the long silence.

EVER HAD A POEM OR SONG WRITTEN ABOUT YOU?

I think a poem?? Idk, past love stuff...not sure if I remember that correctly.

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU PLAYED AIR GUITAR?

Literally this morning.

WHO IS YOUR CELEBRITY CRUSH?

Ah...hmm..I always say things like Jim Sturgess or Kate Mckinnon but I’m really not crushing on any celebrity really. I used to be infatuated with Naya Rivera though. (Glee days)

WHAT’S A SOUND YOU HATE + SOUND YOU LOVE?

HATE: I’ve begun hating thunder recently (which is not how I used to be) because it makes me think giants are running towards my house and idk, suddenly I’m scared of giants??? but long term wise, I really hate when people cough or clear their throats annoyingly. (Like I get coughing, but like a deep crunchy growling couch is a bit much!)

LOVE: I really love the sound of my spinners, clickers and switches that come from my fidgets. I love sad sounding/soft piano music that makes me feel like I’m walking downtown on a late thursday evening after work, stopping by a coffee shop and staring out at the rain and contemplating my current fixation with life. I love the sound of fans that lull me to sleep on a hot summers night. I love music with no words that can be fast paced techno sounds or classical opera vibes. I love the sounds of my neighborhood, birds chirping and cars driving by. I love the noise of the heat rumbling the house and the soft sigh my dog makes when he’s content and loved. (I realize this is getting long, but there are so many sounds I love! hahaha XD)

DO YOU BELIEVE IN GHOSTS?

Yes, I do!

HOW ABOUT ALIENS?

I just can’t believe we are the only people in the entire world that exist, so yes!

DO YOU DRIVE?

Yes

IF SO, HAVE YOU EVER CRASHED?

Nope! Someone did back their car up and hit my car while I was in a store.

WHAT WAS THE LAST BOOK YOU READ?

A Series of Unfortunate Events (Book 1)

DO YOU LIKE THE SMELL OF GASOLINE?

I actually do XD

WHAT WAS THE LAST MOVIE YOU SAW?

The Darkest Minds

WHAT’S THE WORST INJURY YOU’VE EVER HAD?

My sister, cousin and I went out one winter morning and thought it would be fun to go on the trampoline while there was fresh ice on it that made it slippery. We all jumped up and when we came down, they landed on my leg. It broke, clearly, but my aunt and uncle didn’t believe me and made me walk on it for the weekend. I hurt it again in high school and, even as an adult, it still gives me trouble from time to time. That, along with several injuries to the head throughout my life that required stitches and ‘butterflies’ or whatever they call ‘em.

DO YOU HAVE ANY OBSESSIONS RIGHT NOW?

Hevelyn most recently and BOTW game.

DO YOU TEND TO HOLD GRUDGES AGAINST PEOPLE WHO HAVE DONE YOU WRONG?

If I’m going to be honest, both yes and no. Getting older and having the effects of...well..life!..has had me more empathetic to people and their lives and opinions than it did when I first started going on this website. If people are mean to me, I say my words and then let it go. (hahah Elsa) But there is still a handful of tumblr folk I am still angry at for things they did years ago. I won’t even reblog things mutuals or friends have reblogged from them, I even unfollowed some good quality blogs just because they were friends with them. Which is stupid..I KNOW...but I can’t get over people’s mean actions and their bullshittery.

 In conclusion, I guess a TLDR, I don’t hold grudges with anyone entering my life now, but the people who have wronged me or my friends in the past are still on my bad list.

IN A RELATIONSHIP?

Married! 3 years bitches!!

[oneddashone]

Games of the Year 2020

Given that I don't think anyone reads this, especially since I've largely stopped using it for anything other than these lists, it feels silly to write an intro on "what a weird year 2020 was" or whatever. It is worth mentioning, however, that in a "normal" year, it's quite possible that my GotY would have been different.

I think every game on this list was played on the Nintendo Switch, which, aside from FIFA, is really the only device I play games on these days. I've waxed poetic about this in the past, so there's no reason to talk much more about this now. I'm really hoping a "Switch Pro" comes out next year—to me, that's much more interesting and desirable than either a PS5 or X-Box Series Whatever.

Anyway, on to the list.

***RECOMMENDED*** What the Golf Minecraft Dungeons Bubble Bobble 4 Friends Mr Driller DrillLand Carrion Panzer Paladin A Short Hike Part Time UFO Immortals Fenyx Rising

I kept a list of all the games I played this year, and more than half didn't make the cut at all, so the games in this lowest category are all still extremely worthwhile games, in my opinion. What the Golf was originally a mobile game, but I played it on the Switch and had a blast. Very funny and inventive, and more than enough "game" there, in case you were wondering. I played through and beat Minecraft Dungeons with my daughter, which was a blast. She knew all the lore, and I knew the genre, so we were genuinely able to help each other out throughout the game. The new games in the Bubble Bobble and Mr Driller franchises were largely carried by my nostalgia for them—neither was perfect, but absolutely worth the investment if you care about the series. DrillLand in particular had some surprisingly inventive takes on the established formula.

Carrion and Panzer Paladin were nice surprises when they came out. A lot was written about the former when it debuted and I don't have much to add to that conversation, but I didn't see nearly as much love for Panzer Paladin. It's a fun little retro platformer, something like a "12 bit" art style, and you play through levels in any order you want, a la Mega Man. The most interesting part of the game to me is actually the weapon management system—you get a ton of weapons throughout the game, and the real strategy lies in choosing when to break certain ones, maintaining a steady supply of good ones, and even in using them to trigger checkpoints.

I watched my friend Ben stream A Short Hike when it first came out on PC, and I was excited to finally play it myself. It didn't disappoint, and I loved the relative short length, combined with the overall carefree and relaxed vibe. My daughter played through to the end too, which was nice. Another short-ish game this year was Part Time UFO, which, like What the Golf, was a originally a mobile game. Part Time UFO was made by HAL, and it shows throughout—most obviously in that Kirby shows up in the background from time to time, but also in the overall craft and polish.

The last game in this tier is Immortals: Fenix Rising, which nearly ended up being a tier higher, but in the end it just felt better here. This is a great take on an Ubisoft BotW clone (which I mean in the nicest way possible), and the setting is fantastic, but ultimately there are some key flaws that hold it back for me. Ubisoft's seemingly insatiable appetite to Get More Money Out of the Player, even after they've purchased the game, comes to mind immediately. Requiring a login and creation of an Ubisoft account is another. You don't really think about these things when you're playing the actual game, which is great, but it ended up being enough for me to dock it a little bit in the end.

***ESSENTIAL*** Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition One Step to Eden Streets of Rage 4 Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin

Kentucky Route Zero is another game that I feel like has already been written about and discussed a lot, and I don't know what I have to add to that. I'm so glad it ended up on consoles—it always seemed to me like the kind of game that would be trapped on PCs forever. The one moment that will always stick out for me was when I was playing it in bed one night with the kid. We found something in our inventory that had a phone number written on the back, so, in effort to kind of indulge her and be a little goofy, I decided to actually call it. I don't know what I was expecting, but it sure wasn't the fully realized "Guide to Echo River" (voiced by Will fucking Oldham!) that we got. It was an incredible experience, one of many in this extremely beautiful, thoughtful game.

One Step to Eden introduced me to a game genre I didn't know I needed—basically, "what if deck-based roguelite, but with an action-based real-time dexterity component?" It's all well and good to create a perfect deck in something like Slay the Spire, where any nerd can take as long as they need to run their perfect calculations or whatever during their turn, but it's really something else to try and do it while dodging complex enemy attack patterns at the same time. I feel like I read that this was based off a Mega Man spin-off, but to me it felt like a breath of fresh air in the increasingly oversaturated roguelike genre (oh, but more on that later).

Streets of Rage 4 is the perfection of a genre that I thought I was completely done with, and one that I think a lot of other people were done with too. Belt-scrollers made a certain amount of game design sense when they were first introduced in arcades, what with the goal being to collect as many of your quarters as possible—but the gameplay hook suffers tremendously when there's no tangible cost to failing. And yet the team behind SoR4 breathed new life into the genre, via incredible art, animations, and music. Most importantly of course is how it feels, and the deep combat system allows players of all different skill and interest levels to get exactly as much out of the game as they put into it. A friend played this in a much deeper way than I did, chaining combos across entire levels at times—whereas I just played through twice—and yet we both came away from it completely satisfied. This is a masterpiece of the genre.

Clubhouse Games is a sequel of sorts to the DS game of the same name. The first thing I think of when recalling this game is just the incredible amount of craft that clearly went into making it. From the heavy thud of the Hanafuda cards being forcefully plopped down to the sound of marbles jostling in Mancala, every little detail of this game has been thoughtfully executed. Sure, there's a few games I played once and never wanted to play again, but mostly this collection is just an outstanding bang for your buck. It also succeeds as a kind of virtual history lesson/tour of the best and most-loved tabletop games from around the world; and, especially during a pandemic, who could say no to that?

Sakuna snuck up on me towards the end of the year. Apparently it was first announced as a PS4 exclusive, but Nintendo saw it and rightfully made a big effort to get it on its platform as well. The gameplay mostly consists of an incredibly satisfying loop of starting the day by tending to your rice field, in full 3D life sim style, and then going out and exploring levels in fairly fast-paced 2D action/platforming levels. During the 2D parts, you'll find supplies that help your rice field, and by completing tasks there you'll unlock better equipment and weapons for the platforming levels. On top of all of that, there's a night/day cycle as well as a seasonal one, which vastly changes the type and amount of work you need to do in the field each day. That might sound like a lot, but it all snaps together wonderfully, leading me to quite a few "well I'll just play one more day" long nights. Oh and I haven't even mentioned the clear reverence shown towards the surprisingly complicated act of actually growing rice—every step of the way is a different kind of mini-game, essentially, and I ended up taking a lot of pride in making the best rice that I could. This is one I'll definitely still be playing into the new year.

***RUNNER UP*** Hades

Everyone's favorite horned-up mythological roguelike ensnared me pretty deeply when the full version was released on Switch this year. I had seen snippets of it on Early Access, which was enough to pique my interest, but I was still caught pretty off-guard by just how incredible this game actually turned out to be.

I haven't talked much about story in these write-ups so far, but it's clearly the first place to start with Hades. If I had to pick one thing to set it apart from similar games, it would be how perfectly the notion of dying and restarting is to the central story of Zagreus. Every time you die in an unsuccessful run, which will be a lot early on, you're encouraged by NPCs to try again—and not only that, it makes thematic sense with—and in fact is central to—the story of the game. This completely removes the sting of feeling underpowered and kind of helpless in your early runs, and to keep playing and powering through it.

The pantheon of gods in this game will show up and offer to help by way of boons. These grant you temporary new abilities, which not only vary depending on which weapon you've picked, but will also combine with and modify other boons that you pick up in the run—not unlike the weapon synergy of Binding of Isaac, for example. The gods have their own agenda, of course, but with some experience you'll start to favor certain builds over others, and to try to and build towards a fully-optimized set of skills to tackle the underworld. Then again, sometimes you'll get something you've never seen before, and change up your tactics on the fly. It's all very rewarding and incredibly replayable.

As with a lot of roguelikes, you do carry some things forward from run to run. As you unlock all of the weapons, purchase upgrades and new abilities, and naturally start to learn how the game works and improve your own strategy, you slowly begin to feel much stronger and eventually, well, god-like. The near-perfect difficulty curve gives players of all skill levels complete control over how hard or easy to make the game for themselves. This carries over perfectly into the "Pact of Punishment" system that's unlocked after your first successful run, which lets you dial up the difficulty to frankly fiendish levels in order to, first and foremost, keep skilled players engaged, but also to provide a ton of "end-game" content for those that want to keep playing.

And really, you'll want to keep playing. The first ending is just the beginning, as the story compels you to keep playing and see how everyone's stories pan out. The NPCs are incredibly well-written and the voice-acting more than lives up to the lines they're given. I was completely invested in these characters and the fates they would have to reckon with by the end.

I got my tenth clear—the first one to roll credits—fittingly enough on attempt #69 (nice). This seemed like where the game naturally "ended," and I put it down—even though there's still a ton of previously mentioned end-game stuff I could do in the game if I wanted. But the end of Zag's main story felt so pitch-perfect, and so earned by the experience with the game overall, that I decided to leave it on that perfect high note.

***GOTY*** Animal Crossing: New Horizons

This wasn't my first Animal Crossing game (it was, I think, my...fourth?), but it was the first Animal Crossing game that a lot of my friends played, and that alone made for a different experience than I've had with the series before. In the early days of quarantine, we were visiting each other's islands every day, trading items, sharing insider tips on the Stalk Market, and just generally enjoying the game in a social way that was suddenly not allowed in day to day real life.

For the most part, that lasted for about a month. Maybe two. But I kept playing, every day, for a few reasons. First was that I have a lot of time with this series, and more or less knew what to expect going in. I didn't get disappointed when Nook's Shop was mostly just stocking items I already had, for instance. But more importantly, I knew not to burn myself out on it early on. And look, I know there's no "right" or "wrong" way to play a game, but Animal Crossing (at least to me) seems unique in that the gameplay is so clearly designed to be enjoyed in 20-30 minute, daily chunks. There's just not that much to *do* after a half hour or so, but I was seeing friends' hours totals in triple digits after just a few weeks.

Two other things unique to this entry helped keep it persistent for me, I think. One, Nintendo committed to and delivered on a regular update schedule, which kept things fresh (and safe from the naughty time travelers of the world, even). Pretty much every month, something brand new happened, and it was enough to keep my interest even after I'd donated every fossil to Blathers.

The second, and much bigger thing by far, was that my daughter started playing. She named our island ("Turtlerock") and moved in on day one. We'd talk about villagers—which ones were our favorites, which ones we wouldn't mind seeing move away—and collaborated on the city-planning of our island. I played first, and was therefor the "primary resident" or whatever it's called, but I never made a big decision without checking in with her first. We're both invested in it, and it's been a fun experience to share together over the course of the year. Hell, we even counted down the last seconds of 2020 together in local co-op.

Sure, my house is paid off, I have two million bells in the bank, and my museum is roughly 95% filled out—but I still play this pretty much every day. It's become a ritual. Usually right after work, which happens to be the best light on the island; sometimes later at night, especially during a meteor shower; and on the weekends frequently in the morning—but no matter when I'm playing, the remarkable thing to me is that here we are, nine months later—still in quarantine, and still playing Animal Crossing.

[valliass]

Early thoughts on Age of Calamity from someone who’s put waayyy too many hours into og hyrule warriors

I’m aware I’m about a month late to the party and everyone who might be wanting to know what’s up already does, but I finally caved and bought aoc and wanted to share my first impressions after a few hours of gameplay Spoilers, duh, but like. If you’ve even watched the opening cutscene you already know what’s up

First of all: The controls

Since I’m so used to the “zelda” control scheme in og, being locked into the classic warriors control scheme feels extremely awkward to me, especially when it comes to clicking in the R stick to lock onto enemies. It just feels wrong. However, for someone who hasn’t put tons of grinding into og, I’m sure it’s 100% fine. One thing that’s not fine: The camera controls when aiming something such as Link’s bow or most characters’ bomb rune abilities. It’s incredibly clunky, as if there’s a slight slant to the ground or an object like a fence or something blocking your way, the camera will completely stop moving in that direction and/or yank itself the opposite way, messing with your aim. I was doing a side quest earlier where you’re meant to defeat groups of enemies by hitting explosive barrels near them. I went “Okay, I can just use the bow to hit them from afar without blowing myself up, easy” and while half the time it was just that, the other was spent wrestling with the camera to try and get it to do what I wanted. I’m going to toggle settings around in a bit and see if anything improves, and maybe this won’t be a problem on maps with more even terrain, but it’s come up in pretty much every mission I’ve done thus far. Aside from this one major issue, the game controls pretty smoothly Secondly: The content Age of calamity definitely feels a lot more like a cohesive rpg than og hyrule warriors ever did. It’s one experience with one storyline, and feels a bit less video-gamey (if that makes sense?) than og. This time around, the reason to play is the story, while last time the draw was learning to master the mechanics/playstyles to get high scores. Neither of these is necessarily better than the other, but you should be expecting different things coming in. One thing to note is that this newer focus on story and having one connected experience means there’s no additional game modes aside from the main campaign and whatever side quests you find on the map. I’ve heard there’s some post-game content, but I’ve also heard of people 100 percent-ing the entire game in the span of a few days, which means there’s a lot less additional content than in og. And by a lot, I mean a lot. Age of calamity has 159 non-story missions. In adventure mode alone, og hyrule warriors has 11k. I couldn’t find a list of challenge mode missions anywhere, but those would probably bump it up to around 12/12.5k. Big difference. Huge. Again, the focus here is on the story and they were absolutely going for rpg instead of arcade-y hack and slash here. Still, it’s worthy to keep in mind that in exchange for the higher-quality main campaign, you’re not going to be able to play age of calamity basically forever and still have more content to complete like you can with og. There’s also less playstyles, but that’s a non-issue. The absurd size of og’s cast was the exception, not the rule, and considering it had all of zelda canon plus its own ocs to pull from and age of calamity only had botw, they did extremely well with what they had. I’ve watched a ton of footage of each playstyle, and all the characters are very unique and deep with their own mechanics to learn. The four I’ve gotten my hands on so far (one-handed sword link, impa, sheikah slate zelda, and mipha) feel incredibly varied to control. The roster is great. Lastly: Smaller points and nitpicks/compliments that weren’t worthy of their own sections.

The marketing was incredibly misleading. This is not a prequel. This is a spin-off. They make it clear from the very first cutscene and confirm that “yes this is not going to lead into botw at all” right after story mission two. I feel slightly betrayed but already knew that going in, so it didn’t catch me off guard. I guess they thought everyone dying horribly at the end would be too hard on the kids? Beats me.

Oh my god the music slaps it slaps so hard-

Is it just me or does one handed sword link’s range feel way shorter than it should? It feels more like controlling light sword toon link or tetra. Maybe they were just really desperate not to have a repeat of og hyrule warriors link breaking the game harder than glass tossed off a skyscraper lmao Art direction is beautiful. Aside from some rare small weird shading from the cel-shader, everything looks fantastic. This is just personal preference, but I definitely wish characters talked a bit less. You start to get tired of the same voice lines playing over and over again for your most used attacks. I miss the occasional vague shouts og had. I might eventually switch to a different language I can’t speak so it’s less noticeable.

Lastly, second shout-out to the music holy SHIT just listen to the remixed champion themes

Annnd that’s about it! I might make a second post/rb when I finish, but for now that’s about all I have to say, and it’s time to get back to it!

[botwstoriesandsuch]

Sidequests are part of the story so it’s still my ballpark shut up it’s time for

Read Part 1 here!

Part 2 || Part 3

If you’re on mobile, and tumblr hates this post, follow along on this google doc!

Rules/overview this rewrite in the beginning of Part 1

- - - - - - - - - - 

Side quests, side quests, side quests. What are they? And what are they doing here, on an Age of Calamity rewrite? I must admit, game design is not an inherent forte of mine, and I like to think that my only “expertise” would be on writing and storytelling. So what the fuck is a fool like me doing here

Well my dear ladies, lads, and gentlefolk, if your memory does serve, I did say that the format of Age of Calamity was one that served the major plot and story beats for it’s cutscenes, and its worldbuilding and good parts of it’s character development for its gameplay and side quests. It’s actually a concept that can be seen in shows and movies too, although obviously it’s origins are in TTRPGs and videogames. Definition wise, a side quest is any deviation from the main story and plot that serves to flesh out an optional/overseen aspect of the game. So there’s out perfect outlet for worldbuilding, characters, and even a bit of humour. Side quests, by definition, can’t simply be just XP grinders, because otherwise you could…..just make an XP grinder. It’s like saying you’re getting your kids a bike, but then you get them a stationary exercise one. Sure it’s functionally the same and gives the same benefits, but it could be so much more. 

Does Age of Calamity have good side quests? I’d actually argue, yes. I mean sure, it’s not exactly gonna hold a candle to Fallout or Witcher 3, but there are great memorable side quests that do serve their purposes in this game. 

A fan favourite is “The So-Called Knight,” in which Link spars Mipha, Teba, Sidon, and Revali, a conflict of the Sidon’s confidence and belief in Link, with Revali’s skepticism and grudge against him. Not only is it great fandom content, but it explores the carrying POVs of several characters in a fun way. We also have Hestu’s Dance Competition, and the Miss Vai Battle Pageant. What they lack in serious character tone, they make up for in humour and world building. Even the quests that have nothing to do with the main cast of characters, like the Questionable Escort Mission, still provide funny and interesting details about the world, like how the Yiga Clan is still ever persistent in trying to take down Link with monsters and Windcleavers alike. 

It’s not like those side quests were functionally useless either, all of them still provided great amounts of exp and materials. What specifically made them great and memorable was their small little stories and character/world details. Of course, that’s not to say you can’t have the occasional plotless boss rush every now and again, those are fun in their own right and it’s good to have variety. But just thinking about it...what were everyone’s least favourite sidequests? The timed Yiga Escape?  The ones where you sit around defending strongholds? The one hit death Hair-Width Trials? Ah...so all the least enjoyable side quests were the ones that were difficult, with no enjoyable character or worldbuilding to back it up….interesting interesting….interesting pattern indeed. 

So, let’s improve the game a bit further. I do need to pace out my future character arcs somehow. I tried to make use of the existing quests where I could, but it’s just eaaaasier to just not think about it and do it from scratch. Just shove these in place of all those quests whose only description is “monsters have been spotted here! Take Mipha and go to work!” and stuff like that. Alrighty then! Here’s my take on cool side quests for every single character thus far, along with their paired gambit attacks. Prepare for heists! Drama! Simping! And Bananas!

Link: Mastering Stasis

Ok I have no idea when this quest unlocks so just for my purposes assume this only becomes available after Link pulls the Master Sword. 

Engage the hordes of monsters that have been spotted in Hyrule Field. Now is a great time to master the use of the Stasis Rune. Impa and Zelda accompany you, but it seems stasised monsters aren’t the only thing coming to a tense standstill…

This isn’t anything that special, I just want to further highlight this tension that Zelda and Link have, as it’s something touched upon in Botw, but never really mentioned or used ever in Hwaoc. Now more than ever, Zelda has an excuse to have a rocky relationship with him because she could actively see just how far he’s coming in such a short amount of time. Classic “he probably hates me so I guess I’ll hate him” thing.

You play as Link, the game gives you your little prompts on how to use Stasis, you take out a few hordes of Bokoblins and blah blah blah. I wanted to use an earlier level to establish Zelda’s relationship sooner as obviously it’s gonna be important to the story. But of course like all side quests it won’t kill you to skip out. Text dialogue can be Zelda saying science shit like “This will be a good opportunity to test out the full limits of the Stasis rune” and then Impa’s all “Yep! We got your back, Princess! We’ll clear out these monsters in no time.”Then Link the little angsty shit that he is says nothing, and as you play you clear out more and more bokoblins Zelda just says “...” and then we can toss in a Moblin or two in there for gambit voice stuff.  

Gambit dialogue with Impa would be supportive, her usual spunky dialogue. I had two ideas for Gambit attacks with Link: One where Impa does that thing where she cuts a giant laser through the air, but it’s aimed towards Link and he parries it right in a monster’s FACE because I think it’s badass and also a good way to show trust and stuff. The second thing was Impa’s giant bomb barrels, but Link is the one to somehow ignite them, because he is an arsonist after all. He can even have a chaotic Sheikah blue glint in his eyes like blue flame, I can already picture it so clearly given how anime/dramatic Impa’s movements are. Impa sets bombs, Link *teleports behind Moblin* nothin personal, kid. 

Also right at the end of their gambit attacks, Impa and Link should try to fist bump or something (cause the whole “cool guys don’t look at explosions” thing that Impa usually does on her own) but are interrupted by eggbot jumping up to try and join in. And then Impa can be annoyed and try to punt it or something. That’s not just self-indulgent that’s in her character she totally would and I want to make use of the fact that eggbot travels around with Link. The success of her attempts to punt him can vary.

If Link does a gambit with Zelda, her dialogue can just be her usual monotone Princess stuff, “Thanks for lending your strength,” or “There is still much more to do!” just purely professional, we’re not at a stage yet where she’s buddy buddy with Link. Their gambit attacks can still be cool though. One idea I had was Zelda using stasis, and you know how when you use it in botw everything lights up with that sonar effect? So Link stands besides Zelda, and she activates stasis, the first “sonar” light wave reveals the stasised monster, and you see it from the view of the Sheikah Slate. Then with each additional flash of sonar you just see this silhouette of Link going absolute ham on a monster. And then when the stasis “ding ding ding ding ding” is done, everything’s just dead. Can you see my inspiration from Persona 5 yet? Second idea was Zelda using cryonis and makes an ice ramp for Link to shield surf on and ram into a monster. For entertainment purposes Zelda should also be putting frogs on said slide. (Also also the reason I’m putting Link as the main focus for those gambit attacks is because I want to juxtapose it with future gambits where Zelda may or may not be more powerful…)

Anyhow anyhow, so this side quest, you beat some bokoblins, theres a moblin or two. However as you progress Zelda’s dialogue because a bit more passive aggressive, maybe Zelda can be a bit irritated at how quickly Link is defeating everything before she can even contribute. Impa can comment on this like “She hasn’t exactly been warming up to you, has she…” and then the last point of the side quest, Zelda runs off, there’s a...let’s say a big horde of blue or black Moblins. Or a horde of Wizzrobes, I’m not too picky on it. Link can save her and do a gambit or whatever, but the point of importance is that Zelda leaves with the clear mindset off, “You don’t need to keep coddling me, I can handle my own” to Link, but is “Thank you, I’m glad you’re here,” to Impa. 

Now I stole was inspired to use this based on this comic by @novellanova, and you should check it out here. But basically, at the end when all the monsters are dead and the last few text boxes are rolling, Impa says something like “Gee, at this rate I might have to protect you from the princess! Hmm…. you know, maybe if you two had the opportunity to hang out more and get to know each other, she’d warm up to you! Ha! That’s it! I’ve made up my mind. Listen up Link, from now on I’m gonna let you man the wheel when it comes to protecting Zelda. So with me out of the picture you better take the opportunity to be the nicest, most helpful, and most effective body guard there is. I know you already are, but still, if I hear that one little Chuchu so much as splat in her direction I will take you down...got it?” And, that’s that.

Side quest done. Fun Link gambits with Impa and Zelda, some little character POVs on the situation, plus an explanation as to why Impa doesn’t accompany Zelda everywhere/nods to the cutscenes of Botw as to what happened to Impa. Alright, that was probably the most boring one so let’s move on to

Daruk: A Rumbling Stomach

Alright I’ll be honest...I have no idea what to do with Daruk. Especially when Yunobo’s not here, I got zip-zero to work with considering his character is non-existent. Further down the line I’ll certainly try to give him more nuances and the like, but I’m afraid the majority of my character efforts have been towards Astor, Revali, Zelda, and [REDACTED] so this is my apology ahead of time, rock fuckers.

This is my take on how to make those timed quests more fun. So basically, the premise of this stage is that Daruk was just happily hanging around trying to enjoy his rock roast, when a monster surprised him and he dropped it, and now it’s rolling down the hill. This is based on my real Breath of the Wild experience where I had to trek up that Volcano path to bring a rock roast for that shrine quest, but at the very top I dropped it and had to chase it down before it fell into the lava below. 

Daruk is eager to chow down on the finest rock roasts this year has to offer! It’s too bad things go downhill when monsters start to ambush. Defeat key enemies and rescue Daruk’s tumbling meal before this year’s wait goes to waste!

So, that’s what this is. The stage opens and Daruk says “NOOooOO! My rock roast! Damn monsters!” and you have to defeat baddies and catch up to the rock roast before the timer runs out and it falls into lava. And then when you finish and get back the rock roast that’s pretty much it….except SIKE no it’s not. Because a lot of these timed quests usually have a “surprise! There’s more!” thing at the end so I’ll do that here too. So Daruk has saved his rock roast and he’s talking about how he’s going to enjoy it in all its deliciousness, when he’s cut off by a random Goron’s scream. Turns out, Daruk’s yelling at the monsters about desperation to retrieve his lost lunch has attracted monsters to some traveling civilians, and now you gotta go beat a Talus, or a couple of Moblins, or something...Again I don’t really have level set or idea when these side quests unlock so just use your imagination. Once Daruk defeats the monster(s) the Gorons can thank him, and then one of the Goron kids can be like “Ooo! Is that a super special rock roast?!?” And Daruk is all:  “Ah! Well all the best Goron heroes eat plenty of rocks! This here is the gourmet stuff. You can only get it once a—” And the kid’s like “Woah! I’ve always wanted to have one, that’s why I’ve been training hard so I can explore more of the mountain. Where’d you get it??” And Daruk can sputter a bit, before finally sighing and giving into his instincts. “Ah….well, why don’t you have it? You’re probably really hungry after running around with those monsters…”

“Woah really?? Are you sure—”

“YEAH JUST TAKE IT ALREADY GO”

“Woah, thank you!” and then the Goron kid and co run off. Cue Daruk crying to himself in the background. Daruk may have an appetite, but I like to characterize him as the Goron Hero first and foremost.  

I’m sure that doesn’t stop him from mourning his rock though.

Mipha: Stronger Sentiments

Mipha and Daruk talked a whole bunch about training together so that Mipha can grow stronger, and Daruk was catching on to her crush on Link and it was a nice interaction in between them except for the fact that we never see them do the damn training so that’s what this is.

I think this is as good an opportunity as any to make this a Hair-Width quest, the ones where you can’t take one hit. The difficulty of a level is one of the most effective ways to put the players in the boots of a character to experience the same struggles they do. If the player works hard, then they automatically associate that with the character working hard. So, yeah, let’s have Mipha kicking ass and working to be strong enough to protect Link.

Mipha is determined to grow stronger. Daruk and the other Gorons are helping out with an intense training session by Gut Check Rock. Prove yourself by defeating all the enemies you encounter!

So Mipha is sparring with the Gorons, you fight through them and the captains and blah blah, the final boss is fighting Daruk without getting hit. 

“I promise not to hurt you more than I’m capable of reversing.”

“Ha! Give me all you’ve got, princess!”

You fight, cue the special music or whatever. I mentioned that gambit dialogue/attacks could also work to be custom for the character that you’re fighting, so I’m thinking something like this. Daruk slams the ground and rocks and magma sprout up around him like jagged pieces of glass, but Mipha is no where to be seen. Daruk’s kinda huffing and puffing, “Where’d you go Mipha…” and then FWOOSH, giant geyser right behind him. [yes I KNOW I overuse the *teleports behind you* “nothing personal, kid” thing but I think it’s COOL and you can’t stop me] So anyhow, you know that thing in Avatar where Pakku is just riding at the top of a whirlpool and destroying everything? That’s Mipha.

Daruk turns around and scratches the back of his head. “...huh….that’s not good.” Cue Mipha swooping down to deal the defeating blow. 

So Mipha wins, she can mention how wonderful it was and how much stronger she feels. And she can thank Daruk, and he’s all “No problem!” but he mutters something like “And I thought Gorons hit hard...now I know how Link feels.” End side quest….SIKE it’s another surprise boss at the end. A Goron captain suddenly reports that an Igneo Talus has appeared nearby. 

Mipha goes up to fight it, but wow! Link is already there. They both fight it, but it’s clear that Link didn’t need her help that much. You can defeat the Talus with a Mipha/Link gambit. It’s similar to Link’s usual “swing sword in a giant circle and become a death windmill” but Mipha kinda enhances it with water or something and it puts out the Talus. I wanted this ending with a focus on how strong Link is just to show that while Mipha is improving, she’s still not yet where she needs to be. 

Daruk: “Sorry I wasn’t much help at the end there, I was busy, uh, stretching.”

Mipha: “Oh it’s quite alright, Daruk. We were both quite tired from today’s training.”

Daruk: “Well I dunno about that...seems to me you were quite lively and active as you fought beside Link. *wink*”

Mipha: “Huh!?!? W-What is that supposed to mean??”

Cue laughter from Daruk. Mipha is flustered. And Link is just...confused, as always. 

Urbosa: Mighty Thunder of the Gerudo

So in the game this is just some normal outpost capturing, stronghold defending side quest, but we’re gonna spice it up just a bit. 

An important excavation site is being overrun by monsters, and Urbosa has set out to engage them. Defend and capture the outposts, in order to prevent this valuable place from falling into enemy hands…

So you fight as Urbosa, defeat some enemies and blah blah. When you first arrive there, I want one of the Gerudo Captains to be like “Lady Urbosa? Where did you come—What are you doing here? Aren’t there areas of greater importance for you to be at right now?” Urbosa says something like “Nevermind that now, let us focus on achieving victory over these rotten beasts.” 

As the battle goes through, it is revealed that this excavation site is where Zelda’s mother would often work and hang out with Urbosa. Urbosa says some stuff like “Her Majesty would not be happy to see all these monsters heading here!” *decapitates Moblin* and then she can say other dramatic stuff at the end like “We have fought well...for her memory” and other classic lesbian pining. Some guard at the end can say “Perhaps you should move on and help out somewhere else, Lady Urbosa. We can handle the clean up from here.” 

“Sure,” Urbosa replies, “Just another moment.” And then cue reminiscing. “She always did love these machines…”

And just other sentimental stuff like that. If you’re gonna be a coward and hold out on the Champion death angst, then you best be pumping that angst and emotion from somewhere, you know?

Also yay for worldbuilding! At least in my rewrite, the Guardian excavations and stuff were overseen by the Queen. Could be a reason Zelda hangs out with Sheikah tech so much...who knows who knows... who knows what other implications this has, it’s just a side quest after all.

Revali: Anti-Ice Training [get it??? Cause in this one, Revali’s gonna break the ice with some other characters?? I’m funny I swear]

Ok so for this one, I want to pull Revali’s character away from just “the birb that doesn’t like Link” and give him some other stuff to stand on. Obviously, there would be other side quests in a fully fleshed out game that did even more to characterize him, but for my rewrite I’m only dedicated this post and one other future post to sidequests, so I gotta really bring out what I can for the few side quest stories I have time to tell

Revali sets out alone to deal with some monsters by the Hebra trail. Although intended as an isolated moment to hone his skills, he finds himself with unexpected company. Defeat key enemies.

So you play as Revali and at first you’re alone, taking out Ice Lizalfos and the like. Revali’s text dialogue can say stuff like “Hmm...not fast enough” “My current needs to be stronger” “*mutters* Can’t compete with lightning and magma with aim like that.” Just stuff that establishes that he’s working hard to really prove himself as the best, but is still a bit insecure about his position. He thinks he’s better than Link, sure, and he certainly thinks that being a princess or a chief doesn’t automatically make you the best. However by this point, Revali has battled alongside the other Champions and seen their skill in battle, and has developed some respect for them. Afterall, Champions were chosen in some part for their skills, unlike Link or Zelda who destiny just thrust greatness upon. 

So Revali has this slight insecurity that compared to lightning, and magic healing, and magma, with chiefs and princesses and titles of heroes, he and his efforts will be overshadowed and forgotten, unfairly deemed the useless one. Thus, here he is, training in solitude, not wanting anyone to see the imperfections and mistakes until he is absolutely perfect.

Except for the fact that after you beat a Wizzrobe, the other three Champions show up. 

Revali: Wh—Huh?? What are you all doing here?

Urbosa: Well, we all have to travel with the princess to that Tower in a few hours, so I recommended we find you and hang out until then

Mipha: And a good thing too! Look how many monsters there are

Revali: I’m actually doing very well on my own right now. Wouldn’t want you to catch a cold or something, so why don’t you head on back and let me handle this.

Daruk: Aw, it’s not that we think you can’t do this. It’s that you’re hogging all the fun! Urbosa: And that it would be more efficient if all of us went to work

Daruk: That too

Revali: Look it’s not—you all can’t just—this is not just about—AUGH, look, I’m just trying to train myself at the moment, and I don’t need you all to mess with my drills

Urbosa: Training, hm? Well how about this...you let us continue helping you with these monsters, and after, I’ll let you in on a good Gerudo training technique

Revali: Hmph. Fine, whatever gets you out of my tail feathers faster

So Revali and the Champions clear out the monsters. Revali can have gambit attacks/dialogue with each of the other Champions. This is already incredibly long so perhaps I’ll save specifics for another time, feel free to use your imagination. Urbosa teasing Revali and they make a thunderstorm, Mipha and Revali swimming in the sky and kissing—wait that’s— 

When all the monsters are cleared, which honestly isn’t tooooo many, Revali speaks again.

Revali: So what’s this oh-so-holy technique you had in mind, then?

Urbosa: Ah yes, well really it’s quite simple. It’s called…

Urbosa: One-on-one combat

Now Revali fights Urbosa. It think it’d be really fun if your allies on a stage could swap to a boss, and I wish hwaoc had a bit more freedom with the interactions as a whole, but ah well, that’s what I’m here for I guess.

So when you/Revali defeat her, it’s a good accomplishment! Not only for you the player, as Urbosa would not be the easiest to beat, but also because match-up wise, Revali prevailing over Urbosa is a big feat as their styles are quite opposite, arguably with the strength in favour for Urbosa.

Revali might at first have the mindset that Urbosa is overconfident and thinks she’s got an easy win on Revali, but that mindset is quickly proven wrong when 1) the difficulty of the gameplay itself shows how they’re both doing their best and 2) Urbosa with her Gerudo qualities is probably shouting stuff like “give it your all!” and things.

And so, as you beat her...

Revali, kinda huffing and puffing, but just a bit:: ...you….held back

Urbosa: Come now, do you really think of me as someone who’d do that? I’m almost insulted.  

Revali: Hmm...perhaps not then....

Mipha: Wow! What a wonderful fight from both of you. 

And then insert some other dialogue from Daruk or something that shows the Champions acknowledging the training and hard work Revali must have put in to be so skilled. Perhaps it’s not so bad, when you train with others and your skill is fully appreciated by your frie—GAH. Perish the thought, they’re all just a bunch of royal fools who can’t hold a candle to the skill of a Rito Master….probably…

Revali: Well unlike you lax fools, I tend to take my job seriously. I don’t have time to longue and banter when the princess is still expecting me in an hour or two

Urbosa: Oh alright, let’s get to it then. What’s the expression? “The early bird gets the w—”

Revali: Gross. No. Don’t finish that sentence, I beg you. 

Urbosa: Oh? Well why don’t you fly off to escape my dreadful tones then?

Revali: ...Heh, don’t be absurd…

Revali: Without me, you’ll all probably get lost. So, I suppose I should stick around for that sake Great Fairies: Dress to Oppress 

The Great Fairies are holding a fashion competition and rating people’s outfits. Poorly judged outfits gives them the right to compensation combat. Defeat all your less than fashionable allies.

...

...yeah.

It seemed funny in my head, alright? cOme on, just imagine…

Revali, fully expecting to win: Well?

Great Fairies: Hm...I don’t know dear, all the colors are very clustered. Perhaps if you were taller—?

Revali: bWHAKT!? *other angry bird noises*

- - - 

Daruk: I brought my BEST out today! :D

Great Fairies: Is that a….chain?

Daruk: TWO chains, actually. :D

Great Fairies: Oh honey…

- - - 

Great Fairies: Ooo! Our little hero is about to come out! Wonder what he chose...a knight in shining armour? A handsome desert voe? Ooo!! And those Snowquill braids always made him look so cute…

Link: *comes out in the Tingle Outfit*

Great Fairies: …

Great Fairies: …………..hm…..

At the end of the side quest, after you beat everyone, the Great Fairy wins because of course they do. 

Great Fairies: Oh my! What an unexpected outcome...but it really couldn’t have gone any other way. I declare the judges the winner! I mean just look at me, I’m as dazzling as a jeweled desert flower, because I am! Ohohohoho…

This side quests unlocks the Tingle Outfit

Hestu: Forest Dance Festival

Alright this quest was already pretty perfect, BUT, I just want to use this opportunity to say that all of Hestu’s gambit attacks makes his allies and enemies do special dances. Absolutely abSURD that Hestu can only make the lesser smaller enemies dance on occasion, nonononono, my guy Hestu is making everyone dance. You can’t stop this. Nothing I say will ever top the imagination, so just take my word that this is a good thing. [Reluctant Revali doing the macarena against his will in sync with Hestu and they bash someone’s head in...ah the possibilities.] 

Maz Koshia: Links to the Past

Ok so before I get into this, a few things. This quest takes place well after the tower activations in Akkala. Age of Calamity leaves a whole lot of plots holes as to why a Monk is just...here, and what the point of the shrines are, and personally my first reaction to all this was just a five minute extended “huuhhhhhh???” 

So here is my headcanon, explanation, thing, canon to the world of the Kip Cut story. Ones all the Sheikah Towers were activated, that officially woke up all the Shrines, because we know that the Towers and Shrines are all connected to the same system. [See Great Plateau Tower activating all the Shrines and Towers, and Creating a Champion explanation on the system] But when all the monks were in their little altars and noticed how Link hadn’t dont a single one, they were like “what the fuck.” Monk Maz Koshia, who is kinda the head honcho of the monks and probably the only one powerful enough to go out in the world anyhow, sets out to see what the deal is, and after many a teleportation and telepathic communication, he figures out that Link is just running around with the Master Sword already. This kinda confuses him, because the whole point of the Shrines was to test Link and give him the spirit orbs so that he could grow strong enough to get the Master Sword, but he somehow already has it...so hmmmm something fishy is going on in this timeline. So Link technically hasn’t proven himself at all, Maz Koshia ambushes him, they do their little combat trial, Link passes, and Maz Koshia’s like “ok cool so you’re not useless.”

So now Monk Maz Koshia has cast aside his old monk duties of waiting around for a couple hundred years, in favour of just hanging out with Link and continuing to train him combat wise. Shrines are still explored by Zelda and co because they are important areas to establish teleportation pads, and whenever they’re there, Maz Koshia forces Link to get in a shrine to get a spirit orb, which is not only useful in general for health, but since Link already has the Master Sword, the other characters can get the spirit orb too. (So all those little heart upgrades that you see on the map, those are all just in the real Botw Shrine locations, rather than just scattered around randomly. Also I’m ignoring the stuff about talking to Hylia in order to exchange for stamina or heart containers because the game never talks about her, or stamina, and I’m not about to create an entirely new custom gameplay feature for this game, fuck you.)

I like to think that Maz Koshia is very selective about the Shrines he encourages people to try out. “Oh nonono, don’t bother with Qukah’s….lazy ass, only set up one little mountain that you have to blast through with lightning and that’s the entire puzzle! Disgraceful...Here, Kaam Ya’tak has set up a wonderful Trial of Power for you. I’m sure you’ll find the level design quite thrilling. They spent a lot of time on the critical thinking aspects so have fun!”

“I should warn you that this one was made by one of the millennials...yes, those youngins who were only initiated 1000 years of age. Honestly, they lack so much experience. Ms. Agana over here was experimenting with something called ‘motion controls?’ Pretty lazy if you ask me. Traditionally I would just stick to combat and block and switch stuff...but ah well, variety I suppose.”

Right, what was I talking about? Oh right! This is a sidequest. So Monk Maz Koshia doesn’t really have...a character??? Or a personality??? So I don’t really know what to do with him other than use him as an outlet for world building. Apologies to the Monk….fuckers? Stans? Feel free to leave me a comment about how I missed all the nuances of his character or something I’m all ears.

On an expedition to mark more Shrines and establish more teleports for the Kingdom, a large horde of monsters is spotted, seemingly with the intention to destroy these Ancient relics. Link and Maz Koshia use this opportunity to sharpen their combat skills. Protect the stronghold and defeat key enemies.

And then that quest would just kinda echo the stuff I said earlier about the world. (As Maz Koshia defends a Shrine, somewhere Qukah Nata is smugly shouting “Bet you wish ALL of them were protected with a giant mountain now, do ya?)

Also Link and Maz Koshia’s gambit attack involves the Master Cycle. I don’t have the specifics, but damn if I want some call backs to Botw while also having fun.

Impa: Steal Yourself [Yiga Clan Escape]

In an act of pure hatred and malice, the Yiga Clan has snuck into Kakariko Village in the dead of night…and stolen all the Swift Carrots! Impa sets out to get them back, as well as taking something else as a form of swift revenge...Escape before the time runs out.

Ok I can explain.

So you know how the Yiga and the Sheikah have kiiiiinda been murdering each other a bunch in Botw, going as far as to kill a deserter’s wife and threatening to murder his kids, and also people on both sides were sorta massacred for no reason? And alsoooo one of those people who literally lived during that time of the massacre is just kinda floating around now?  And you knooooooooww how the Yiga Clan just kinda joins Zelda’s side later on and we’re not supposed to think about the implications of that too hard because they’re the funny banana ninjas, haha? Yeah well neither Age of Calamity or I really have time to explore the moral grey areas of an alliance between two warring factions, one of which has a leader who doesn’t really seem to remember the reason why they hate Hyrule which brings into question whether the lackeys even know their clan’s history, and brings about the moral dilemma of criminalizing the ignorant, and also there’s the whole other dilemma of depicting the side that submitted to their oppression as being “in the right” and the topic of a race of people being pitted against their own by a higher power is really brushed over sO WE’RE JUST GONNA TOSS ALL THAT OUT THE WINDOW AND MAKE THEM ACT LIKE RIVALLING HIGH SCHOOLS, OKAY? OKAY! This is fine this is fine— 

So I have dubbed the High School mascot of the Sheikah, the Swift Carrot. And although there does seem to be some internal debate about whether the carrot should be replaced by the Fortified Pumpkin, the hero of Hyrule Link favours carrots so that’s that. Then of course, the mascot for the Yiga Clan is the Mighty Banana. The two sides hate each other and steal their food symbols to be petty. I’ll be covering the side quests of Kohga and the other later characters in another later post, but just know that Kohga will have his banana heist sidequest too. 

So anyhow, you play as Impa. Maybe she can say a piece of dialogue or two about how she has to uphold the image of her people as she has to lead them one day. And then, this side quest is just her retrieving the carrots and running off with the Yiga’s big banana supply before she’s caught. This is based on that “Escape the Yiga Clan” quest if you couldn’t tell.

Custom gambit defeat of Impa vs Kohga: On one hand I think it would be badass to see Impa’s Sheikah skills go up against the Yiga Clan tactics. Kohga summons a giant metal ball to throw, Impa teleports behind him “nothing personal, kid” nO fuck I’m doing it again away goes to swing a blade at his face. He blocks it with his little energy shield thing, but not before an entire conga line of Impa clones start slashing at him until he’s defeated by a giant explosion. So yeah, that’d be badass and cool. But on the other hand…

Kohga, stomping his feet and having a fit: I cARROT believe you would do something this terrible! Give us back those bananas right now! D: ….please? You can keep the gross orange sticks.

Sooga: He asked nicely. You wouldn’t deny the wishes of the most polite and charming Yiga Chief there is, would you?

Impa: No can do, Yiga scum! I’m afraid this cruel action wasn’t veggie nice of you so I must exact justice! Now it’s my time to split. *Impa clones gather and throw Kohga into a giant frog’s mouth. Impa runs off with a sack of fruit [fruit (derogatory) if you will] cackling into the horizon*

Zelda: The Path She Laid For You

The King has order Zelda to head to the Temple of Time, in order to see if anything there could help awaken her powers. Zelda sets off quietly, with minimal company, as not to attract too much attention lest the Town’s folk be hit with another attack. It seems, however, that these precautions won’t be enough...Defeat key enemies

So this is a pure Zelda sidequest, with no other characters except for eggbot because I said so. Starts out normal when SURPRISE! Bunch of monsters appear and Zelda has to whip out her iphone and fight them. 

Also!! Good time for the Hollows to show up, and you know, tell her what a failure she is and all that. Convince her that she's useless and gonna doom everyone. All that good stuff!! It’s just nice to catch up with the villains and see how they’re doing, you know? ‘Sup Hollow Urbosa, last I saw you were barely spitting words in the Lost Woods, and now you’re giving full hard-hitting insults to Zelda’s character and ability? Good for you, Queen, good for you.

So Zelda and a handful of guards are fighting off monsters, and Zelda has to beat the Hollows too. Her gambit dialogue when she defeats Hollows can be stuff like “You’re not the real ___” or something idk, I don’t have a lot of experience with the evil clone trope, I’ve never played Ocarina of Time. But one specific I DO want to highlight is that Zelda uses the nearby Sheikah Tech to defeat the enemies. I find it a bit weird how Zelda just knows how to use those random water canons in the Faron region in later chapters, so we’re just gonna at least set up a pattern so that it makes a bit more sense later. Plus! This is in front of the Great Plateau, AKA Gate Post Town/Garrisons AKA oh lOOK it’s that area where Link and Impa and eggbot first meet in that Impa introduction scene of my rewrite so we have already established that Sheikah Technology is being stored here and ready to use! Continuity in world building! Nice.

So Zelda uses her knowledge of Sheikah Tech to defeat the Hollows, when...dun dun dun! Astor appears. But you don’t fight him...

Astor: Have you listened to one word spoken to you today? Why are you still resisting? Let me help you.

Zelda: And what exactly is your plan? You wish to kill me, then?

Astor: Not quite. I mean, if you do die, there are ways I can manage, so if some stray Yiga blade happens to strike you I’m not completely doomed.

Astor: But no, the most optimal outcome for everyone is the one where you live yet. You must see the truth as I do, and let me fix this. I can undo this terrible knot destiny has thread for you. [and insert other fate sisters and sewing metaphors here]

Zelda: But how? What’s your game here, if you’re truly claiming to be in everyone’s best interest then why all this secrecy?

Astor: Ah...ever the one to look for the facts and logic, hmm? Can’t blame you, you get it straight from your mother.

Zelda: …!

Astor: But...I’m afraid even if I did tell you now, you’re in no state to truly grasp it. No...the only way this works is for you to truly understand the position you're in, and the stakes that hang in the path before you. 

Astor: And if I have to kill every King, Champion, or knight to get you to understand…

Astor: Then so be it. 

[dun dun dun]

Zelda: No! I won’t let you hurt anyone, I swear it!

Eggbot [just pretend eggbot can have dialogue boxes too]: *chirps* 

Astor, suddenly noticing eggbot: ...You…you’re one thing I still don’t—

Eggbot chirps again beside Zelda, both seeming to be angry at Astor’s words. Eggbot releases a glowing flash of light. Kinda like a...flash bang? [is that the right word idk]

Astor: Ah—! *and he teleports away to escape* Astor: Until next time then...Princess

And that’s pretty much the sidequest. Zelda can question what exactly eggbot did, but he’s not exactly the most verbal in responses. Finally it ends with Zelda going home, “He was still right though...I’m still sitting in failure, with not a hint of my powers awakening. All I have is some Sheikah tech, some exhausted shoulders….and well, you, I suppose, little one.”

“Come, it’d be a waste to continue forth in this condition. Let’s go back to the castle.”

Eggbot: *happy whistles and chirps*

= = = = = 

Tune in next time folks, as we dive back into the main event! Needless to say, Chapter 4 is where the shit starts to go down...

[onychaos]

What’s up with my streams

So, it’s that time again where I feel different to streaming. And I know I have made a post like this but I know how I really feel towards streaming as a whole. So, let me start off.

I think it begins, just with me feeling burned out from doing livestreams in general, and doing too many games, to a point where I don’t know what to stream or not stream at all. This is daily feeling. I have myself to blame for.

And another reason is that, I have no one to entertain anymore, and that was my real reason to stream in the first place.

Coming from YouTube to Twitch to “Entertain” live chat was fun. Twitch, at one point used to be booming with viewers who would come watch you play whatever.

But the times are changing or have changed, small channels like me, have a chance of growing a active fanbase or turn to a dying channel. My Twitch channel is pretty dead. 

I want to be clear. I am not saying this to blame anyone or guilt trip anyone, my channel was dead from the get go. it’s not a matter of if but when my channel dies. And the time is now or last 2 years. Unless I stream the new hot game or the top game on twitch.

And the other reason is, I’m not happy with streaming anymore. Besides being burned out.

I have not been enjoying streaming and worrying if my net is gonna crap out, and kill my mood. I used to stream everything, now I have nothing I want to stream. Hell, I don’t even want to stream anymore.

I could upload videos to Twitch, but I will pass. Not fond on how the video feature works around here.

I will go back to making Let’s plays and videos on youtube, as I have enjoy that way more. Streaming is fine, and if you know what you are doing and have the internet for it, you can make it on Twitch or any streaming site

And for my Twitch channel, what does this mean? Well. In simple terms. It is now in limbo now. Doing streams on my channel, will be the last thing on my mind and might not happen.

But I will pop by in streams to support my friends when I can, by watching, chatting or giving bits.

This also means I don’t have to worry about not streaming on time or being late to stream.

I can just do things at my own pace, if you will. No more worrying about that or being stressed out by that.

Now I hear you. Just take a break and then, come back to stream when you are ready. That’s a good idea but..

That never works, as I seem to fall back into the same loop. I am taking a Hiatus. Though, that may as well be a infinite one.

Another reason, is me. I am a bad streamer. I don’t have any kind of streaming personality that others have.

Rather that is good or bad is up to you. My voice is deep, and my accent is heavy. I trip over my words a lot.

I want to be a entertainer, but I can dream, eh? I can’t force others to watch me, cause I don’t want that. I want people to watch me cause they want to. But I hit my peak on Twitch, my prime has long since pass, and diminishing returns seems to be a thing.

Another reason is, I want to stream all these games but I bit off more then I can chew while racing with friends.

It’s fun but I don’t get things done but trying to do 2 big games can take a toll on you after a while. That’s my bad. But I do that sometimes

I guess what I am saying is that, this gives me time to get back to learn coding, and do other things :3

I did want to beat P5 and BOTW master mode on switch, but if I am not enjoying streaming, then, what is the point?

To add a spin on Reggie’s quote. “Streaming is fun. Streaming is a battle. If it is not fun, why bother?”

kept this to myself and wanted to make sure if this was a fleeting feeling that would pass or not. But it did not pass..

If I do stream, it will be a blue moon. Again, streaming will be the last thing on my mind

With that said, games on hiatus as well: Persona 5, BOTW (May be subject to be cancelled)

Who knows what the future holds but I know my fate with streaming.

[lightseal]

ON THE GAME’S ENDING.

I waited until the DLC was released to make this post out of fairness, but seeing as it did not take place post-game as many were expecting, my position on the ending has remained the same.

I’ll be blunt: I was NOT pleased with the ending of BOTW. If you liked the ending, then that’s perfectly fine!! I’m really happy you enjoyed it, and I wish I could feel the same. But unfortunately, I felt it was a severe let down after seeing the amazing gameplay and characters that were presented to us. I’ll expand upon my thoughts more under the cut.

There are two parts to this: what I thought of the ending, and what I wish the ending would have been.

LETS TALK ABOUT THOSE PLOT HOLES.

Yes, Zelda games and timelines are often FILLED with plot holes. They have limited time and game opportunities to explain every little thing to us, and I don’t expect them to make a comprehensive world guide for each game explaining how every part of the world works. 

HOWEVER. BOTW gave us questions, and the ending answered maybe one of them. I say one, because you could ask yourself “Is Zelda okay?” but at the end of the day, it’s a LoZ game. There’s never a real sense of ‘oh no! Zelda might die!’ because the games always end the same way -- Link saves the princess and typically, they defeat Ganon together. Sure, she’s in danger; sure, something bad could happen to her. But is she going to die? No. There’s nothing in the previous LoZ formula that would make you think so. So it’s basically a given that she’s going to be okay. 

But BOTW threw out the old formula -- they made the game open world. You could tackle challenges in any order, you never had to wait to do ONE dungeon in order to access something. There was voice acting, and so many new features of gameplay that made it something fresh and new while retaining its familiarity. The game didn’t pull any punches; the fights were HARD unless you did tons of shrines for heart containers, leveled up your armor all the way, and had buff food/potions. But otherwise? You’d get knocked flat on your butt. You’d get very familiar with the game over screen.

It’s a game clearly designed for a more mature audience; it takes you, the player, seriously. 

So when you hear Zelda’s voice for the first time, you might think she’s speaking to you through the Sheikah Slate -- sort of like in Wind Waker. But you learn very quickly that she’s calling out to you from within the castle. That’s VERY important to keep in mind.

Remember the Divine Beasts; the moment you step foot onto one, you hear the respective Champion’s voice. They’re no where to be seen, but they tell you about the map and a basic run down of how to proceed. That’s the same thing Zelda did. Except, the Champions were SPIRITS. So it makes sense that they have some degree of dominion over their beasts.

But what about Zelda? She’s not a spirit. So why is she able to speak to you from such a vast distance? Why is she able to give you a heads up about the Blood Moon every time, no matter where you are in the world? She says she’s been watching over Link, but how could she have done that? The game doesn’t explain. Not a word about it.

The game makes her omnipresent, but that makes no sense within the context of the game. If she could speak to Link, why couldn’t she speak to the Champions? They were able to speak even before their beasts were released from Ganon’s control, so why couldn’t her and her friends chat for those 100 years instead of them all being alone? If it were because of the beasts’ influences for some reason, why couldn’t she speak to her father, who was just hanging around on the Great Plateau? 

The only way this makes sense is if ZELDA HERSELF WERE A SPIRIT. Hyrule Castle has the same map mechanics as the Divine Beasts, and it would make sense that as a spirit she would have power and dominion over the lands of Hyrule, enabling her to speak to Link even across great distances. The Champions retained their abilities for one hundred years and then they passed them down to Link; they never stated they would ever lose them. They never said there was a time limit, or that their powers were fading. So it would fit the storyline if Zelda’s sealing power also remained with her as a spirit, and she was able to use it to keep Ganon at bay for a century. 

This would also explain why Zelda did not age. You may think -- “But in Skyward Sword, Zelda sealed herself away for even longer than a hundred years and she didn’t age either!” And that’s true, but in SS, Zelda sealed herself away within a crystal. She wasn’t conscious, she didn’t speak to anyone. She was in a state of Stasis, as Link was for the hundred years before the game takes place. So it makes sense that neither SS Zelda nor BOTW Link aged, but there’s no reason why BOTW Zelda didn’t. 

When Zelda makes her appearance in the ending, she comes flying out. She levitates, casually descending as if she’s done it a thousand times. She appears cloaked in glowing golden light all around her -- just like the spirits, save their lights were green and hers was gold. But that would make sense, given that she’s the goddess-blooded princess/Hylia reborn/whatever. 

But that light dissipates, and she’s -- just fine? She summons basically a sun, and then is like -- ‘anyway! whatever, moving on.’ Even SS Zelda, who was just asleep, not conscious and actively fighting to keep Ganon at bay, collapses when she awakens. She’s tired. But BOTW Zelda doesn’t even get to have her moment of ‘oh thank goodness it’s finally over now I can rest.’

You’d think of all the characters, it would be BOTW Zelda who got that moment, given her character arc is about her struggling under the weight of her destiny. It’s about her finding herself and her path and having this amazing inner strength despite all the terrible things she went through. But the game doesn’t even give her that. And it keeps her alive, and for what reason? 

Because if Zelda died, she couldn’t continue the Hyrule line. That’s it. Zelda has all the traits of the spirits, but the game gives her plot-armor and magically keeps her alive so she can have children. Because the game team didn’t want to say BOTW was the last game in the ‘timeline,’ even though they don’t make the games in order anyway, so it wouldn’t mean anything if they made it the bookend for the series. 

IMAGINE THE ENDING IF ZELDA WERE A SPIRIT.

You beat down Ganon, and she comes out in that golden light and creates a little orb with the royal crest on it -- almost like when Link got the other Champion’s powers. Instead of giving it to link, she forces it into the weakened Ganon, sealing his existence from within himself. In doing so, she loses the holy powers passed down to her by the goddess, but Ganon is gone forever, hooray!

The skies start to clear and the sun comes through the clouds over the castle -- peace at last! The camera pans to Zelda, and her name pops up as it did with the other Champions -- “PRINCESS ZELDA” and below that, “The Last Princess of Hyrule.”

King Rhoam had “The Last King of Hyrule” beneath his name, so it would be a great callback to that, and put it in a different light. The player thought he was the former king of Hyrule at the beginning of the game, but now with Zelda being a spirit it becomes clear they are the last of their line. There may be a new royal family to lead Hyrule someday, but the kingdom’s rulers will no longer be those who descended from the Goddess herself. 

So Zelda reveals herself to be a spirit, and then the Champions appear in the background ( blurry at first, since the focus is on Zelda. ) She says she’s been watching over him, praying for his safety, but she doesn’t ask “Do you remember me?” she says instead -- “You really are the hero I remembered all this time.” Even if the player didn’t get all the memories, they’ll know it doesn’t matter; because courage is never forgotten. He is still Link, noble and kind and courageous even if he doesn’t remember her. So she doesn’t need to ask.

She turns and walks to stand in the center of the Champions, all of them facing Link. They each give a final parting line, and when they are finished Zelda thanks him for all he’s done, and then smiles and calls him the HERO OF HYRULE. 

She and the Champions turn and walk towards the castle, disappearing in the order you cleared the Divine Beasts until Zelda is alone, but she keeps walking. The camera pans to her feet, and then she stops, and it zooms out to reveal the King’s feet just ahead of her. She turns one last time to look at Link, and she simply nods, then turns back towards her father. Link starts running as fast as he can towards the castle, and you see Zelda and the King go through the front door. Link makes it there, breathing heavily, but when he walks in the room is empty. 

He sighs and looks down, then turns back and looks out towards Hyrule. It pans over the landscape, and shows people coming out of houses and the stables, looking towards the sky and the castle. The white stallion that was a descendent of Zelda’s horse comes up the pathway to the castle, and Link gets on, riding off towards the now free land of Hyrule as the camera zooms out and the logo appears. 

If you got all the memories, then instead of the additional cutscene, there is muted footage of Link, Zelda, and the Champions traveling together pre-calamity that plays during the credits. They’re shown talking and laughing together, cooking at a campfire, etc... Either way, after the credits, Link is shown returning the Master Sword to it’s pedestal while the epilogue track plays softly in the background. 

The loose ends are tied up, and the player is shocked. They saved Zelda from her century long battle, but they didn’t save her life. Her life ended one hundred years ago when they failed to beat Ganon the first time. It’s implied without her goddess-powers, she won’t reincarnate again. But with her sacrifice, Ganon was vanquished for good. Peace reigns in Hyrule, and Link is left to watch over it. It’s a bittersweet ending, and something new. A break from tradition, just as the gameplay had been.