#starslog

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I don't know who behind Cadence of Hyrule is responsible for making Shadow Link a playable character, but they have my eternal gratitude. I absolutely adore this lil' guy

[toseektoknoww]

log number 2544

heeeeeey beach its me again comin at you wwith some hot planet updates

i literal havve hated myself recently to the point wwhere i typed that nd had to stop nd laugh but no that wwas terrible im so sorry but im not deletin it please just accept the stupidity

onto the subject at hand i guess i should do my first actual formal update since ... wwoww fivve months ago accordin to my last log to this wwebsites clock geeze im sorry i really meant to get to these sooner i just ,,,, you dont care

you hate me draibe nd you knoww it but wwhatevver these are my logs nd my journals nd you just gotta deal wwith it its not like anyone else cares about jack diddily shit

planet wwise i must inform you that i havve not found any that are good enough for us to stay long term--the closest being one with creatures wwe couldnt handle nd i doubt wwould alloww any of the lusii to stay thusly that removves the mothergrubs survvivval a good bunches so that one out unfortunately

it is a lovvely picnic planet though wwould recommend as a pitstop to let the younglings run around ? just an idea ..... though keep them head counted

another thin to update is tester 8 has been poppin around on the radar but i cannot pinpoint wwhere she is she doesnt not seem to be one to care much for anythin other then her pushy spiderlusus gettin fed--understandable but she doesnt think a the bigger picture like i try to do .... not the best but i TRY at least

tech nd zeze havve both been gainin wweight easily nd ivve been wworkin to get the twwo in better condition zee has stopped eatin sopor nd instead eats a healthier fruit that wworks the same so they stay safer tech has just started gettin feelings back in their toes after the surgery on the mothership nd his psionics are comin back um .....

i had more but i cant think a it at the moment .... i guess thats evverythin ... oh !!! nd for the Empress i gots somefin for you ! um .... sorry if its stupid but its a thank ya [youdontgottakeepit.obj] 

this is eridan star ampora signin off until next time

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So with chapter 15 of adatl out, I decided to set out and find out if there's a sky island in totk that matches the one Dark wakes up on. I had some big points I needed to cover:

A bunch of Sundelions

A tree near a "flat stone set into the ground", which is tall enough that Dark could slump against it

The edge of the island is less than ten steps away from said tree

Other islands are visible in the distance

After some traveling (and getting derailed a bit along the way), I believe I have found a location that works both physically and thematically.

Welcome to Courage Island! Specifically the bit of land high above it where you get sent to start the associated skydiving minigame, which I discovered you could go and walk around during the minigame itself (and then biked up to get better screenshots).

Also have a bonus screenshot when I noticed just how darn big the in-game sundelions are.

And on that note, I believe I have some sketching to do :3

[starlight-eclipsed]

This isn't at all what you're going for, but I love the concept that the shadow was traveling across the timeline for something unrelated to the heroes. Like, the shadow turns around and does a double take because each hero independently saw a weird portal and decided to walk through.

Everything happens afterwards seems haphazardly thrown together because the shadow decided to commit to this whole dramatic crossover event and is making it up as they go.

So, there's an important question that I (personally) haven't seen being asked yet, so I'm going to speculate, because that's the good and proper thing to do when you don't have information, context, or anything whatsoever to inform your thoughts on a matter 👍

So yes, my big question is: why is the shadow hopping times to begin with?

We know that the chain is following the shadow, so we know why they are hopping through eras and going through these gates, but why does the shadow make them? We've seen that he's the source of the gates, and the boys have recently figured that out too, but why? Why is he making them? Why does he need to travel through time and does he have any control over it?

So far, we've seen two portals opened. Once it was in an attempt to escape our boys, but the second time? They already thought he was dead, so there was nothing to run from. They're not existent as a form of escape from the boys, but the fact that they opened in all of the heroes' eras and timelines to bring them together at all would either imply that the shadow has gathered them on purpose (popular theory) or perhaps that there's something in their worlds that he wants/needs.

What is he up to while our boys are bonding and traveling? Is he on the worlds worst grocery/errand run For Evil while nine heroes constantly try to stop him? Is his reason for traveling across times perhaps to gather something? Pieces of a something?

It wouldn't be a stretch to say that the black blooded monsters are a distraction to keep the boys busy, but there's also just the chance that the shadow is trying to kill them and thus empowering his army as much as possible. Still, that doesn't explain why he'd use the gates, even if it was just to gather a monster army.

Is he working for someone? Is there a bigger bad somewhere? Is he doing this of his own free will, and in that case, what is he doing? Why do the boys matter in the equation?

Perhaps- and I'm just spit baling right now- the shadow is gathering some sort of supplies, pieces of something, some artifacts or tools. He's gathering something while the boys wander cluelessly after him. He needs them to follow, needs to keep them close, but not too close on his tail. Why? Because he needs their power, or something that can be only achieved with all of them at once, in one place.

Is he planning to use them like magical batteries for some purpose? Is he going to pit them against puzzles and dungeons and foes he can't handle himself, in order to sweep in and reap the rewards? Why bring the heroes with? Why leave a clear path to follow him if he really wanted to escape?

What is the shadow's goal here?

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Why do I do this to myself

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A small question about your wonderful doppelganger au if you don't mind - why is Legato shorter than Legend now? Is it magic from Triforce Heroes or something else?

BTW I absolutely LOVED your last update, Legato being comforted by Hyrule and Warriors after dyeing his hair melted my heart🥹🥹🫶

Aw, thank you so much <33 To answer your question: he just shrunk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

...

XD Okay, but to be serious: I promise there is a reason. This is one of the points where Legato is an unreliable narrator. He does not want to think about the reason why, so he'll only mention it indirectly. Pay attention--there are clues if you want to try to figure it out before it's directly revealed :3

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Omfg Twilight's design has been asymmetrical the whole time aRE YOU KIDDING ME

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As a personal rule of thumb, the more powerful I write a character the objectively smaller their problems are.

An immortal? They're super hesitant to try new things because if they really like it they'll either have to buy dozens to preserve and have around after they get discontinued, OR have to reverse engineer make them from scratch so they can always have them in the future and it's a whole Thing. Their favorite brand of cereal adjusts the recipe and their entire life turns upside down as they try to figure out the old recipe before their person stockpile runs out.

A literal god? Look, they've been spending too much time around mortal people and genuinely forgot they could magic up a solution. Besides, conjured food just doesn't taste right, and they only have to make a quick grocery run! And then it was out of stock and they were too awkward to ask if there was more in the back, and so they went through every store in town to find the right spices and didn't return home until well after dinner time and they're upset but at least now they finally can make food and--wait. They don't need to eat. They literally could've just waited until the next day...or, you know. Snuck into the back of the first store to see the stock/teleported around stores until they found the right one.

In the case of Danny, I like stories where he tends to not think things through/defaults to worse case scenario, which is fair because that's often what's happening. He doesn't stop to explain himself because a)when has explaining things ever resolved a situation for him and b)nobody ever asks, even his parents are shoot-first-questions-later.

Like, of course he books it from the crime scene! He's going to get blamed either way, he might as well get some time to himself first. Yeah, he could put in the effort and get top scores in school, but no good test score is going to outweigh the number of unexcused absences he's racked up through hero work and at that point he might as well take his few hours spent not on ghosts hanging out with friends or relaxing.

Danny is more than willing to take an L and trash his civilian life when it comes down with it, even if explaining himself in the moment/a quick lie would've saved him so much trouble. He takes hits he doesn't have to simply because dodging doesn't occur to him, and when he does dodge he usually gets hit by something else entirely.

DP X DC Ramble OP Danny

It’s not that I don’t like Over Powered Danny period, but I have to say I don’t like how some people write OP Danny

It’s a common issue with OP characters, but sometimes the fact they’re op is used to get around actually telling a story. It’s about character conflict, personal struggles and goals. The story is often about trying to accomplish something and if the character can bypass the entire confpict of your story in two seconds, maybe that shouldn’t be the actual conflict of your story

It’s a big part of why OP characters are harder to write well, if they can accomplish their goals with no effort then it’s hard to be invested because it was obviously a non issue. It’s like a story about going to the fridge and getting milk. Is there an interesting way of telling it? Sure, the can be all sorts of ridiculous obstacles to getting that milk, most being unrelated to the milk itself. If the story is just walking to the fridge and grabbing it, then it’s not that interesting

I’m not saying stop writing OP Danny, but give him something to accomplish besides “snap, just froze the entire justice league in place and oh yeah I could destroy your entire world if I wanted to but I won’t” that pretty much ends your story right there

I honestly think that OP characters are just harder to write because you’re limiting what kind of stories you can tell. With physically powerful characters it’s harder to challenge that physical power, so interpersonal conflicts and goals are good ways to challenge them. Example: OP Danny being able to 1v1 half the justice league but trying to deescalate the situation because of a misunderstanding. The easy solution is for him to wreck their shit, the one that would challenge him is trying to talk it out while trying not to fight back

I probably haven’t said this well, but to summarize: you can have your OP characters but don’t let their OP ness bypass actual storytelling

[starlight-eclipsed]

I've developed a new respect for jojo purely based on the amount of background detail that went into the sunset arc. I'm not even trying to draw an exact replica of the inn and I've reached like three new levels of understanding for what was going on now that I'm not focusing on characters and dialogue

[starlight-eclipsed]

I swear I'm not dead XD I have a lot of fanworks I've been working on these past few weeks, but they're all in varying stages of completion with some reason or another keeping me from posting.

I am going to try to do something special sometime in mid-late December, so there's that to look forward to :3

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Guess who decided to try putting further emphasis on lineart for their next drawing and got dragged into anatomy hell?

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One of the funny things about being an artist is that it makes people more willing to go along with weird questions if you preface it with "can you help me figure out a pose"

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I now know far more about 17th century casment window opening mechanisms than I ever thought I would.

(Which is to say that I now know about them)

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I forgot to include this in the main post and Tumblr isn't letting me embed it in a reblog, so here's the 30 second speedpaint for this piece ^-^

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Welcome back, Dark's hat! We missed you very much