#those are a lot of links

[sharkinton]

Link portraits part two!!

Breath of the Wild, Minish Cap, Hyrule Warriors, 4 Swords adventures, Spirit Tracks, Zelda 1 and 2

[captainjonnitkessler]

Do you guys notice how when Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers union, started planning a general strike, he did it by a) targeting his messaging towards unions with the ability to safely and effectively strike in large numbers, b) laid out a clear, actionable plan for those unions to follow (setting contracts to all expire at the same time, since many unions cannot strike while under contract), c) is using union contracts to set clear, actionable demands that can be met in order to gauge success and provide an end goal, and d) started organizing FOUR YEARS before the proposed strike date to give people the chance to plan accordingly, because it takes a really freaking long time to get tens of millions of people organized?

You notice how he didn't do it by slapping a message on Twitter saying 'hey nobody go to work on Monday, that'll really show 'em'?

[theecholegend]

A reference/continuation from this post

close ups + no falling snow version under cut

Fun fact: I had a (messy) mini comic planned for this. I had drawn one whole page and started the second but lost all motivation to finish never mind clean it up. And it's been a couple months since I drew all this so I doubt I'm ever going to continue.

Though, as a last minute decision, I will share the unfinished, unpolished, comic pages.

Long story short (Cut really short) Legend ends up falling, kind of on the brink of freezing to death because he refused to tell Twi he wasn't doing ok and "he's been through worse" so clearly he's fine. Not. Twi turns back to a Hylian and starts carrying Legend to some sort of shelter (Maybe a cave he magically found, maybe just some dense tree line) holds the ever fading Legend in his arms and looks up, silently praying to the goddesses that they spare The Veterans life...

And that's it. Not a happy ending. Maybe it's good I never finished...

[tritoch]

i know a lot of people (very understandably) dislike the paladin job quests in ffxiv, particularly HW, but i do think it's fun that, now that the pre-ShB MSQ revamp is complete, paladins now have a very cool and thematic in-game storyline that happens without a word being spoken: the development of passage of arms.

none of the below is directly stated in the script, but imo it's a fairly obvious gloss on what the game presents, if you assume a paladin warrior of light. spoilers for all expansions through the end of 6.X.

in the new version of steps of faith, as vishap breaks through each ward protecting ishgard from attack, lucia mounts a final desperate effort to hold him back, with a very familiar looking animation:

but even lucia can't hold back vishap's flame alone, so the temple knights surge forward to assist her. their efforts make the shield visually more powerful and larger. the temple knights here band together in defense of ishgard, and their knightly resolve to protect their home is the difference between victory and defeat.

lucia and the knights do ultimately succeed in defending the last ward, as you have to defeat vishap before their shield falls or you lose.

later in heavensward, obviously, we will get ffxiv's most famous (failed) attempt at blocking something with a shield.

this moment can be read as fairly impactful on the warrior of light's development; as i've noted elsewhere, after the trauma of watching haurchefant bleed out in their arms at level 57, at level 58 paladins learn to channel their magic into healing (and it's called "clemency," or mercy. mercy for whom? who was guilty?), and as someone pointed out on that post, at level 58 dark knights used to get "sole survivor", letting them heal in response to a marked target's death.

for a time, you literally carry haurchefant's shield with you, and 3.3 very much literalizes in genre fashion the idea that even when you are standing alone, your fallen friends stand with you. you don't need to call any allies to stand at your side and raise their shields with you because they are already there, in spirit.

stormblood marks a pretty important turning point in the warrior of light as a combatant, in my opinion, and the text makes this clear in several ways. first, in pretty much all your jobs, you've now far exceeded your trainers and are pioneering new techniques. this is no less true of paladin, which for 60-70 abandons any trainers at all for you to show off your peerless skills in a tournament.

second, stormblood is straight up a story about you getting stronger. at level 61, zenos kicks your ass. at level 70, you kick his ass. why? because you fought and got stronger and developed incredible new techniques and became a one-man army.

for a lot of classes, this story lines up nicely with the big rotation changes or flashy new finishers on the way from 60 to 70. SMN is now busting out bahamut and casting akh morn; RDM gets verflare and verholy; DRG starts harnessing nidhogg's power directly through dragon sight and nastrond.

the tanks are divided in two: warriors and gunbreakers get huge damaging upgrades at 70 in the form of inner release and continuation, each of which lets them hit the same button many times for lots of damage and satisfying animations. paladin and dark knight get more protective abilities; dark knight gets the blackest night, and there's been plenty said about that already by pretty much everyone.

paladins get passage of arms. instead of a relentless new attack (and you get requiescat at 68, which is a way bigger deal for your dps rotation), your big reveal at 70 for zenos in your fight in ala mhigo is a superior way to protect your party, a shield that lets you stand for your allies so they never have to fall for you again. it's lucia's same shield, except you need no allies' shields to reinforce you, proof of your martial prowess and your ability to transcend limits, and perhaps in truth a reminder that you never really stand alone.

in many respects passage of arms should really feel like a paladin signature move to you now if you are playing it at this point, because you should be popping it in pretty much every fight (you are using your mits, right...?). basically every FFXIV fight has at least one big AOE with downtime that warrants passage of arms usage, usually after the mid-fight add phase with slowly filling bar. since that AOE usually drops during downtime, there's no reason not to pop passage of arms (which otherwise restricts your movement and actions), and even on normal, sometimes every little bit counts on a damage check even if it means dropping DPS (thinking here of harrowing hell P10N on release, which was...less consistent for a lot of roulette parties than you might hope).

so from 70 onward, passage of arms is in a sense a paladin warrior of light's signature move, and certainly the one a player gets to most actually enjoy (since if you're using it, you're by necessity not doing anything besides moving your camera and admiring your sick animation). it doesn't have any competition in terms of spectacle until confiteor, and those you're usually throwing out in the middle of movement.

it's such a signature, in fact, that the only other person shown using your one-person version of passage of arms is your greatest admirer, who studied your legend for over a century.

and it's when he fails (should've popped arm's length, bud) that the warrior of light decides they can't let their friends fall for them, and sends them away with the transporter beacon. this is all wrong: you were meant to die for them, not the other way around. yours is the shield that stands between your allies and defeat. it is you who will win this passage of arms and break your opponents lance. and you do.

and then later, when they need to quickly establish zero's domain as a place of fallen grandeur, the home of someone who once believed in heroes but is now a cool and cynical vampire hunter d, what do they use? a decayed statue of someone in the paladin endwalker gear doing the passage of arms animation, of course.

from a visible instantiation of knighthood as a joint effort to defend what is sacred, to a tribute to the fallen friends whose memories stand by you and animate you, to a symbol of the wol's power as emulated by their allies or darkly mirrored in other shards.

not bad for a mit button you hit once per fight and otherwise never think about!

[samaraxmorgan]

You already KNOW I’m still on my sub Sukuna bullshit <3

More than welcome to repost!!

[vioshortforviolence]

Pineapple is not a popular pizza topping choice among Links 🍍

original image from @linkeduniverse

[catastrophic-crisis]

Today, August 2nd, game magazine Game Informer was revealed to be ending, suddenly. All who worked there appear to have been laid off in the middle of working on their next issue of the magazine. Their website is now just a landing page announcing the end of the magazine, eliminating access to the years of online content, some exclusive to the website.

There are various online efforts to preserve both the digital and physical work done by the many talented people who have been laid off.

Fuck Game Stop, who owns the company.

Blake Hester 🧵:

The Life And Career Of John Johanas (director of Evil Within 2) | Three Days With Bokeh Game Studio (Slitterhead) | Exploring Caves With The Creator Of Spelunky (hosted on Game Informer YouTube) | The Bully 2 You'll Never Play | Life and death With Ikumi Nakamura (formerly Tango Gameworks, now Unseen) | Exploring Shibuya with Tango Gameworks | The Making of Humanity, 2023's Best Puzzle Game (hosted on Game Informer YouTube)

[dogahed]

dont you wanna be the best ?

[inumbrapugnabimus-maybe]

The knight and his lady @margindoodles2407 :)

Period drama levels of intense eye contact goin on here folks

[linkito]

Bath time! 💕

it feels like absolute heaven to soak their weary bodies, warm and carefree, nothing but bubbles and rubber ducks to disturb their newfound peace

hhau is nothing if not indulgent, so have a cute scarian bath with pink duckies 💖

[legendoflozer]

*stumbles in 3 months later* hiiii!!

[viyojo]

Hello!! I haven't been very active on my accounts, but I am participating in a donation-for-doodles event this weekend! Donate to a fundraiser and a group of artists will draw for you!

You can join the discord to learn more and make your requests! This is open until the 14th! so this weekend!

[tekablade-chronicles-3]

putting gallica in outfits volume 1 : classic heroes

as you can see i may like putting characters in outfits a bit too much

[bi-hop]

having read the manga now... I still think they're t4t but in a new unprecedented fashion. I have no idea what's going on with Laios, but take my hand...

[nell0-0]

*holds him gently

Skyward Sword Link is very dear to me <3

[kirby-the-gorb]