#AND THEN ZELDA STARTS NARRATING | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ampleappleamble · 2 months

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haven't seen this on here yet so:

in case you don't want to slog through the shitscape that is the bird/letter website, take a peek beneath the cut (shamelessly copied from the something awful forums dungeon meshi thread)

- Her first memory of video games was watching her father playing Wizardry on Famicom, also Dragon Quest, Ultima, and Fire Emblem among others.

- She was a difficult child so her parents didn't let her play. Wizardry is a boring game to watch, but the monster illustrations on the walkthrough evoked her imagination and made her keep watching.

- She only started becoming a serious gamer after the serialization of Dungeon Meshi was locked, for research purposes. Before that, she read fantasy novels such as The Neverending Story (Michael Ende) and The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien).

- The international title for Dungeon Meshi: Delicious in Dungeons was decided by her editor.

- D&D popped up a lot when she researched the history of video games, so she read the rule books, replay novels, and games inspired by D&D.

- One of the first games she studied was the Legend of Grimrock (game's 80% off on Steam atm). Originally, she wanted Dungeon Master (FTL Games) which was famous for "RPG with meals" but hunting down the game and machine was too much.

- She didn't like games other than turn-based RPGs at first, but she decided to stop being picky and play anything that piqued her interest.

- She played Zelda: BotW and TotK on a borrowed Switch from her editor due to the console's scarcity at the time.

- She enjoyed Red Dead Redemption 2 and God of War for their stories. RDR2's incredible attention to detail had Kui engrossed so much that she asked her editor and other mangaka to play it so she could discuss it with them.

- Kui praised The Witcher 3 localization as something only possible with full support from the developer. Cyberpunk 2077 is one of her all-time favorites.

- Papers, Please was her first taste of indie games.

- Disco Elysium is the perfect game for her due to the lack of fighting, intriguing story, charming character interaction, and top-down perspective. She tried playing it in English at first due to an unlikely chance for JP loc, but it was out of her ability. Thus she is forever grateful to Spike Chunsoft for localizing it.

- Kui played Baldur's Gate 3 from the time it was in Early Access. Again, she's grateful for Spike Chunsoft's JP loc. She hoped BG3's success would bring the possibility of JP loc for other titles too, such as Pathfinder: wotr

- She likes games with top-down perspective because they have narration text for monologues and scenery description. Even if the graphic is lacking, the texts show the atmosphere and each character's behavior and psyche. Also, characters that react to your choices.

- She praised Unpacking and House Flipper for being able to tell what kind of person lives there only through their belongings, and that there's no right or wrong for the placements; she would make the best arrangement and then enjoy her hard work while sipping tea.

- The biggest inspiration for Dungeon Meshi was the Cosmic Forge pen from Wizardry VI. With improved graphics from its predecessor, now it could show broken farming tools in the background and many more details that made exploration so much fun.

- At the time of the interview (Dec '23) she still hadn't watched DunMeshi anime, but she attended the recording sessions. She's embarrassed that the dialog she wrote now acted passionately by professionals. Marcille's screaming was wonderful but also made her want to flee.

- Kui was anxious about the CP2077 anime adaptation, but she was relieved it was the Night City she knows and loves.

- Other than minor adjustments, she left it to TRIGGER as to how to adapt

- She's happy that Mitsuda Yasunori was chosen as the anime composer, as she used to play Chrono Cross and rewatched the opening many times.

- Her anticipated games in 2024 are Cloudpunk, Nivalis, and Avowed.

- DunMeshi would be hard to adapt into a game because in the first place, what Kui depicted in the manga are parts that are omitted in games for the sake of brevity.

- If DunMeshi game was Wizardry-like, it'd be told through Laios' perspective and eating was essential not to die

#dungeon meshi #she only started playing video games after dunmeshi got picked up???? damn #that's dedication to the craft #i would *so* play a dunmeshi video game...#likes top-down perspective and strong narratives and character reactivity... she's just like me fr

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bellshazes · 11 months

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dreaming up a syllabus for an imaginary course on metanarratives about gameplay, which i think would go something like:

unit 1: who do you think you are i am - auto-documentary & games

Vlogs and the Hyperreal, Folding Ideas

The Slow Death of Let's Play Videos, Meraki (to ~10:00)

World Record Progression: Mike Tyson, Summoning Salt

ROBLOX_OOF.mp3, hbomberguy

Life as a Bokoblin: A Zelda Nature Documentary, Monster Maze

optional: Braindump on the History of Let's Plays, slowbeef

unit 2: what like it's hard? - intro to challenge narratives

Chapter 26: Games as Narrative Play: Two Structures for Narrative Play, Rules of Play

A different kind of challenge run: Minimalist 100% (BOTW), Wolf Link

Surviving 100 Days on Just Dirt, Mogswamp

Can You Beat DARK SOULS III with Only Firebombs, the Backlogs

Is it Possible to Beat Super Mario 3D World while permanently crouching?, Ceave Gaming

The Pacifist Challenge - Beating Hollow Knight Without Collecting Soul [CHALLENGE] - Sample

optional: How to 100% Snowpeak Ruins in under 15 minutes, bewildebeest

unit 3: nelly you don't understand, i AM the narrative - form and function

The Future of Writing about Games, Jacob Geller

Can You Beat GRIME Without Weapons?, the Backlogs

Mushroom Kingdom Championships, Ceave Gaming

My Life as a Barber in Hitman 2, MinMax (Leo Vader)

MyHouse.WAD - Inside Doom's Most Terrifying Mod, PowerPak

optional: Mega Microvideos, Matthewmatosis

the theme and structure is mostly intended to introduce at least one critical or historically contextual work followed by examples of the type of narrative in question.

in unit 1, this is the idea of "How do people talk about their own experiences in the context of YouTube and playing video games?" across three rather different kinds of documentaries. unit 2 is intended to take that lens of who is telling what tale and dial in on challenge running, where i first noticed the way some videos turn the story of overcoming a challenge into its own narrative that is distinct from but related to the narrative events of the game itself. unit 3 circles back to the bigger picture with a variety of examples that, to me, are maximally metanarrative, the emergent story of the player-narrator now functionally replacing the game's embedded narrative.

bonus unit: broken narratives

Glitch & the Grotesque at the MLA, Sylvia Korman

Watching time loop movies to escape my time loop, Leo Vader

The Stanley Parable, Dark Souls, and Intended Play, Folding Ideas

Breaking Madden, Jon Bois

The TRUTH about the Pizzaplex in FNAF: Security Breach, AstralSpiff

this one is highly underdeveloped, but i'd love to work out something more robust building on randomizer challenges that produce intentionally bizarre, semi-ironic "lore," and bois-esque endeavors to break games so hard the story itself crumbles. but that's really out of scope so i'm just including the links to things i couldn't bear to get rid of. more rambling abt the challenge runs I chose under the cut.

Challenge runs represent one of the most obvious places to start, due to being extremely plentiful and having a hook that makes a "here's how I did X thing in Y video game" format almost unavoidable. Minimalist 100% is an underrated and sweet straightforward example that I mostly include as a baseline for reporting-out style narrative; here are the facts, here's what happened, this is the thing that it is. Mogswamp's 100 Days on Just Dirt is similar in style, but the physical measuring of days is a delightful and, more importantly, external narrative device.

Now oriented, we get a taste of Ceave Gaming's narrative approach to Mario challenges with the no-crouching run, and while we still aren't at the degree of player-characters being constructed for the narrative's sake, the spirited belief in crouching sets the stage for other rhetoric in more extreme cases we'll see later.

The Backlogs' entire body of work qualifies here, but GRIME is the strongest inspiration for putting this list together. I include the DS3 firebombs run because what was initially a factual description of how his wife's use of firebombs inspired him to play differently in the original DS1 firebombs run has developed into full-blown multi-game narrative arc with the Firebomb Goddess (his wife, who also voices the character) compelling his in-game character to achieve his destined quest. Grime takes that even further,

In-Game Documentaries

I include Life as a Bokoblin mostly as a contrast to My Life as a Barber - there is a level of fictionalization and roleplay involved in the Zelda in-game documentary that highlights exactly what I want to single out when I am talking about metanarrative, the story about a story.

#peter posts #mc meta #<- close enough #also i will add some context for the rest of the docus too since the summoning salt is on here for a VERY SPECIFIC REASON

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a-game-of-beginnings · 4 months

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Ragdoll Stanley

Since I'm currently a little on the slow side, I thought I'd fill the gaps with some older art. Presenting: Ragdoll Stanley! (It's an animated GIF, so it might take a while to load, sorry. Just keep staring at it until it starts moving.)

The ONLY incident where you'll see Line™ with an arrow here, by the way. Purely for dynamic reasons. We need to make sure Stanley's running into the right direction, after all. It's also the only incident where you'll see the Narrator depicted as a Zelda Fairy. HEY. LISTEN.

#TSP #TSPUD #The Parable

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genericpuff · 1 month

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Genuinely I would give anything to hear your thoughts or read more critical analysis of yours on other webcomics writing (*slides you Marionetta* I like the webtoon but there are some things in the writing that I'd like to see be discussed critically more often but the fandom focuses way too much on shipping. sighs..)

Anyway, you probably have been asked this before but are there any webtoons in particular you would recommend? :D

Oh lord, you don't know how many times a week I get asks in my inbox asking for my opinions on webtoons they're reading. It's really sweet that people wanna hear me talk about other works outside of LO, but unfortunately I just don't have the time to read as much as I used to, even keeping up on LO lately is getting really difficult 😅 I'm definitely keeping a list though of works to check out!

That said, I try not to read series on the basis of criticizing them because frankly I just... don't want to spend time reading something if people are only looking for me to rag on it? 😆 Of course I know that's not the only reason, I know there's also just the element of seeing me talk extensively about other works the way that I do with LO, but it's not really something I can turn on and off like that, I have to get really into a series to want to talk about it to that extent. So it often comes down to just luck of the draw :'0

Right now the series I'm keeping up the most on (or have completed and would absolutely 100% re-read):

Alfie (18+, it's porn with plot but the plot is REALLY GOOD , I SWEAR LMAO the art is gorgeous, the characterization is IMMACULATE, and it ironically tackles the subject of purity culture way better than LO ever has lol)

Theia Mania (the creator is often in my comment section / neck of the woods, she's been working on an Abduction of Persephone retelling for a long while now and has also tackled other myth retellings in her style! I always love seeing new pages of her work in my feed :' ) <3)

Tales from Alderwood (if you like fantasy and comedy, this one's great, the plot's really starting to get interesting and it's just got this really great sense of humor about it)

The Black Parade (this one's REALLY interesting, it's a comic-stylized version of My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade, using the songs as narration and sometimes even dialogue to tell a visual story, it's really cool and the art matches beautifully with the lyrics and style of MCR!)

A Tale of Two Rulers (this is a Legend of Zelda fancomic that poses the question, "What if Zelda and Ganondorf got married to solve their political crisis?" It updates a lot slower than most of the other comics I follow but the art and writing is so worth it <3)

Dogs of Future Past (and p much all of Lynx's Undertale comics which can be found in the link, seriously, THESE are the comics you wanna read if you wanna get into Undertale fanworks, they are PEAK)

Tamberlane (this one's an anthro comic, I normally don't read anthro but this one actually gripped me by the throat, the art is gorgeous and the character arcs so far have been great!)

The Mafia Nanny (okay it's legit so funny that I'm including this one here but I've been reading it the last couple days after seeing it basically beat out LO at the top of the trending tab for a couple days, so I figured I'd give it a shot, at first I was like "great more tropey shit" but the more I read it the more it's actually started to get pretty good, I'm holding out and hoping to god it stays that way LOL it's not especially deep or anything like that, but it's really fun and cute to read and the shipping of the main character within the narrative isn't too self-absorbed which I can always appreciate, I'd honestly be 100% fine with it if it didn't turn into a romance)

City of Blank (I talk about this one a lot here, but it's one of my favorite Originals right now, the art is super polished and the writing has gotten INTENSE, go check it out if you want some fun action / sci-fi storytelling!)

Time and Time Again (a time-travelling vampire and his werewolf boyfriend get into all kinds of misadventures, what more could you ask for?)

Touch of Divinity (like the Mafia Nanny, this is one I just started reading, it's got a very interesting premise so far and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes!)

#if i ever do read marionetta then y'all will definitely hear about it LOL #ask me anything #ama #anon ask me anything #anon ama #recommendations #reading reccs #reading recommendations

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patchwork-crow-writes · 8 months

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Thoughts on Kris x Ralsei

This is so long I had to split it up into parts - this is Part 1, which looks into how the roles that Kris and Ralsei are given contributes to the idea of their romance. As more parts are written, they'll be linked below in this handy-dandy TOC!

Part 1: And They Lived Happily Ever After <- (You Are Here!) Part 1.5: I Believe Your Choices DO Matter Part 2: A Pair of Star-Cross'd Lovers Part 2.5: In Another World, We Could Have Been (Just) Friends

Okay, so.

Wanted to elaborate a bit on my viewpoint of this ship, because I don't think it's something I've ever really discussed before and I think it's actually a very interesting dynamic (or at least has the potential to be, depending on where the rest of Deltarune goes).

So, Kralsei is cute, isn't it? It's fun to hug the fluffy boy and watch him melt into incomprehensible stuttering and blushing. All the little signs he's really, really into Kris, all the cute little snippets of dialogue you can initiate with him, all the alone time they spend together, in both chapters... honestly, the game makes it hard not to root for this pairing.

And yeah, it's cute... in a very surface-level, don't-think-about-it-too-hard kind of way. But once you start thinking about it... hoo boy. There is. A LOT to unpack here. So much more is going on just under the surface, and once you see it, it's difficult to un-see it. And in my opinion, it makes the Kralsei dynamic so much more nuanced, more compelling, and potentially quite tragic.

Now, a disclaimer: it's fine to like this ship on a surface level. No real harm is being done, these are fictional characters and it doesn't matter what reason you enjoy it for - if it provides comfort to you and gets you through, then more power to you! This is more me sorting through my thoughts on the subject and is not a judgment on how others approach it. With that said, and in the spirit of full disclosure, this will go into slightly uncomfortable territory - picking apart the idea of destined love, the deconstruction of common romance tropes, how outside manipulation might play a part, and even the potentially incest-adjacent nature of the relationship. If you don't want to deal with any of that, you can stop reading right now, and that's okay. Please continue to enjoy Deltarune in the manner that is best for you, and thank you for your attention thus far :)

If you're still with me, then please click the read more and we'll get started.

Part 1: And They Lived Happily Ever After

The first thing you have to understand is that Deltarune is utterly determined to cram the notion of Kralsei down the player's throat. The game is not subtle about this in any way, shape or form. Everything from the narration, to the dialogue, to major game events, to item interactions, and even the roles that Kris and Ralsei play both in the story and the party, serves to reinforce the notion that these two are very likely to end up romantically involved with each other in some way.

Let's look at the characters first. Kris is portrayed as the noble knight - stoic, unwavering, courageous, a natural leader - clad in medieval-inspired plate armour and wielding a sword and shield. And Ralsei is the archetypal princess - demure, dainty, kindhearted, nurturing - who uses magic to heal his allies and pacify enemies.

I did not mistype there - Ralsei is a prince, but the characteristics associated with him are more commonly found amongst female healers in JRPGs. Think Fina from Skies of Arcadia, or Marle from Chrono Trigger (minus the temperment), and you might have an idea of what I'm on about.

Think of knights and princesses for a moment. Imagine St. George slaying the dragon to save a helpless damsel. Imagine Lancelot and Gwenevere. Robin Hood and Maid Marion. Link and Zelda. Squall and Rinoa. Every single fairy tale involving an imperilled princess and a knightly rescuer. For a more modern take, imagine The Bodyguard. Ness and Paula. I could go on, but then we'd be here all day.

Suffice it to say that there is a pretty entrenched tradition surrounding these archetypes - a male-coded, phsyically-adept, courageous, stoic, action-oriented figure, is paired with a female-coded, magically-adept (depending on the medium of course), less-physically-capable by comparison, emotional, and more passive foil. The (male-coded) knight protects and rescues, the (female-coded) princess nurtures and soothes.

It is a very, VERY emotionally-charged dynamic, by its very nature. Through their acts of service to their protectee, the Knight displays their devotion and care for the Princess, and is in turn emotionally-enriched and cared-for. There is a great deal of physical and emotional vulnerability between them, and it is therefore ideal for romance stories.

Look at Kris and Ralsei again, through this lens. Kris is immediately put into the role of Knight, and Ralsei quickly establishes himself as a classic Princess. Almost instantly, before you've even become aware of it, you've made the connection - they're going to fall in love, because that's what ALWAYS happens in these stories. Ralsei supports and encourages Kris, both in dialogue and in battle, and Kris...

...Kris, uh...

...they...

...hug Ralsei sometimes...?

...they... they give him a ribbon...?

...no, that can't be right.

But it is right, for two reasons. One, Kris doesn't have to do anything. The roles are already established, and Ralsei is playing his part like a pro. And two, Kris doesn't do any of those things in the first place - you do. It's the player who hugs Ralsei, who gives him the ribbon, who picks the dialogue options, who makes the connections. You're the Knight in this scenario, not Kris.

Because Kris doesn't get to make that choice. Kris has to do what you tell them to do. And many of us have already jumped to the conlusion that this romance is happening, becuase that's what always happens. The Knight and the Princess fall in love. They get married. They live happily ever after.

So we ship them, because hey, it's cute, and it's easy. I can't stress enough how easy the game makes this. I'm fairly convinced that Ralsei was designed by comittee, like the Funzo toy in that one episode of the Simpsons. Like he was created with the sole purpose of being the most disgustingly adorable, lovable, awkward little cinnamon bun that ever existed. Like he was created to generate the maximum emotional response in players. It's the cuteness response dialled up to 11, and we are almost hard-wired to want to protect this little bundle of fluff from any and all danger, because lookit how sweet and adorable he is! The glasses make his eyes look all big, his fluffiness is reminscent of that of baby animals, he stutters and fumbles his way through dialogue, and you just want to scoop him up and put him in your pocket or something.

And so, we're more than happy to fulfil the role of the Knight to Ralsei's Princess. Whether Kris actually wants to or not. Because it does become increasingly obvious that outside of our influence, Kris is still their own person, with their own goals and desires, but no real agency with which to pursue them. Would that we could know what they truly want, but we are never presented with an opportunity to find out.

The thing is, Kris is not particularly... knightly. They play pranks on their friends, they swipe sweet treats from their mother, they seem to enjoy getting a rise out of people, and particularly from Asriel, if the story about "dropping the lizard into the pit to jump higher" is any indication. They sleep through class, yet by Berdly's grudging admission they are the "third smartest in the class". The only reason they go to church is so they can drink the "sick fruit juice". They don't seem to have any issue with prank-calling their mom, while she's taking about them with their tutor, while they're standing just out of sight, while they're balancing a trash orb on their head.

Nothing about this behaviour screams "Knight." If anything, it would make more sense for Kris to have become a Rogue-type character upon entering the dark world. So the question remains - why is Kris forced into that role? And to what extent is the seemingly "fated" romance between Kris and Ralsei part of that role?

Folks, we have barely scratched the surface here. If I keep writing here this will become a novel, so I have to stop for everyone's sanity. But I will follow up soon, looking into the ideas of Purpose and Destiny and how they relate to Kralsei in-game. If you've stuck with me up to this point, let me just say thanks, because wow I wrote a lot here, and it's probably a bit rambly and says the same things two or three times, but I just. Had to get this onto the page in some way or another, so... here it is.

Thanks for reading, and see you in the next one :)

#essay #thoughts #rambling #deltarune #kris dreemurr #Ralsei #Kralsei #Krisei #shipping #romance #character archetypes #Knights and Princesses #long post #Part one of several #oh my god there's so much ground to go over here I didn't even know #and we're only TWO CHAPTERS in #no wonder I'm obsessed #theory

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the-au-collector · 4 days

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Fell into a rabbit hole of rewatching Age of Calamity cutscenes (since I don't have the game) and

this game is so needlessly dramatic

"it whaaaat" - Revali

Robbie is an icon and there needs to be more of him

the DLC memory scenes are the best cutscenes in the game

Terrako singing ballad of the goddess 😭😭😭

Baby Zelda is so cute

Terrako is OP

I love how the entire game starts all dramatic and then there's just E G G

Also the opening credits of the game imply that the tapestry is about the Calamity where BOTW Link failed??? Either that or Terrako existed at the same time as the OG Calamity which works for me!

Terrako is the main character prove me wrong

Baby Sidon is too pure for this world

I like how Zelda narrates the game. You could almost see it like she's narrating it to her kids or something and I think that's really cute

Sidon's adult voice actor is so over-the-top lolll

I love Daruk so much

"None of this makes any sense" No Daruk it does not

I love Riju's voice actor

I love how Patricia gets her own name tag too

This game varies between incredibly dark to incredibly funny/corny and I love it

Astor my beloved your laugh is terrifying

Khoga is an icon too "you're my best lackey!!!"

Mipha is so tinyyyy

Urbosa is such a mom I love her so much

Hell yeah Vah Ruta flood Hyrule Field!!!

We need more evil magicians in Legend of Zelda. They're all so iconic

Rhoam is actually pretty likeable at the end of the game ngl

Baby Sidon is so so so tinyyyyyy 😭😭😭😭😭

Yunobo's eyes are so funny

Tulin is a sweetheart and not even Revali can escape his cuteness

Khoga's hair is so hard he can't put the thunder helm on oh oy goddd that's hilarious 😂😂😂

Urbosa, Rhoam, and Zelda's mom had to have been a threesome

I didn't need Khoga to be such a dad but here he is... best dad for the best lackey

Astor has followers??? Like he's a cult leader??? *stores that information away for later* Well to be fair they kinda died in the only scene they were in lol

I can tell Robbie's voice actor had a blast doing this

Also this game lowkey reads like a Kingdom Hearts game lol So much random, corny goodness is here and I love it

#age of calamity #revali #terrako #link #zelda #robbie #sidon #mipha #daruk #urbosa #riju #yunobo #patricia the sand seal #astor #tulin #sorry this got so long #legend of zelda

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ladyrijus · 1 year

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I'm not sure if the creators realize, but based on its title alone, Tears of the Kingdom has the potential to turn around the entire Legend of Zelda franchise in terms of its storyline.

Let me explain.

I think we can all agree that in most of the games, there is a core narrative of light versus evil that outlines the game. Link and Zelda are the benevolent heroes of the story and Ganondorf / Ganon is the irredeemable villain. Storywriters for the franchise like to use this formula for the franchise because hey, it's worked so many times, and gained lots of reception, so why not?

But just because it has worked doesn't mean it's right or suitable.

Firstly, given the history of our world, it is problematic that the face of evil for this game series is a dark skinned man from a tribe of women who are based of the caricatures and sexualization of women raised in the MENASA regions (MENASA stands for the Islamic countries in Middle East, North Africa, South Asia) and the face of good is always two white characters who are held in the highest regard. Not to mention, Ganondorf and his foster mothers Koume and Kotake had their character designs in Ocarina of Time based on anti-semetic caricatures. This overall set-up speaks volumes already, but it doesn't stop there. The franchise decided to expand upon the lore of the Gerudo in Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess, explicitly and implicitly establishing that the tribe was, in fact, oppressed, ostracized, and underwent genocide. Some people may argue that this information is up for debate, given that a lot of it comes from Ganondorf who is an unreliable narrator; however, this argument fails to consider that even then, it never proves that Zelda and Link are any more trustworthy. After all, the victors write history. With these complexities added in, it becomes hard to discern who exactly is in the right or wrong. In reality, the matters were never black and white to begin with.

This segues to my next point: the light versus darkness trope is not suitable this time around. It's a very two dimensional, inaccurate representation of the world of Hyrule that conflicts with the goals the creators are trying to achieve in Tears of The Kingdom. If they truly wanted to concentrate on the duality between light and darkness, they've already done it with Breath of the Wild. We had Calamity Ganon, a sub-sentient manifestation of hatred that sought nothing but death and destruction, and it was up to Link and Zelda, who strove for the preservation of life and progress, to seal it. So why continue to expand on that? Why bring back Ganondorf? Personally, I see no point in his return.

Unless… the "Tears" of the Kingdom refer to the Sheikah.

"But, wait!" you ask, "All this talk about the Gerudo and for what? What does the Sheikah have to do with this?"

To explain this we'll have to start at the beginning. No, not Skyward Sword, though it shares striking similarities with Tears of the Kingdom, such as the return of the magatama relics, a character with a likeness to Demise, and the juxtaposition between land and sky. No, we have to go before even then. We have to go to the Era of Hylia.

The Legacy of Hylia

Not much is known about Hylia beyond the fact she was meant to protect the Triforce as supposedly ordained by the Golden Goddesses and the people worshipped her for it. But, notice how we learn this story through Fi, a creation of Hylia, with few additions from Impa, from the Sheikah tribe that Hylia established herself. The Triforce is seen as something to protect in this story they share, though interestingly, the relic itself is designed to be as unbiased and uncaring of the individual that seeks it out. It is, without a doubt, divine (as it quite literally is a means to warp reality), but there is also no tangible morality associated with it.

So why did the Golden Goddesses think it had to be protected? Why is Hylia chosen to do it?

…Why did Demise go for it?

If it wasn't clear enough, Hylia is much more flawed than the creators let on. She feels entitled to the Triforce, though there is no reference but the Golden Goddesses (whom no one has ever witnessed) that says she should. It's selfish, almost childish even, that she gatekeeps it away from any user. It's human. Perhaps her traits are a reflection of the time she had spent with the civilization that worshipped her. Because of this, I consider her to be a demigod rather than god. Not so distant and otherworldly like the Golden Goddesses, but a force of nature that can't be subdued but still respected. Time is ruthless, it flies and it trudges. But I digress. In short, for all that is said about Hylia and her divinity, she was certainly stubborn in her efforts to prevent anyone from wielding the Triforce so that her world could remain the way it is, perfect and idyllic.

But that's the thing, life was not idyllic like she wanted the Sheikah and the rest of the world to remember; no, it was terrible enough to spur Demise and his "demon" forces to seek out the Triforce as a means to wrest control from her. Again, I want to make it clear that Hylia and Demise go beyond the bounds of good and bad. A lot of lives were lost to Demise, to the point the humans nearly went extinct. There's little to redeem on that end. But we're never told the stories from the other side of the battle, so who's to say they hadn't suffered as much extreme casualties? Either way, there had to be something Hylia had done (or even not done) for Demise to take severe measures. The hatred he feels is all consuming, but there is something to be said about how hate does not bloom spontaneously — it is cultivated and grown. Keeping all of this in mind, I sometimes wonder if Demise's name was in relation to Hylia, as in he was her Demise, and that those demon forces of his were actually the demonized. We'll never know. But what we do know, is that the Triforce was the Golden Goddesses' way of giving hope to the mortals, to be able to use divine power to shape the world as they see fit (at least, according to the first Zelda, which is a fantastic moment of irony if you ask me) and Demise had every intention of seeing his future through.

The Sheikah's Story

Now, let's fast forward a few eons and come back to the tears. Many people have associated the tears from the title to be the magatama relics seen with Zelda, Sidon, Riju, Tulin, and Ganondorf. But the tear's symbolism in the franchise has been around for much, much longer, thanks to the existence of the Sheikah. The tear is a part of the eye symbol for the Sheikah, and according to the The Legend of Zelda Encyclopedia, it represents their willingness to go any lengths so as to support their divine mission of protecting the Royal Family that possesses the blood of the goddess Hylia. Given that information alone, wouldn't it make sense that the title "Tears of the Kingdom" refers to the Sheikah?

"Okay sure, but what role would they play in the game?" That's not the point. It's not the role they play now. It's the role they played in the past. Something of particular interest to me when it comes to the Sheikah is how differently the Sheikah are characterized between the games of Skyward Sword, Ocarina of Time, and Breath of the Wild. In Skyward Sword, they were a tribe who patiently for the day to protect the goddess's reincarnation and went so far as to transport her through time repeatedly. In OOT, they were agents who went so far as to secretly carry out the Royal Family's dirty work. In BOTW, they were inventors and sorcerers who went so far as to recreate divine power to protect the land.

But guess what never changes? The fact that they write history.

Above everything else, they are the storytellers, and they have seen everything. The good, the bad, and the ugly. But with the role of storytelling, they have the ability to alter it, embellish it. And in the Sheikah's case, they have a tendency to omit the negative, so as to promote support for the goddess and her Royal Family. Think about it: Impa never explains why Demise wanted to take control of the world in Skyward Sword and she's the first to jump to fix issues at the Shadow Temple in Ocarina of Time so no one has to bear witness to what the temple had actually turned into. If she did, Hyrule would surely fall into chaos. To Hyrule, the governing powers like the goddess Hylia and the Royal Family are the pinnacle of morality. That image can't be compromised.

And for a time, it wasn't, until we reach Breath of the Wild. That's when things get interesting.

In the tapestry, as shown above, a majority of it is occupied by the tale of the warrior with the spirit of a hero, a princess with divine power, and a technological army pioneered by Sheikah. That's what the game's creators want you to see. But do you see that little strip at the bottom?

Yeah, that. It's a tiny piece of the story but it's a big one. By now, most game fans know that is the history of how the Yiga Clan came to be. Cado, one of the Sheikah that stands guard in front of Impa's home, elaborates on this imagery, remarking that once upon a time, the Royal Family (more specifically the King of Hyrule) did turn on the tribe that swore nothing but utmost loyalty to them.

Of course, this seems counterintuitive. Why punish the people who protected you? What was their sin? As far as we're told by Cado, Sheikah technology had once been praised as "the power of the Gods". Now, I won't get into too much detail about this, but the Triforce, which you might have noticed isn't really mentioned by word of mouth in Breath of the Wild, is now a power of the Royal Family that is passed down. All parts of it. It's a lot to take in, given my lack of elaboration, but I recommend watching THIS video by Monster Maze who does a fantastic job exploring the nature of the whole Triforce being hosted in an individual body.

But what I want you to take out of this information is how there is, essentially, a rivalry between the Sheikah and the Royal Family, a sudden leveling of the playing field that the latter party does not want. It's eerie how similar they act as their ancestor god. The entitlement is present yet again: you cannot change the world like I can, you cannot be as powerful as I am. I have the final say. This certainly paints a more explicitly, vicious picture of the Royal Family, but it's nothing really new. After all, the Sheikah remember everything cruel that had been done to others by this family, by them, but hid it for the purpose of the "greater good". But once they become the target, everything changes. The Sheikah don't remove it from history. They remember it. Some more passionately than others.

Ties between the Gerudo, the Sheikah, and the Yiga.

Something else on the Sheikah tapestry that seemed out of place for me is the depiction of the hero.

He is clad in green, which one would imagine, is a reference to Link's green motif throughout the games. However, I fully believe that detail is a red herring — that is to say, it's meant to throw us off. And from what I have seen, most fans of the game agree. Why? Because that same individual has red hair and a sword that looks more like a golden claymore than the sword that seals the darkness. And well, given that the Gerudo are the ones who use golden claymores, plus the way the figure is drawn to have a knee bent, there can only be one person this image is referring to:

Ganondorf.

Keep in mind how the Sheikah have erased his name, but did not erase him, and that the Yiga swear their allegiance to Calamity Ganon. To be completely honest, I think the Calamity did not have the name Ganon to it 10,100 years prior to the events of Breath of the Wild. But, to explain why it suddenly does in Breath of the Wild, I do believe Ganondorf had a calling to malice, whether the kind left behind by the Calamity or the kind that was already existing throughout the land. Read THIS post by @golvio to get an idea of what I mean. The only change I would make regarding this theory is that the people did not originally see the malice as inherently evil. A little rot was needed to clear the space for new growth. But with great power comes great responsibility, and I think Ganondorf might have utilized the malice in a manner the King of Hyrule was not pleased with.

How so, and why? Well there can be different reasons to choose from for the creators, but I have a personal favorite theory that explains why the Sheikah and Yiga remember Ganondorf more acutely than even the Royal Family and why there's ruins in the Gerudo Desert: As a last resort, to protect the Sheikah who helped him defeat the Calamity, and to reclaim the technology they lost, Ganondorf used the malice to take over the guardians and to get rid of the soldiers wiping out the civilians. In response, Zelda from that time was tasked with defeating him with the help of the other "Sages" (those who possess the magatama relics/tears) and one of those sages sealed him away with the Zonai hand. Zelda's betrayal breeds the hatred that Demise foretold would reincarnate, time and time again, leading to Ganondorf internally accepting that a peaceful world is a world without the Kingdom of Hyrule, without the Royal Family, completing the cycle once more.

And so here it comes, the big storyline change that Nintendo stands on the precipice of:

To break the cycle, Ganondorf is not the one that needs to necessarily be redeemed. It's Zelda. That isn't to say that Ganondorf isn't flawed and should not repent; there are a million things he could have done better or have not done, whatever it is that lead him to be sealed. And what I mean by Zelda having to be redeemed is that even though she technically has done nothing personally to Ganondorf, it is her blood that binds her to the ancestors who spurred the very hatred that fueled the Calamity and left behind a legacy built on the maintained misfortune of others. If anything is to change, she must be the first to cast aside her fear so that the cycle cannot repeat again, and instead work on understanding her family's past and building her faith. And no, I don't mean her faith in the goddess (she has lost too much trying to), but faith in the goodness of a man who was unfairly pushed to become the worst version of himself to protect the helpless.

#i would love a change like this so that the franchise can start steering away from its racist past of “white ppl good poc ppl bad” yknow #the way i see it botw is where the royal family essentially atones for the heinous crimes they committed over eons #sort of karmic in a way #having lost most of its people history and culture just like the gerudo had in twilight princess and wind waker for example #and then botw zelda takes responsibility and lays the blueprint for a more prosperous future that includes EVERYONE to the best of her abil #now how she would convince ganondorf that she's being genuine is beyond me but someone else can take care of the details #and well. ganondorf doesn't HAVE to forgive her he just got out of being dead so #what matters is that zelda tries and no matter the push back she's not going to make the same mistake as her ancestors #loz #tloz #the legend of zelda #legend of zelda #botw #breath of the wild #totk #tears of the kingdom #ganondorf #zelda #impa #hylia #demise

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girl4music · 7 days

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About the A:tLA live action, they basically didn't understand why and how the story worked. The most basic example is they "took out" Sokka's sexism -but not really- and basically destroyed what made him interesting (it ended up making the narration sexist which is an incredible irony). And they did that for most of the characters. They started the show by showing the genocide of the airbenders, but they took away most of the emotional drama from it bc of that (also terrible pacing) and basically/accidentally made a "genocide looks cool" scene since they begin by showcasing how great the SFX is and it's...a weird choice

See this is why you should never turn what is originally an animation into a live-action. There’s nuance in anime that you just cannot get in physical filming.

It’s like if they tried to make a live-action Dragon Ball Z or The Legend Of Zelda.

*shudders*

Or anything Miyazaki.

*shudders violently*

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the-kinfesssional · 1 month

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the list of kins starts now with probably one of the bigger ones being

Pokemon- 34 kins (stretched across fictionkin, ockin, and otherkin)

Cookie run- 32 kins (four ockins the rest are canon somewhat)

Dream smp (the bad source)-22(one oc kin the rest are damp and adjacent kins)

hermitcraft- 10 (All somewhat canon kins, sept doom guy who is non canon but heavily headcanoned as being two peoples dad)

genshin- 4 (aether, scaramouche, Lyney, n venti. weirdest combination ever)

sanders sides- 4 (one oc the rest are canon)

regretevator- 6 (roblox games are fun)

cult of the lamb- 1 just the lamb

yandere sim(gods help us these sources)- 1 (ayato, the male stand in for the yandere main character)

the binding of issac- 1 (Azazel, lil demon guy)

Omori- 4 (kel, basil, omori, sunny)

yo-kai watch- 1 (casanono)

Henry stickman series- 1(Charles)

RTGames miitopia playthrough- 2(magical john and chat)

food fantasy- 2 (Coffee and chocolate)

kid Icarus games- 2(Pit and dark pit)

stardew valley- 3(elliott, shane, and krobus)

IB- 1 (Garry)

the amazing digital circus- 1(Jax)

FNAF- 3(Vincent, fnaf movie mike, and jeremy Fitzgerald from a altered rebornica au)

john doe- 1(john doe)

Danganronpa(the gods do not hear our pleas for it to stop)- 4(ockin, shuichi, nagito, kiibo)

vocaloid- 2 (Len and KAITO)

Kirby- 4(Kirby, Marx, Taranza, Meta knight)

Legend of zelda series- 7(JUST A BUNCH OF LINKS and one sidon)

Mario series- 1(Luigi)

splatoon series- 1(Ockin replacement for agent 8)

Wild kratz- 1(Martin)

Phighting(another roblox game yay!)- 6 (One noncanon/ockin the rest are from the source canonically)

phoenix wright ace attorney- 1(Phoenix)

the ugly duckling analog horror somehow- 1(younger version of the ugly duckling)

the stanley parable ultra deluxe- 2(Narrator and timekeeper)

don't starve- 3(Wilson, Wes, and Webber)

Mystreet/diaries(?)- 1(Zane Ro'meave)

that should be it, sorry for the long list we have alot of sources... -🕯️🐑🗡️

Intresting, and that's ALOT of kins.

/lh

Also dies I can't include every single one of your sources . Stupid Tumblr tag limit

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evil-babygirls · 11 months

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COMPETITORS!

Below are our Evil Babygirls and the competitors for our death battle - You can now start plotting to get your babygirl to the top! Brackets coming soon <3

Volo (Pokemon Legends: Arceus)

Bill Cipher (Gravity Falls)

Hannibal (NBC Hannibal)

Infinite The Jackal (Sonic)

Luo Binghe (The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System)

Herbert West (Reanimator)

Mr. L (Super Paper Mario)

Goro Akechi (Persona 5)

Alastor (Hazbin Hotel)

Cleo DeNile (Monster High)

Armitage Hux (Star Wars)

Kristoph Gavin (Ace Attorney)

The Narrator (Stanley Parable)

Micheal Distortion (The Magnus Archives)

Belos Wittebane (The Owl House)

Megamind (Megamind)

Catra (She-ra)

Spamton (Deltarune)

Scaramouche (Genshin Impact)

Gary Miller (Faith)

Dean Winchester (Supernatural)

Ganon (Legend of Zelda)

Robert Sugden (Emmerdale)

Magolor (Kirby)

Sephiroth (Final Fantasy)

Harley Quinn (DC)

Gabriel/Satan (Mandela Catalouge)

Venom (Marvel)

Bowser (Mario)

Medic (Team Fortress 2)

Jessie (Pokemon)

*Purple Guy (Five Night’s at Freddy’s)

*Purple guy will be added if Vriska doesn't make it in, so that there's an even number of competitors.

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gloriousmonsters · 4 months

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Mememememe I want to see

please enjoy a selection from you're on a path in the desert, chapter 2: 'The Ancient', brought about by wondering what ganondorf's motivation is and being honest and brash enough he kind of likes you and is like 'sorry, kid' while murdering you to attempt a breakout in the first chapter. narrated by Zelda, starring Link and Ganondorf.

--------

You're on a path in the desert. Or... it's more of a beach, isn't it? You can hear the sea. Small crabs scuttle and hide among rocks smoothed by eons of lapping waves; the pristine sands glitter, here and there, with old coins and jewels set in tarnished metal. Pirate treasures, as if a ship was wrecked here long ago. A lonely blue sky arches high above, unmarred by a single cloud. A path of scattered white rocks, like sun-bleached bones, lead toward the edge of the water. At the end of this path, a man with evil eyes is imprisoned. A king. You, hero, must slay him; or it will be the end of the world.

Voice of the Curious: He didn't seem that bad!

- Yeah, he wasn't as bad as she hyped him up to be.

- Bad? He was very bad! I'm completely on board with the 'slaying' thing now.

- Hang on, how are we here? Didn't we die?

> I see what you mean, but he did very much kill us. That was a thing that happened.

Voice of the Curious: I guess, but he was so... sad. He just wanted to escape. He seemed like he'd been there for a really long time.

> He did.

Excuse me, who's this? And what are you saying about dying? Please don't tell me—

Voice of the Curious : We died and we came back to life!

- More or less.

- I died and it was terrifying and now I'm me and also this other part of me and they're both me and I don't know how that works or what's going on and I'm going to start crying probably

> This isn't the first time we've been here. Your 'man with the evil eyes' was the one that killed me, not the other way around.

He's not mine, and... It wouldn't be the same, the other way around. You need to slay him, not kill him.

- I get it. I'm a human, and he's a monster.

> Semantics.

Very important ones. Listen to me, hero. I hoped that this wouldn't happen, and I didn't want to scare you with the possibility. But please believe me—we're walking a fine line, now. All is not lost, but every failure widens his chance at escape.

Voice of the Curious: Really?

I do not like how you said that. This... voice, whatever it is, it seems very young. Don't let naivety influence you, hero. One failure means he's already found a chink in your armor—it is even more imperative you keep your guard up. Whatever he said, whatever he did, put it out of your mind. Focus on this. He is evil, and he will destroy everything if he escapes. You are the hero, the only one with the power to stop him. I—everything depends on you.

Voice of the Curious : That's a lot of pressure...

- I love pressure.

- I hate pressure.

> Are you really sure I can do this?

Yes. You’re the only one that can.

Voice of the Curious: Wow, she sounds... so serious. I don't know if I trust her, but I think she likes you.

Ha. That's... You matter a great deal to me. By definition, of course. You’re the hero, you matter to everyone. But we don't have time to sit here and talk about our feelings, whatever they might be. Your quest is the same, hero. It's time to go forward.

> (proceed to the prison)

N: At the edge of the water, the path of rocks continue—for a little while. Soon they're fewer and farther between, and in their place are footholds of debris, half-rotted hulls of wood, old chests rammed up on some invisible sandbank below the water. There have been many wrecks here, and as you pick your way forward, you see the largest of them up ahead. Splintered and broken, its massive hull impaled on the tall and jagged rocks that rise from the hidden seabed, like towers of some sunken castle. The rest of it is remarkably intact, but it looks ancient. Weathered, by years that have sapped color from cloth and wood and leached memory from material. Every detail blurred. The figurehead is faceless, nearly formless, like the... like the image of a loved one long forgotten.

> Are you all right?

Your path ends—or rather, takes a new form—at the side of the wreck. An old rope ladder leads up the barnacle-encrusted side. The old wood creaks as you ascend, but even that sound is... muted. This ship isn't just wrecked, it's becalmed. The muting of that sound makes you acutely aware of the absence of others. No birds cry in the sky; no fish splash in the water. The land behind you is already lost in a hazy fog. This is a lonely place.

Voice of the Curious: She's making it sound so depressing. It's sad, but it's also sort of cool, right? It's like an old pirate ship! It doesn't feel like a prison, it feels like... like a hideout!

Please be quiet. It's a prison. It might look... odd, but it's a prison.

Voice of the Curious : Do you think there's treasure?

...No.

Voice of the Curious: ...You want there to be treasure too, right?

I'm not interested. We have a very important job to do. To your left, across the weathered deck, a door leads to the fo'c'sle. It's not locked, but it's encrusted with barnacles, warped in its frame. Beside it, a sword is embedded in the wall, as if left there after a battle long ago. It gleams with its own light—

Voice of the Curious: It's not glowing, though. It's just a sword.

It's not—but... Ah. Yes. Well, it doesn't need to glow, does it? It's the hero's sword. It's made to kill evildoers and monsters. It's meant for your hand, and your hand alone. Take up the sword, hero. You'll need it if you want to save us all.

- But it's not glowing. Didn't you say it was important it glowed?

- What if I don't want to save everyone?

> take up the sword

- don't take up the sword

Sword in hand, you force open the door, rusted hinges screeching as you shove your whole body's weight against it. Before you is a sheer drop, lightless, only the first few feet visible in the foggy sunlight that filters past your shoulders. A rope ladder hangs over the ledge at your feet, vanishing into shadow. The air is musty, damp, and smells of moldering spice and rotting silk, wood permeated with gunsmoke and worried by the icy teeth of the ocean over the course of centuries. If this is the prison the king's been confined in, killing him will be a mercy.

His voice echoes up from the darkness, tired but commanding.

The King: I knew you'd return. Come here, boy. Let us speak face to face.

Voice of the Curious: He remembers us! And he sounds... older. I mean, he was already older than us. But he sounds much older now.

Of course he's old, he's been in prison for a long time. Don't dwell on it or wonder about it, the more time and thought you give him the more dangerous he is. Just get down there and accomplish your quest.

> proceed down the 'stairs'

After what feels like half an hour of nerve-wracking descent, feeling for foot and hand-holds in the darkness, light begins to bloom below you. When you come to the bottom, a few minutes later, you find yourself facing another door—this one richly carved wood, remarkably well-preserved considering the state of the ship. It's hard to make out much in the light filtering through the cracks around it, but you can see intricate, geometric patterns, and the snarling face of a boarlike beast carved huge in the very center.

Voice of the Curious: What—

You waste no time fooling around and asking questions, and open the door. Striding within, you find yourself confronted with a surprisingly lavish room, dimly lit by old oil-lamps. Rich rugs cover the floor; a huge bed stands in the back of the room, partly hidden by curtains, and a huge desk carved with intricate details dominates another side of the room. Tapestries, paintings and maps nearly cover the walls, save for a section that seems dedicated to a number of weapons—at a glance you see twin swords and a trident. Everything feels a little... oversized, as if you're a child venturing into the room of an adult. When you look closer, you can see signs of wear and age—cracking paint, books with pages puffed by soaking and drying out, scratches in the fine wood and dust on the tapestries—but the overall effect is still opulent, overwhelming. This feels right for a prison meant to confine a king; it would be suitable for an emperor, confined to his office by the new regime, allowed to keep a pretense of dignity.

But across the room from you, there's a strangely bare section of the wall, interrupted by only two things: A porthole filled more by spiderwebbing cracks than glass, showing only blank darkness, and the King, who stands tall and studies you thoughtfully with pale gold eyes.

The King: You approach me, yet again, with your blade in hand. Interesting.

He's a big man, broad and heavy, a physique that might impress as brutish or sedentary if not for the way he holds himself. Straight-backed, imperious, with a hint of a fighter's grace in the way his stance shifts as his eyes track the step you take forward. There's no gray in his hair, or deep wrinkles on his face, but something about him gives an impression of great age and greater weariness. His face is craggy, but his eyes are delicately lined with black; he wears a topaz on his brow, and fine robes that inspire ideas of entrenched and confident authority. As he seems to reach an internal resolution in his appraisal of you, his teeth bare in what is hard to determine as a mocking smile or a grimace of pain.

The King: I suppose that if you try to kill me this time, it will only be fair. But I'd rather we talk.

Voice of the Curious: Ooh, talk! Yes! I want to know what's going on! Just, um, maybe we should stay at a distance.

Remember what you're here for. Don't listen to him, or him. Please, hero. Kill him now.

- slay the king

- kill him?

- You killed me last time, I'd like an apology before we do anything else.

> All right. Let's talk.

#ganondorf #loz link #loz zelda #slay the princess #as in an au in the style of #wind waker #(essentially i mean obv this is the Wind Waker chapter and VoC is wind waker link tho i might tweak him)#and yes my idea is that the 2nd chapter ganondorfs are mainly based off his different game portrayals #(although i figure just 'ganon'/beast form at the very least might be a chapter 3)#i have so many vague ideas tho... like i'm debating whether i'd want to have a Damsel-esque based off the idea of 'nice' ganondorf #where he's totally defanged and like a happy jock #or lean into the dehumanization element of TotK as being equivalent to the Damsel.. sort of combining it and a more negative take #on the Adversary - not a cardboard cutout LI but a cardboard cutout villain #pretty and threatening with 0 cohesion or depth below the surface #probably netted by wholeheartedly believing Zelda's narration and leaning into your own 'hero' identity in your first encounter #...maybe if you make a bid for compassion/depth even in the face of that you get TP ganondorf?#the mocking warlord who's surrounded by hints of deeper history and context?#ok i'll stop now.#it's an old song and we're gonna sing it again #vic talks #LoZ

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sparrow-the-tired-lesbian · 4 months

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I’m playing silly little games (Zelda) and just start laughing for no reason while saying “Mobius is my space name”

I am alone in my room. No one can hear me. But I thought it wise to narrate my thoughts while giggling

#autism #question mark

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krissiefox · 9 months

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Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog - The Pilot! (Screenshots & Review)

They waste no time showing off how sadistic Sonic can be at times. Poor Robotnik! I was actually going to be wrapping up this review series today with "Sonically Ever After", but I recently got a request to review the Aosth pilot, so I'm giving it a go, first!

There isn't much of a cohesive story to this pilot, as it seems like it thrown together more to give a feel of the shows tone, character personalities, and segments such as “Sonic says”. Also, before I start, I should mention that there are several different uploads of the pilot on Youtube (as well a download on the internet archive), and I decided to go with the one that had the longest length. Part of that extra length turned out to be clips from an episode included in the main series, so I'll be leaving that segment out. And, I do apologize for the incredibly fuzzy screenshots, but sadly I could not find any high-quality recordings of this pilot. I really hope they still exist somewhere!

The first scene starts out with Sonic introducing himself (And Robotnik) in front of a funky looking black and white background.

We then jump to a zoom in of planet Mobius, with a narrator, no less! That's definitely different from the final show. The narrator Gary Owens is fun and over-the-top like something from an old radio drama, and he also guest-starred as the voice of Powdered Toast Man in a Ren & Stimpy cartoon. No wonder he sounded familiar!

We see Sonic vandalizing a wanted poster that Robotnik put up of him, and hot damn, I need to praise how smooth this animation is! As cute and fun as Aosth is, it does feel unfortunate that this level of fluidity couldn't have been present throughout the entire main series.Though, on the other hand, there are a couple of moments in the pilot where Robotnik feels “overly” animated to the point of being visually confusing. Think something like the weird animations in CDI Zelda, but sped up really fast.

Blue arms?! Yup, despite some really nice and art and animation peppered throughout, there was a coloring error even in the pilot. Whoops!

We then see Robotnik telling his badniks about Sonic, in a scene that should look very familiar to anyone who's played Dr. Robotnik's mean bean machine. He's also voiced by Jim Cummings at times, which is odd to hear when I'm so used to hearing him be played by Long John Baldry (which is an awesome name by the way, wish he was still around... ). Sonic enters the room to taunt Robotnik, and all the robots chase him out of the tent in Emerald Hill Zone - which looks really nice! Again, it's a damn shame they couldn't have had this level of quality in the whole series' backgrounds.

I love that pretty and highly accurate Emerald Hill Zone background!

We get to occasionally see Scratch and Grounder in the pilot, but they don’t have any speaking scenes.

At this point, the "story" just kinda ends and the rest of the pilot is just a bunch of unconnected scenes - but they're still a treat to watch. We get to see Robotnik launch a cactus out of a cannon at Sonic. This part of the pilot was reused in the episode “ Untouchable Sonic “ (review here) , which is cool because at-least some of it was preserved in a higher quality this way.

The next scene clip has Sonic rallying freedom fighters and vandalizing a Robotnik billboard (another clip that got included in "Untouchable Sonic”). We then also see the scene that ended up being used for the show's credit sequence, where Robotnik gets squished by his own trap while trying to kill Sonic. The mystery of how he recovers form this at the end of every credits sequence is revealed - Scratch and Grounder come to re-inflate him like an old timey cartoon.

Next, there's a scene where some ...frog?...guy asks Sonic for help with a pond that Robotnik seems to be polluting or sealing the water from. Sonic traps Robotnik in his pipe then goes to relax at the beach with Tails. This is yet another scene that fascinates me because there's an old Archie Sonic comic where a fan submitted pretty much the exact same drawing on Sonic on the beach...but this was an unaired pilot. Maybe the kid who sent the art had a parent who worked on this show's pilot? I’d link the art but I can’t find it online. Maybe later I can do some scans from the original comic...

Wanting revenge for the pond incident, Robotnik attacks again using his little drilling vehicle from mystic cave zone in Sonic 2. He causes Sonic to fall into a hole in the beach, and we hear Tails' voice for the first time, too. It's definitely a different voice actor, whom is apparently rumored to have been a gal named Russi Taylor, but no voice actor was officially credited. The voice for Tails wasn't bad, but I'm so used to kid who voiced him int he mains series that it sounds quite odd to hear, much like with Jim Cummings.

Sonic and Tails take out Robotnik’s drill vehicle, and there's a bunch more chaotic slapstick scenes between him and Sonic shown. We also see a clip of Sonic talking to a character called "King Leo" and eventually a glimpse of Sonic running through Hill Top Zone, too!

I like this goofy screenshot I managed to capture of Tails. Looks like he’s having a sugar rush. :D

I enjoy how Robotnik looks comically small in this shot, and the look on his face is fun, too.

Sonic and Tails have the best little impish grins here. :)

Hill Top Zone!

Lastly, we get to see the very first "Sonic Says!". Sonic saves Tails from being hit by a car, and feeling embarrassed, Tails acknowledges that he knows he was careless to just run out into the road. Like many characters in the pilot, Tails' animation is much more "wild" and exaggerated, but nod distractingly so like Robontik was at times. The scene is quite cute and gives a chance to hear much more of Russi's (?) Tails voice.

“I don’t want any of my pals gettin’ turned into road pizza!”

And, well, that's the pilot! Not much of a story of course, but what makes it such a treat is seeing all the early ideas for elements in the final show, as well as all that great animation and art. I'm really glad this was preserved online by several folks, though I do still hope one day there will be a version with better visual quality and possibly more sound too. Oh right, the sound - another thing I forgot to mention was that some edits on YouTube add music and sounds to make things feel less awkward and empty in the audio department, as it seems the original video was quite lacking in music, sound effects and surprisingly, a lot of voices, too! Til next time, stay cool, and don’t become street pizza!

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pluralswagbracket · 1 year

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The Upper Bracket has been determined!

Click for quality, man we have a lot of blorbos! I just noticed this bracket ccut off a lot of people’s names. Man. I did not use a traditional seeding method, because we all know Moon Knight would just slaughter half the bracket in one go. In general, I seeded the top bracket’s big vote-drawers against each other, and started seeding everyone else based on media type and fandom size, in the hopes of giving some more obscure guys a chance.

Round one uppers are as follows:

Moon Knight (Marvel) vs Michelangelo (RotTMNT)

The Hulk/Bruce Banner (Marvel) vs Leonard Church (Red vs Blue)

Alluka and Nanika (Hunter x Hunter) vs Greed and Ling (Fullmetal Alchemist)

Shallan Davar (Stormlight Archive) vs Harrowhark Nonagesimus (The Locked Tomb)

Camilla and Palamdes (The Locked Tomb) vs Jekyll and Hyde (like six different adaptations that got submitted)

Shigeo “Mob” Kageyama (Mob Psycho 100) vs Doppio and Diavolo (JJBA)

Hajime Hinata and Izuru Kamekura (Danganrompa) vs the Four Swords Links (The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords)

Touko Fukawa and Genocider Sho (Danganrompa) vs Sora, Roxas, Xion, Ventus and Vanitas (Kingdom Hearts)

Hal 9000 and David Bowman (2001: A Space Odyssey series) vs Tyler Durden and the Narrator (Fight Club)

Doc and O’Malley (Red vs Blue) vs Oscar Pine and Ozpin (RWBY)

Eddie Brock and the Symbiote (Marvel) vs Crazy Jane and the Underground (DC)

Darcy and the Core (Amphibia) vs Raphael (RotTMNT)

Dr Alto Clef (SCP Foundation) vs Red and Twitch Chat (Twitch Plays Pokemon)

Vash the Stampede and Eriks (Trigun) vs Yugi Mutou and Atem (Yu-Gi-Oh)

Uendo Toneido (Ace Attorney) vs Maxim Kischine (Castlevania)

Madeline and Mirrorline (Celeste) vs Frisk, Chara and the Player (Undertale)

Votable polls will go up once I have the spoons to get images together!

#word of mod #don't mind the shorthand/any typos I am very brain ouch right now

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genericpuff · 1 year

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a shapeshifting time traveler and his apprentice who works as a minimum wage barista get pissed because their perfect speedrun keeps getting ruined by two teenagers with a kill count

they're about to run attempt 9999 and the barista is terrified that his boss is about to end up in some Y2K situation

the time traveler is very old and really does not care for the pop culture references from his apprentice whose strongest skill is creating latte art

they don't even get the bragging rights of being the main characters but still have to do the job of the main characters because the actual main characters are too involved in their love/hate relationship to be any good at saving the world

this is time gate.

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OKAY BUT HONESTLY I've been kind of stressing over making this post not because I didn't want to follow through on that poll I hosted, but also just because like... it's original work! And it's original work that I've been doing for over a decade in relative obscurity. So it's a little nerve-wracking to be like "Hey guys! Go read this comic that I started drawing nearly a decade ago! It really shows!" especially when I'm doing it from an alt account (i.e. this one) that people know me for being relatively confident on. It's like being that "one kid" in show & tell with their Pokemon cards all over again 🤣 I kept trying to come up with some kind of post that would "justify" me posting about it all, but nothing felt "good enough" so I finally went back to this draft about Springlock and decided to use that as the icebreaker. It's now or never.

Time Gate is a dark fantasy series I've been working on since about 2007/2008ish. It's existed on the Internet in multiple forms, starting as a Zelda fanfic online in 2009 and then dropping all the Zelda stuff and turning into an original comic series in 2014. Since then its first installment, Reaper, finished in 2021, two hours before the 'untimely' death of Betty White that totally wasn't the fault of my main character who can predict people's deaths. Reaper's completed narration of the beginning of [loop: 9998] clocks in at over 2,000 pages.

Now I'm working on Time Gate: [AFTERBIRTH] which is a direct continuation of Reaper and is drawn in the more vertical webtoon style. Yes, the choice of title is intentional, funnily enough the episode featuring my main character bursting out of a tub of her own blood and bodily fluids only got removed by Webtoons for having "too much boob curve". So I covered it up with more blood and that got Webtoons' seal of approval. Webtoons is... weird.

This series is a love letter to all those "weird kids" who grew up wondering why they got dopamine rushes off of arguments and fights or getting in over their heads trying to grow up too fast. It's a love letter to the people who love hyper-analyzing convoluted and way-too-long narratives with overpowered characters who could only exist within the limitless bounds of the imagination.

But most of all, it's a love letter to the part of me that still adores dumb over-the-top weeb shit.

That being said, this piece of work is not intended to provide comfort, but rather, catharsis. Don't read it looking for any kind of guidance on life or interpersonal relationships. Its story and its characters are only concerned with what comes after - when the lights have gone out and the hourglass has run empty.

This series contains blood/gore and fantasy violence, and depicts adult topics such as post-traumatic stress disorder through a fictional lens. It is not intended for anyone under the age of 18+.

I have a dedicated Time Gate blog, so you might see some reblogs here every now and then as I start to use it more (though I'm currently resting through a hiatus, LORE | REKINDLED came around at the perfect time for me to have something new to work on).

As you may have guessed, with Reaper originally launching in 2014 (when I was literally 18) the comic has... not aged gracefully, at least in my opinion, and could use some reworking, at least the first few volumes (I'm still pretty happy with the stuff that came out around the 2019-2021 mark after I took a nearly 2 year hiatus).

Of course, I can't stop y'all from looking it up and reading it (the original version will still be canon even if it's aged so help yourself) but just know there's a dedicated redraw and rewrite on the way <3

And if it's not your cup of tea, that's fine! It's a completely different story with different goals from Rekindled. The main characters aren't saints and they're in a relationship I definitely wouldn't recommend anyone be in LMAO

That being said, don't be surprised if you hear the subtle heartbeat of Time Gate underneath the floorboards of Rekindled~

#bedtime for me now #this is gonna keep me awake all night #oh god i'm so exposed-#ask me anything #anon ama #anon ask me anything #time gate #time gate comic #original story #original characters #webcomic #i'm totally gonna get bullied for this #/hj

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