divineprank

[divineprank]

this is specifically after that poe quest

[divineprank]

With the Zelda casting being announced, I obviously started thinking about who would play Ganondorf and tbh I think it would be funny if they cast the guy whose face they originally modeled Ganondorf off of in Ocarina of Time.

He's obviously too old for the role these days, but this is the only way in which I can introduce you guys to Ganondorf's facial ... model? Inspiration? You can absolutely see it in the smile, the brow, and the chin.

Anyway, meet Christopher Lambert.

[divineprank]

In the bio I wrote for Ganondorf, I accidentally forgot to mention a key event in Ocarina of Time's introduction of Ganondorf and his cartoonishly evil, dastardly deeds.

He murders a man. Two men, in fact. Brothers, even!

And fortunately for you (or.... Should I say 'unfortunately', because I'm trying to at least pretend I'm not mentally ill...) I have decided that I want to write a full fanfic about that event!

I don't know how long it'll be, I'm still trying to map out the general story and the timeline of events. Do I start at Ganondorf's birth? Do I explain the Twinrova nightmare? Or do I just get right to the killin'?

I don't think it'll be a particularly long story but to be honest, I don't really have any idea what I'm doing. I just want a chance to explore my ability to tackle a project like this. The intent and idea behind this is the desire to tell a short story, but I keep running ideas into my head, which ends up becoming a messy pipeline of, "well, before I tell THAT story, I have to tell THIS story! But I can't tell THIS story without THAT context! If I share THAT context then that means I'm telling the whole damn story!" Where does it end!? How do I make that decision? For the love of god, send help 😭😭😭

[divineprank]

Okay - one more headcanon. Ganondorf was born on a night when the desert was alive. Rain, rare and sacred, fell in violent sheets across the Gerudo sand, soaking the dunes, pounding the rooftops of the sandstone structures. The sky split with lightning that illuminated the skies, with thunder crashing so loudly that it made the ancient stone of the Desert Colossus tremble.

Normally, people see this as a bad omen; chaos heralding the arrival of something terrible. Perhaps the Hylians, in their soft and lush green lands, would have whispered as much. But personally, I think the Gerudo saw this as the complete opposite of a bad omen. I think that, as people that survive in the desert, their culture sees such rain as not a curse, but in fact, a blessing. The storm was not a warning to the Gerudo, they saw it as a celebration, perhaps even an offering. Their gods had cracked open the sky to baptize their young prince! Ganondorf was born as the heavens cleansed the earth; as if the desert was rejoicing his birth. The storm feeding the roots of their hardy crops, washing the dust from every sunburned stone, and quenched very dry tongue desperate to ease their thirst.

Their new king would be just like the storm that he came in on. Terrible to behold, but yet, a lifeline to his people. He would lead them with the same strength that shook the sky, but yet his outreached hand would nurture their future.

[divineprank]

I feel like Ganondorf is a fantastic accompaniment when it comes to singing. His much deeper voice pairs really nicely with the typically lighter notes his sisters reach when he's harmonizing with them. ♥

[divineprank]

" Is that blood? "

The cold desert night is unnaturally silent. The sharp, howling winds that once cut through the dunes has seemed to vanish without a trace—as if nature itself has fled from the carnage from earlier. Tattered red Gerudo fortress banners hang like flayed skin from splintering wooden poles, their only signs of life picking up within the occasional whisper of shifting sand.

Ganondorf can still hear the phantom chorus of the battle. War cries, steel clashing, the hollow whistle of shooting arrows tearing through the air, his sisters' screaming and the frantic baying of horses—all of it undercut by the booming of the Gerudo King's thundering commands. The memory still echoes so clearly behind his eyes even though the night has once again fallen quiet underneath the cold gaze of the moon.

But silence has never meant peace.

Not in the desert.

And not in him.

Deep inside the Gerudo King, his rage turns over like a crashing wave in a sea storm, all of his anger slamming against the stillness, refusing to settle. His left shoulder has caught by a stray arrow, the wound burning beneath his ruined cloak. The horses, still spooked, jerk against their reins and harnesses, wildly rolling their heads and bucking against their restraints as they remain tied down and attached to the supply wagon. Their fear only fueling Ganondorf's own fire as he removes the arrow from his flesh with a yell ripping from him; the sharp sound crackling like lightning, disturbing the otherwise still night. A warm stream of blood stains his cloak and instead he directs his attention to the nervous horses, who buck and fight against the King of Thieves, rearing up, kicking their front legs as they struggle within their restraints within the wagon.

"Still!" He barks, his deep voice meeting their ears like a heavy drum. The skin on his hands suffer an unforgiving burn as he fights against the leather straps in his grip, his sad attempt to force obedience and demand control where he has none has begun to prove itself a futile effort. Both horses thrash, hooves kicking up sand, causing Ganondorf's grip to tighten, tangling his fists around each strap until the veins in his hands bulge. He won't stop. Not until the horses are freed. He must do something to spend the fury from this loss that threatens to consume him. With his hands pleading for mercy, his gaze flicks to the wagon, to Shanri's lifeless form wrapped tightly and carefully in one of the blankets from the wagon, as though that can truly save anything of what him and his party had lost tonight. The guilt claws into Ganondorf deeply.

He failed her, he failed his sister.

He failed all of his sisters.

Footsteps approach, softly against the sand. He knows it couldn't be the priestesses he sent for, they wouldn't be this fast. He knows it can only be one other.

Then, a voice. It's her.

Nabooru. He does not pause, he does not hide the wound he'd created when he freed the arrow from his flesh, nor does he try to cover up the blood staining his cloak. He keeps working, forcing himself into the motion of it, clinging to this one remaining scrap of control he has over a situation that has fallen apart in his hands completely.

Her question earns a sharp yank—one of the horses' harnesses finally snaps loose. The beast stumbles back in surprise, freed, but still restless and shaken.

"Some of it is mine," he says, his voice low and weary. "Some of it is not."

He finally turns to her, his expression unreadable. But the fire in his eyes betrays him. Shadows flicker across his face, cast by the distant torchlight that struggles against the vast darkness of the desert. His jaw is tight, and his breathing is measured, as though each word he speaks must be forced past the very weight of his failure. "Shanri is dead."

The three words feel so foreign on his tongue, distant and cold, but their weight still crushing all the same. His gaze flickers to the wagon once again—to the still form wrapped in thick fabric and he exhales sharply through his nose, tightening his grip on the remaining leather strap in his hands. Defeat has never been something Ganondorf has dealt with well, especially when his failures reflect upon those he has been charged with protecting. "I sent the remainder of my party to seek out the priestesses," he continues, "they will prepare her."

The wind shifts and the scent of blood—his, theirs—clings to the heavy night air. His pulse slams heavily in his wounded shoulder, the gash searing hot as streaks of red continue to leak out, but Ganondorf refuses to notice. He must keep moving, he must keep his hands busy.

"At first light, I will take her to the Colossus myself." His gaze finally finds Nabooru again, their electric color sharp unwavering, practically daring her to challenge him on this. "Her soul will not suffer an aimless existence because her king was too slow to protect her from a group of worthless desert bandits." His grip tightens on the harness of the remaining horse, and with a sharp yank, the final strap comes free. The animal jerks its head but does not bolt away, its sides heaving from exhaustion. The wagon stands alone now. Motionless. Silent. Totally lifeless. This is when Ganondorf finally allows himself to notice it: the red hot fire in his bloody shoulder; the ache in his fists from the incredible force he used to end the bandits' lives—especially the one that stole Shanri's. There is nothing left of that man but pure ruin; the Gerudo King having continued to rip him apart with his bare hands well after the man took his last breath. He made certain that even the scavengers—the vultures, the coyotes—such creatures looking for scraps will turn up their noses at the unrecognizable carcass-turned-waste.

It was the only thing Ganondorf could do.

He can feel the warmth of his blood as it travels along his skin, a welcome distraction. It is not the sting of the arrow wound that threatens to unmake the Gerudo King, but rather, it is the knowledge that it happened at all. That he, the sacred male child—only one every generation—was brought low by a petty, miserable group of raiders who should not have posed such a threat to Ganondorf and his party at all, they should not have caught him off-guard. A king, forged by the hot sun, master of blade and beast, reduced to bleeding in the sand while one of his own fell.

It's not just a failure, it's a betrayal. A betrayal of his purpose, his people, of the very privilege etched into his bones, flowing within his blood. The desert's gods saw themselves fit to mark this one with blood of Gerudo nobility and Ganondorf feels he is squandering it. Throwing away his very limited time in this world by making up for the stupid mistakes that should never have been made in the first place. It makes him sick. He sees no progress, no growth, no change being made during his reign so far as king.

His stomach churns, deep and twisting. It's as if his own soul wants to crawl out of him and disappear into the dunes.

She trusted him. They all trusted him to be their shield, their sword; his birthright is not to sit uselessly on a throne and revel in ceremony like the overfed, oversexed, ornamental lumps Hyrule excuses for kings. But he is meant to stand as their mountain: unyielding and unshakable. A force so formidable that no harm could ever dare descend upon the Gerudo. Yet now, one of his own lies still. Wrapped in cloth.

Cold.

[divineprank]

I'm so terrible at finishing projects, so I don't even know if I'm going to follow through with this, but I figured I'd put my feelers out.

If you've followed this blog long enough you know that I tend to write out theories or analyses about certain topics. (Usually about Ocarina of Time lmao) and I'm just starting to wonder if it's worth moving those posts somewhere more accessible? I dunno, I feel weird expecting people to have to dig through some shitty rp blog just to find this stuff. What do you folks think?

[divineprank]

Do you rp on discord or in tumblr dms at all? Or do you have any advice on getting started with rp'ing on tumblr? I'm new to the tumblr rp scene and responses/threads seem so daunting lol

Hi there! I do rp on Discord, but I don't really give my Discord out to strangers... I like to get to know the person a little bit before I give them direct access to me like that, haha. I have no problem RPing in DMs, though, if you'd like! As for advice, I suppose it really depends on your comfort level. RPers here on tumblr have all sorts of different RP styles. Some of us like to write multiple paragraphs, or "novella"-type RPs, some of us prefer one-liners for simplicity's sake. (Which is usually just pure dialogue rather than anything descriptive!) Or, some people are like me and don't have a preference. Personally, I like to meet people where they're at: if my RP partner prefers to write long RPs, I'll write a long RP! Or I'll hand off a one-liner if it's less stressful for ya that way. If it's post-size that's daunting to you, I would browse through RP accounts that you're interested in interacting with and look for the general size of the RP posts the account is making. If you're just starting out, I would first try to write smaller posts, whether it's a single sentence, or just one small paragraph -- just enough to dip your toes in, see if the water's warm! Approaching people to RP with can be really intimidating for some folks, and that's okay! One important piece of advice I'll give anyone starting out is to always check the rules page of the RP account you're hoping to interact with. This may be a pinned post on the account's blog, or a separate link located somewhere on the blog's description or sidebar. If you can't find a rules page, you can absolutely reach out within the IM feature, or send an anonymous message if that's more comfortable for ya. Rules pages are important, because they include information about the account that describes how they will operate and what they may ask of you while interacting. This will be helpful to you when it comes to approaching someone, because the rules may include the RP account's preference with how to get a hold of them. Whether or not they prefer "out-of-character" asks, or if they prefer you send them a message on IMs. Stuff like that. Other information you can find in a rules page may include what I mentioned earlier, like post size preferences. Or it can provide a list of certain topics they would like to avoid because they may be triggering to the person running the blog. Alternatively you might find a list of themes and topics that can be will be present because the person likes to RP those subjects and they want to ensure your comfort and safety! Or, you might find an age restriction. Most blogs don't like interacting with folks who are underage, even if they happen to write for characters that are considered adults. You are absolutely welcome to approach me through IMs and we can talk more about this if you'd like! I'm not sure what element of RPing on Tumblr is daunting for you, so I'm not sure what advice you need specifically! From the outside looking in, it can really seem like there's a really tight little community and that we all take this thing super seriously... But I promise you, we're all just a bunch of nerds who just wanna play pretend on the internet. We won't bite! ♥

[divineprank]

❝ i hate you , not for what you are ❞ a pause , with the type of anger only heard through clenched teeth. ❝ but for what you had the gods make me be. ❞ ( hello!!! :> )

"Then your hatred is misplaced, boy."

The words spill low and rough from Ganondorf's throat, like the rumble of distant thunder. His eyes do not blaze with anger towards the hero, but with something heavier, something much harder to put a name to. "I understand it, of course — it is easy to hate me. Easier still to blame me. I am the shadow the gods cast over your life, the wound they refuse to heal."

"But know this," he breathes while lowering his head and squaring his shoulders in a grave motion. "I, too, was shaped by their carelessness."

"If you must burn with such a rage, then I suggest you do not waste your fire on me. Turn it towards the so-called divinity that left us to rot within this broken design of their making."

[divineprank]

"You call them "average women", and yet these poor creatures senselessly live by Hyrule's standards: they are such frail things, living such idle lives. Fragile hearts that toil away the time listlessly, idling away into nothing... You are a proud Gerudo sister — fierce, carved by the sun and the sand and the wind, you are made strong where the so-called average woman would shatter to pieces. You are womanhood personified, Nabooru; beautiful, intelligent, strong, fiery and unyielding. You are capable of such grace and such devastation, and it is that complexity that makes you damn near untouchable because you are far above comparison. The femininity you describe is not that of the average woman, what you speak about is a doll. A play toy. You, my dear, are the real thing."

" Tch...just because I'm taller and more masculine than the average woman doesn't make me any less feminine. "

[divineprank]

Things were far too busy for me than I expected and I didn't get nearly as much done on the RP front as I'd hoped. I'm in the editing stage of a big ask, so please bear with me as I it finish up tomorrow and start working on trying to get Gan active again! I would keep working now, but I keep dozing off at my PC and I'm getting scared that my writing is going to look like this: "Ganondorf grabbed th e chair, gripping it tightly in his grips while he worke dtoooooooooooooooo....." In fact, I keep accidentally doing that. The amount of times I've had to erase long stretches of a single letter, or erase and re-write a sentence because it's doesn't make sense or is repetitive in just this ooc post alone is embarrassing, lmao. See you tomorrow, guys! I PROMISE-promise this time! ♥

Gonna be active today, I promise! Got some stuff to reply to, got a dash game I was tagged in. I'm excited to get writing! I'm just gonna get my room clean first. I've been a lazy and messy lil King of Evil.

[divineprank]

Gonna be active today, I promise! Got some stuff to reply to, got a dash game I was tagged in. I'm excited to get writing! I'm just gonna get my room clean first. I've been a lazy and messy lil King of Evil.

[divineprank]

"Now who in the blazes is Paula?"

[divineprank]

I can't believe Switch 2 gave BotW and TotK GPS functionality. That is crazy to me. 😂

[divineprank]

she wears her scars as her best attire

☀ ☾ indie rp blog for Ｎａｂｏｏｒｕ of the loz series. 18+ only. semi-sel. ☾ ☀

home. ☀ carrd. ☀ temp. cred. ☀ ☀ ☀ ☀

adored in perpetuity by momo.

[divineprank]

If you're as invested in Ocarina of Time as I am then you probably spend a lot of time digging not only through the game's lore and script, but also its development history, the builds of the previous iterations of the game that we've been able to get our grubby hands on over the years, and of course the tasty, tasty developer interviews. Which makes you a fuckEN NERD--

Okay I'll stop with the annoying preamble. Today I'm looking at the collectable items of Ocarina of Time and I'm gonna force-fit the circular shape into the triangular hole for some cool lore.

With regard to the items, we made each one because we thought, "it would be nice to have something like this." I'd say, "The Hookshot is done, so feel free to use it," and everyone would be like, "well, where shall we put it?" - Yoshiaki Koizumi Yeah. (laughs) Even if we had an item, we wouldn't know where to put it. We decided the number of items at the start. But that ended up causing us trouble. - Eiji Aonuma

In an Iwata Asks interview, the development team behind Ocarina of Time talks about the challenges behind the implementation of not only the item system, but many different elements into the game, like the cinematics. Shigeru Miyamoto was especially not fond of the excuse, "I just can't fix it!" when asked to make changes. He tends to prefer to keep his games pliable, he wants to have the ability to swap something out as late as the day before completion. This is pretty typical of Miyamoto, who has a reputation of "upending the tea table" during development, which has brought many an exhausted programmer to tears in the past.

In the same interview, Aonuma states simply that "it was a mess up until the end". The developers felt around in the dark quite a bit, claiming that they didn't really know what kind of game Ocarina of Time was until all the parts finally came together. They were not confident that they were building something solid, instead often wondering if it was crumbling the more they kept at it. This is because just about every element of the project was constantly being changed, most drastically was the game's script. Takumi Kawagoe explains that the script would change so regularly that any time an item was placed in one dungeon, it would probably end up in a different dungeon.

If you've played Ocarina of Time, you can likely reflect upon the item distribution, connecting key items to key moments in the game, such as the Lens of Truth to the Shadow Temple, or the Megaton Hammer to the Fire Temple. An item that stands out to me, however, is the Longshot, the upgrade to the Hookshot you receive in order to... What, exactly? Get to Morpha's area? Okay, and then what? Use it to cross the River of Sand? To navigate a puzzle in Ganon's Tower? Come back to the Fire Temple for the Scarecrow secret? Cool. Great.

Thanks to the Overdump Leak in 2021, we can now visualize a lot of early ideas from the development of "Zelda 64"; piecing together quite a bit of information and creativity that was lost to the cutting room floor, stuff that was once to be only touched on tantalizingly briefly within developer interviews. It's within these early builds that one can actually see the process in which these interviews talk about as it happened, solid ideas lost to a change that pulls the rug (or, the proverbial tea table) out from under the developers.

See, I don't think for a second that the Longshot was originally intended to be the item to find and use within the Water Temple. Certainly it could be a case of not having enough data, but I could even disregard the Longshot entirely, because we don't as of now have access to any information to indicate that the Hookshot would be upgraded that early in development. Personally, I believe the existence of the Hookshot at all to be the result of a carryover from A Link to the Past, a cool tool that was only meant to get Link across much smaller gaps. Remember that earlier quote about how items were created simply because they would be nice to have? Hell, even the original renders were intended to represent that of A Link to the Past's version of the Hookshot.

But now I'm just getting sidetracked. The previously mentioned leak was dated for 1997, with conflicting ideas and reports that the build either is--or is very close to--the demo showcased during Space World 1997, which was when the game finally got its official title of Ocarina of Time. Within this build of Ocarina of Time, we can explore some early iterations of the game's dungeons, the Water Temple, thankfully, being among them.

Tell me, gamer girls. What's different between these two images?

Normally where the player is intended to Longshot their way over, a bridge instead leads to the final area of the dungeon. Here is a clearer image of the early version of the Water Temple's map.

While exploring the rest of this early version of the temple, a constant I discovered was ladders. It appears that, as early as 1997, the player was intended to explore the temple by either adjusting the water (which can be measured by the... scribbles? Writing? Along the walls...) or suffer through ladder hell. That timed puzzle where you shoot the eye and you Longshot through behind the gate that closes when time runs out? Yeah... It's just a loooong ladder waiting for ya instead, honey. What a thrill... With darkness, and silence through the night...

In fact, there's quite a lot of this throughout the early dungeon; it seems the player was intended to coil around the side rooms, weaving in and out both these areas and the main structure like a serpent, using the water physics and ladders to their advantage. Perhaps that was the intention behind the random snake motifs in the final game.

Okay, so what about the Lookshot? While it's very possible that perhaps the general Hookshot's mechanics and functions haven't exactly been baked into the environment yet, I'm not convinced that there was meant to be something there at all. Take Morpha's room, for instance. In all four corners of the arena, you are met not with the platforms that you could easily reach, but instead the platforms are very much the opposite. They appear to be wooden at a first glance, and so a veteran Zelda player might think, "Ah, I can Hookshot my way to those platforms!", but alas, the materials deflect the Hookshot and sparks fly, and you are left pondering your options. With reaching the platforms out of the picture, you might also notice there are no Hookshot targets anywhere in the room, which makes traversing this room quite difficult, and I must reiterate how large this pool of unnatural water is.

Okay so what the hell is it that would be used here? I believe the answer to that question lies within the very man that designed these dungeons. Eiji Aonuma, these days recognized as the senior officer and producer of The Legend of Zelda series, is the constant here. It is no secret that he was often frustrated by the changes that were made to the games he was working on, as he would finish designing a dungeon only to discover his work was made obsolete by the new script decisions. But... who else is Aonuma?

Ah.

The very developer who pushed back against Miyamoto upon being informed of a project idea where he would be expected to "remix" the Ocarina of Time dungeons he had busted his ass to perfect. Of course, as the legend goes, he was challenged to create a brand new Zelda game for his refusal, and he could do so only within 15 months. Eiji Aonuma directed the Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, and it's inside that game that I think I know what was originally intended to be used in Ocarina of Time's Water Temple.

Think about it. Within Majora's Mask's Great Bay Temple, Link is expected to freeze enemies, water, and several key pieces of the temple's infrastructure to be able to traverse it! This mechanic is even used outside of its respective dungeons in order to reach new areas within the land of Termina.

If you've been a Nintendo fan for long enough, you'll know that often times, if a good idea ends up scrapped in a Nintendo game, that idea will find itself implemented, or at least, better understood within different Nintendo games.

I'm aware that lots of users wanted those two missing dungeons to be implemented in Wind Waker HD. But to be honest, we've already used those two dungeons for other titles after Wind Waker already." - Eiji Aonuma

So if we were to work backwards and look at the extensive use of the Ice Arrows in Majora's Mask and, with Nintendo's habit of recycling ideas in mind, I think it starts to make sense when considering Ocarina of Time. See, the Ice Arrows don't actually show themselves until very late into the game, deep within the Gerudo Training Ground. This is especially unfortunate, because by this point in the story, there is hardly anything left to use this otherwise pretty useful item on. But if we were to instead employ them earlier than the final game's script, we'd see some broken ideas start to mend once again.

Let's start with the Water Temple itself. Specifically, the room where you're expected to navigate the Blade Traps while rushing up the slope towards Morpha's arena at the very end of the temple.

In the final version, following the developer's intent, you are expected to simply make it work and hope to god you don't get hit, for the risk of sliding back down to the start. This room is quite similar in the 1997 build of the game, except instead there is a visible staircase. It appears the challenge of the slope is removed, however, it's probably fair that with such a long stretch of stairs to run up, the Blade Traps would still be present. So how would someone expect to get up there? Freezing the Blade Traps. Easy!

Okay, but still, outside of Dodongo's Cavern, those obstacles don't have much of a significant presence in the game, except... Where?

Right, the Ice Cavern.

Oh, and also the Shadow Temple. (Even Bongo Bongo has programming related to the ice arrows..!)

Hm... Where else do Blade Traps appear significantly? Oh yeah, the Spirit Temple.

All of the dungeons the developers intended for you to visit following the Water Temple appear to suffer this wicked contraption and frankly, it feels like their presence is purposefully ramped up, which makes sense because if you obtained the Ice Arrows, you would now have a tool that you can use to get around them.

Okay, so if this theory is true, if the Ice Arrows were the prominent item used for the Water Temple, then where would the Longshot go? Where the Ice Arrows are in the final game, of course! The Gerudo Training Ground is presented as an optional side challenge, something that is not required to finish the game, but certainly is an experience that makes beating the game all the more rich. So beating an optional challenge and receiving an upgrade to an item Link already has as a reward feels much more fitting to me.

This makes better sense to me in terms of world building as well. You see, the Gerudo are very talented metallurgists! They are often adorned with beautiful gems and jewelry and are always seen with dangerously honed weapons! We also know that they are capable of crafting high quality armor when looking upon an Iron Knuckle or Ganondorf's impressive black set. The entire desert is filled with several instances of their industrial capabilities, with the many heavy gates, fences, chains, and metal cages all throughout the fortress and not to mention the significant amount of weaponry that adorn the Desert Colossus. What is the Longshot really but a springloaded hunk of metal?

So what am I saying, what is the entire point of this insanely long post? With regard to the interview I posted earlier, I don't believe the original intention was to reward the player with the Longshot within the Water Temple. In fact, its most prominent uses that I can recall (that are the developer's intended method to complete the game) all occur in the desert and beyond. Maybe that could mean that the Gerudo Training Ground was once a required mini-dungeon, just like the Ice Cavern or Bottom of the Well.

I believe moving the Longshot to the Training Ground would have made sense lore-wise, story-wise and player progression-wise, and the item distribution would be just a little bit more coherent as a result.

Even after the game was basically done, a lot had to be switched in. For example, "You know that item in that one dungeon? Well, we need to use that in another dungeon." - Takumi Kawagoe

I saw an interesting video about a development theory and it's giving me lore ideas... 👀

[divineprank]

I saw an interesting video about a development theory and it's giving me lore ideas... 👀