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Someone really should have warned me that this turtle had a giant hammer.

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man those lil guys are great

literally cannot do any bad :3

deku autonomous collective doodles

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as someone who has actually done this, it really does help. I think my OCs are a lot more simple, distinct, and unique after drawing them a bunch.

Plus, you get the chance to draw more outfits for them to wear!

my number one tip for oc design is to get so obsessed you draw them 200 times over the course of two months. then whichever details you consistently forget/simplify? retcon em. boom. effective memorable character design. works every time.

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Cancelling my project until Age of Imprisonment comes and ruins all of my worldbuilding.

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I'm curious--how do you guys go about creating your OCs?

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Oh. I'm depressed.

... yeah I should've put that together a while ago.

Sometimes, when I'm alone, I find a piano.

I play the song of healing.

It doesn't work. I wish it did.

But it never works.

I won't stop playing it. Maybe I'll feel something eventually.

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Toby Fox could announce Deltarune tomorrow and at this point I wouldn't believe it.

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Reblogging to remind myself.

I LOVE MY FRIENDS SO MUCH I'M JUST STUPID AND FORGET THAT FEELINGS NEED TO BE EXPRESSED IN ORDER FOR THEM TO BE FELT

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You make some good points.

I think the one argument for "All of the stories are merely legends" that I sort of liked made the exception for Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.

That also has its problems because many of those legends are very much true, like a spirit residing in the Master Sword and The Ancient Calamity and so on. You have to accept that there are at least a few stories that are completely true because any story in Zelda relies on the others to weave a more dynamic and fascinating narrative. At that point, there's no point in arguing that certain legends are true and others are false.

I will defend the official Timeline because it does its job of connecting all of the stories we love into a more complex narrative spanning literal eons. I also don't mind certain fan-made timelines as far as it adds importance to the connection of stories. That's the important part.

P.S. arguing that all of the stories are connected but are still only legends in the world is the same as arguing that these are all video games in the same franchise. there is nothing gained from saying that.

"The games in the Legend of Zelda series don't lay on a timeline, they're legends, a corpus of narratives that mutate with each retelling".

...You do realize just how little this solves, right?

I don't know how to properly explain my exact gripe with this idea. It's a cool thought exercise, sure, and one I enjoy partaking in to a degree, but in no way is it a "better" way of interpreting the series compared to a timeline - at least, not in a Watsonian sense.

Like, okay, you made Link et al. entirely fictitious folk heroes. Awesome. Now you don't have to worry about the temporal dependencies between the games. Logistics of whether Link's Awakening comes before or after the Oracles, or how SkSw's time travel works are irrelevant to you.

...But if it's a legend, someone has to narrate it. You still have to invent the society that birthed those myths - is it a Hylian society? If not, why would they tell a Hylian legend? Who gets to choose what details to add or omit? What kind of society would come up with the idea of the flooded kingdoms or falling moons and why? Those are all good questions, but crucially, they're more or less the same questions you could ask if you chose The Timeline as your framework.

..It's like panspermy - sure, it answers the immediate question of "how did life originate on Earth", but doesn't help with solving the broader mystery of "how did life originate in the first place". It's cool to speculate what biases a random Lorulean bard may have, but knowing that this bard has those biases does nothing to address the fact that they live in Lorule.

Vladimir Propp's "Morphology of the Folktale" is not a replacement for a history textbook.

P.S.: Granted, I say all this as a person who primarily cares about the Adult Timeline - and, in a rare turn of events, the Adult Timeline benefits from having those temporal dependencies; WW is better off being a sequel to OoT, while OoT gains significantly less from being a prequel to ALttP. While I'm not an ardent defender of the Very Important Much Canon Nintendo Timeline (I love fan-made timelines with all my heart), I hate it when people dissmiss the value of... events having a linear order of happening so flippantly.

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Y'all gotta stop trying to "fix" the Zelda timeline. It isn't broken.

If you want to follow your own timeline, then that's completely okay. But don't claim that the official timeline is bad. It's not! It does exactly what it's supposed to do!

Even the unexplained parts, like the Downfall timeline and the Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom placement, are unexplained on purpose. And I honestly like it that way. It works!

This is probably my biggest problem with a lot of YouTubers (especially Game Theory). They always act like the timeline is "wrong" and "bad" when the worst part about it is how vague it is (which was kind of the point.

Again, if you want to have your own timeline or interpretation, that's fine. Just don't call it a fix! It's that simple!

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Sometimes, when I'm alone, I find a piano.

I play the song of healing.

It doesn't work. I wish it did.

But it never works.

I won't stop playing it. Maybe I'll feel something eventually.

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It's Korok Hyde and the Little Adventurers! They're ready to travel into the wilderness of Hyrule and maybe fight a bokoblin!

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Okay someone has to explain why they think Rauru looks like a goat because I frankly don't see it.

WHAT DO YOU GUYS MEAN HES A GOAT HES OBVIOUSLY A RABBIT

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Fun Fact: In The Legend of Zelda, the gem in the boomerang matches the color of Link's tunic. It's a pretty small detail, but still kind of neat.

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Wuts ur fav food Odie?

Strawberries are really good, so is that new yellow food made from milk, but one time I stole some curry from that sandy town and it was the most delicious thing I've ever had, but I dunno how to make it... (｡•́︿•̀｡)

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What is a knight without his princess; his purpose?

hi have more doomed zelink au(?) stuff :) (continuation of this)

bonus: (totk ending spoilers!)

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Okay yeah. I'll talk about Calamity Ganon.

But first, the mummy in the basement. TotK Ganondorf is really cool as a character. He gets a lot of hate for being boring and a one-note villain, but I'd argue that he's just as interesting as the Ganondorf in Wind Waker. But that's off topic.

Ganondorf in Tears of the Kingdom is powerful. Even without the secret stone, he's someone that Rauru says he would not want to mess with. He has a lot of access to magic, causing the entire castle to be haunted for weeks before he finally makes his move. And when he does, Hyrule falls overnight. That's it, he wins.

It takes seven fighters, all with secret stones, to even come close to the power of Ganondorf the Demon King. And they can't even defeat him, only seal him away until Link shows up maybe. That much power just sits in the basement for tens of thousands of years.

Then Calamity Ganon happens.

I think the best way to explain Calamity Ganon is that Demise's Curse weakens the seal around Ganondorf just enough that some of his power can escape. Demise's Curse then shapes that power into something that will oppose Link and Zelda. Calamity Ganon is pure power shaped by the force of that curse. It's probably the closest thing we have to a pure embodiment of Demise since Skyward Sword.

I think Calamity Ganon also shows that Demise's Curse doesn't reincarnate Demise or Ganondorf. The Calamity is the same power coming from the same guy in the basement. The force of Demise's Curse simply allows that power to escape every single time Link and Zelda appear.

This also could explain why they knew Calamity Ganon would appear in Breath of the Wild when it did. The Sheikah probably discovered the nature of the curse. So when child Zelda shows up, they knew Calamity would emerge in her lifetime.

Because Demise's Curse is a force, fueled by the unending hatred of a demon, that will oppose those who carry the blood of the goddess and the spirit of the hero.

I've got to talk about Demise's curse.

In Skyward Sword, Demise cursed Zelda and Link specifically. They would reincarnate and be forced to face his hatred over and over again. That is the start of Demise's Curse, fueled by the unending hatred he has for the Goddesses and their Hero. This curse will last forever. And Link and Zelda have to face this curse every single time.

An important thing to recognize with this is that Demise never reincarnates. He merely empowers those who will oppose Zelda and Link. To explain this a little better, I'll talk about the next game after Demise's Curse: Minish Cap.

Vaati is the main villain in Minish Cap. As a Minish, he became fascinated with the wickedness in men. That led him to wanting more power, like the Mage's Cap and later the Light Force. Because of his quest for power, he is directly opposing both Link and Zelda. This means that he is a part of Demise's Curse and has access to the power behind that demon's hatred.

It might be better to see Demise's Curse as a force in this world, not really connected to anyone after Demise perishes. This force will cause something to oppose the next Zelda and Link and empower it with the hatred of Demise.

Vaati notably doesn't die, though. Instead he is sealed by the Four Sword. Later, when a new Zelda and Link appear, he is able to escape. In Four Swords, In the game they say that this happens because the seal became weak, but I think it's also an instance of Demise's Curse in action. Link and Zelda were unopposed up until this point, so the force of Demise's Curse weakened the seal and allowed Vaati to attack the two.

I think something important to note about Vaati is that Demise's curse didn't really change or corrupt him. It merely allowed him to oppose the Hero of his time. Keep that in mind while I talk for a bit about Ganondorf.

We know exactly what Ganondorf's motives were in Ocarina of Time. He wanted to bring the same prosperity Hyrule had to his own land. He decided that the best way to do that would be conquest. When the Hyrule Civil War failed, Ganondorf decided instead to infiltrate Hyrule secretively in an attempt to claim the Triforce, a power that would allow him to reshape Hyrule into his own domain. This directly opposes Princess Zelda, putting her in mortal danger, and it opposes Link. So the force of Demise's Curse empowers Ganondorf in his own conquest of power.

Demise isn't pulling any strings. Demise doesn't cause Ganondorf to do anything. He wants to do all of this. Ganondorf isn't a victim. If anything, he is using Demise's Curse to further his own actions. That power allowed him to revive Volvagia and create Phantom Ganon. It's also what allows him to act with such confidence against Link in the final battle. He can directly oppose Link with just that force, and he also has a part of the Triforce to make sure that kid is defeated.

An important thing to remember about that scenario is that he actually defeats Link. And he claims the Triforce, wishing for his own land to prosper. And the best Hyrule can do is seal him away for a while.

But when Link ends up winning due to timeline shenanigans, Ganondorf doesn't actually die then either. He merely gets banished, promising to return again. And he does when the next Zelda appears. He attacks Hyrule relentlessly to the point that the Goddesses see it best to flood everything that remained. This happened because the force that opposes Link and Zelda only had to oppose Zelda. Due to a previous Zelda's choices, that timeline's Link wasn't cursed. They weren't attacked.

In Wind Waker, Ganondorf is defeated by Link and Zelda. This kind of rewrites that Link as part of the curse again, and the next Link will have to face the next person to use the force of Demise's Curse: Malladus. I'll talk about Malladus later when I bring up Echoes of Wisdom since those two villains are pretty similar when using Demise's Curse.

Ganondorf in Twilight Princess had to face Zelda and Link again, but this time Link already faced Ganon from the Future and Majora. Since they were prepared, Ganondorf was sealed much faster, but then Ganondorf empowered someone to break that seal when Demise's Curse found a new Zelda and Link. This is an interesting case because Ganondorf, empowered by Demise's Curse, was in turn empowering Zant. There's not much else to say, but it does show a bit about how aware Ganondorf really was of the power behind what he was doing. Ganondorf used Demise's Curse against Link and Zelda, he wasn't the victim of it.

In Four Swords Adventure, there's a new Ganon. And Vaati also is there. I don't really have much to say about this except for the fact that Demise's Curse doesn't have to only empower one person. Both Vaati and Ganon are opponents that use this Curse. I think this could be said for every boss or creature that fights Link, but I'm still unsure about that.

Anyways, I want to talk about the Fallen Hero Timeline because I think this really shows how aware Ganondorf was of the curse. During his time in the Dark World, he merely had to wait for another princess and hero to appear and then use the power from Demise's Curse to weaken the barrier keeping him out of Hyrule. The game shows that his plan involved waiting for the descendants of the seven sages to appear. One of those descendants was Zelda. He knew that Zelda had to appear for the force opposing her to act in his favor.

Twinrova also uses this force to revive Ganon at the end of the linked Oracle games. Ever since then, Ganon's followers have been summoning him to use Demise's Curse against Hyrule. This includes when Yuga, from a separate dimension, summons him to claim his power.

I don't think all of Ganon's worshipers knew about the nature of Demise's Curse. But they did know that Ganon was powerful and that was enough for them to keep trying to reincarnate him. Sometimes it worked, but not always.

Okay. Now I can talk about Null and Malladus. Both of these demons' origins can be traced back to the beginning of the timeline, or at least close to that point. So why do they attack Link and Zelda in their games? I think it has to do with those demons being the easiest creatures in that time to empower. Demise's Curse chose them, and weakened their respective seals so they could fight Link and Zelda. In the case of Spirit Tracks, Malladus was really the only powerful creature of evil in New Hyrule. And Null's barrier was likely weakened after all the fissures between Hyrule and Lorule were formed, but that's a topic for another time. One key thing that Null does is pull young Link into a rift before the start of Echoes of Wisdom. But both use this force opposing Link and Zelda to break their seals and cause havoc in Hyrule and New Hyrule.

Another interesting point about Demise's Curse has to be in The Adventure of Link, where that force caused Zelda to fall asleep and the Triforce of Courage to be guarded by Dark Link. Ganon's worshipers also track down Link in that game because they might have discovered the nature of Demise's Curse by accident. But there are 2 Zeldas in that game, and if the one hero died, then the force against the 2 Zeldas would still be powerful enough to revive Ganon. That's kind of neat.

In Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, Ganondorf's power also opposes Zelda and Link. In the Ancient Era, Zelda appearing in the past is enough for Ganondorf to finally make his move against Hyrule. (Note: he was already going to do that. I have more on TotK Ganondorf's character, and he's actually really developed, but more on that later)

When Ganondorf is imprisoned, the seal weakens enough for the Calamity to emerge every 10k years or so. This just so happens to occur every time Zelda and the Hero are also present. Coincidence? I think not.

... And that's the timeline.

I have a lot more thoughts on this, it was kind of just an info dump. I need this information to be out there somewhere. If you have anything to add, or if you want to debate or discuss, I'm totally open for that.

When I polish some of these points, I'll make smaller posts about them, but yeah. That's that.