#If you factor in botw it's not even close

[phoenixcatch7]

Hilarious end to the final king gleeok!

I may have forgotten the kg over the far west of hebra existed. I did not know the game registered this as a kill (though I'm not sure it actually does? The music kept playing like nothing happened lmao). Either way, third last sage orb acquired!

[rotisseries]

THAT’S SO COOL????? I’m not into video games but GOD they reincarnate and are in love every time??? princess and knight??? also I’ve been wanting to say this for ages but link is sooooo gender. you get it

so. they are in love in the sense that nintendo is queerbaiting me. queerbaiting me with a "straight" couple (they are lesbians). they are not canon they kissed only in the second ever zelda game when there was only the barest story and they were nothing more than pixel sprites and they have not been canon since. and because every game is technically a different link and a different zelda, each individual game varies on how shippable they actually are? like, I'm not very far through twilight princess yet but I've heard they're pretty much just coworkers in that one. the three latest mainline games though, they're like. they're pretty much canon in all but name like you could say it's platonic but like at that point you are running on loads of denial. the three latest mainline games are skyward sword, which is the first link and zelda, the start of the cycle. the plot ENTIRELY revolves around how much link loves zelda. cause they're best friends, hyrule as a kingdom doesn't even exist yet (they live on an island in the sky) she falls to earth and is running around having to discover that she's a reincarnated goddess (that's a whole angst factor btw bc the goddess (hylia) had to fight demise and she won but knew it was temporary and knew demise would have to be defeated again, and that he would need to be defeated with the power of the triforce, which can only be wielded by humans, so she decided basically that she'd need a loyal human knight, and so she reincarnated into a human girl because a girl is loved in the way a goddess isn't and she knew someone would love a human girl enough to save her WHICH HAPPENS so basically zelda gets to have an identity crisis was she just dragging link towards this destiny the whole time? did she truly love him? did he truly love her? are they puppets in this grand plan? "I'm still your zelda" she says to him, but is she??? drives me nuts) and he, ever loyal, keeps running after her to save her again and again and again (link is so dog coded there's a great botw fic about this), and then they defeat demise and he curses them and link is just some guy who went through ALL THIS SHIT cause he LOVED zelda. what if you were in love with your best friend and it cursed you and your descendants for the rest of time this is so francesca by hozier I'd tell them put me back in it I'd go through it again if i could hold you for a minute. and then the next two mainline games are breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom and breath of the wild involves an amnesia plot so you basically watch link fall in love with zelda a second time and then in tears of the kingdom they are. common law married. they share a house. there's only one bed. do NOT get me FUCKING STARTED on the hateno house. and nintendo still plays FUCKING COY zelda's english va has to be like "they... have a really close bond...." this is how I know they're queer you wouldn't do this with straight people. and then people also ship ocarina of time (most popular and well known game of the series most praised for its story) zelink a lot but that's an older game I haven't played yet so I can't speak on them. zelda is so transmasc in that one though this I know. I talk about link being genderqueer a fair amount and everyone on this internet knows link is trans but trust. zelink is t4t

[fourspiceblend]

My two cents on some totk diskhorse that's been going around.

Everyone is criticizing the sage segments of totk and the fact that you can sequence break certain important parts of the story which diminishes their impact, I think we can all agree the whole "player freedom" aspect should have stayed in botw and we deserved a proper linear story for this game. I'm honestly miffed that they kept it considering how that was THE appeal of botw and this game was supposed to go in an entirely different direction, I myself never actually cared for it since I'm here for the story first and foremost and all the decade-long whiny gamer bellyaching about SS being "too linear" always felt blown out of proportion to me, SS has many flaws but its linearity worked IN ITS FAVOR and not against it (but I guess that's what happens when people get their video game opinions from "gaming journalists" and youtube gamer streaming bros instead of thinking for themselves and not regurgitating "fandom accepted" takes). Botw right now has very few aspects that haven't been upgraded in totk and that might make people go back to it instead of playing this one, a very big factor that could have helped the game keep its longevity and uniqueness was for them to scrap the whole freedom aspect for this game and made it so that the player could still freely explore in this game but was still locked from certain key story moments if accessed to early. And with botw being all "you don't even need the master sword or memories to get to the final boss you can just beat him naked with a stick" a lot of us were very paranoid totk would be the same so we scrambled to do every quest possible even if out of order just to make sure we didn't miss anything (even though you ACTUALLY need to get the master sword in this game!). And before anyone misinterprets me this is NOT a "totk bad akshually" post like I still enjoyed the game, but it was SO CLOSE to being perfect and its one big flaw was a huge fumble that I'm still salty about. (also, not enough Sonia screentime.)

[enigmaticfossil]

Something irking me in this fandom is the constant arguments over Link’s age. This series has been my special interest for a good 25 years so I guess I feel like rambling a little.

There are massive discrepancies in the logic of supposed “canon” references. And even Nintendo, for example, through interviews and written word has said that Link was 9, 10 or 12 in OOT (adult link still qualifies as a child in my eyes since his body was aged 7 years, not his mind).

(Small addition, though I’m aware LOZ is fictional and the world is fantasy, Japan has had a law stating the age of adulthood as 20 since 1896, only recently changed to 18 this year. It does beg to question the concept of “adulthood” in this fictional world and how the people of Hyrule see age. Especially with the longevity of many races.)

Or if you look at Wind Waker, where it states in game his character is the age of the legendary hero which, at the time of release, seemed to reference OOT, we assume he’s one of those ages. But both the amiibo & a statement from Nintendo said he was 12 years old.

Okay—so OOT Link is 12? Still fits, since he hasn’t reached his teens. BUT also, the WW timeline takes place after Link defeats Ganondorf in the 7 year time skip—which he appeared to do as an adult between 16-19, as that is what he is legendary for. And he “disappeared” because he went back to his own time so he wasn’t there to stop what happened.

And again, if their timeline is correct, The Adventure of Link takes place 6 years after OOT, chronologically. Nintendo claims he was 16 in that game.

Making the 9/10 year old OOT Link supposedly accurate, despite the WW claims. Especially if we consider Majora’s Mask Link is the same or, at most, year older than his OOT counterpart.

In ALttP Zelda is 16, and since Link is typically “close” to her in age (it has never said the same age) we can assume he’s anywhere between 16-18, even then 16-17 seems more likely. Which says that in the follow up games he’s around that age too, probably aging up a year or two.

And while we can use things like Toon Link’s model to guess he’s the same or similar age in all Toon Link games, making the 12 year old hero predating OOT in Minish Cap, the “on model” solution doesn’t work for the 5-6 year time skip of BOTW-TOTK. In BOTW we can GUESS that Link is close to Zelda’s age, but that can still range from 17–18 years old at least, depending on what Nintendo deems as “close”.

And according to yet ANOTHER source, Twilight Princess Zelda is 20, and based off of an interview, Link is 17…so what does the unwritten “Link and Zelda are always close in age” rule imply?

Interviews, guides, the games and even the Historia conflict over and over again. These are just a handful of examples that I remember and poked around to verify again.

I’m not saying there aren’t canon instances of Link being CLEARLY a child or CLEARLY an adult or adult-adjacent (what Nintendo deems as adult in these games is convoluted sometimes), and those are important factors. But he’s also meant to be an immersion from player to the game.

Nintendo retcons nearly everything they’ve said or done, and theorizing by following one answer or another is fun, and having Zelda gives us a range to often put an age that’s close to accurate for him. It’s even more interesting to dive into these discrepancies that are just going to exist, Nintendo wrote the stories as they went and that’s okay! It’s fun that they’re trying to tie them all together, inconsistencies or not it’s still an amazing story.

Link is a character many of us literally grew up with, saw or ourselves, as we opened whichever game sparked our interest to start our adventures into this crazy series of wonderful, and magical games!

[super-hero-support-group]

🔫 - (( *shoves this @ Pav and Hobie because fuck it we ball* ))

Send me a 🔫 for a starter where my muse has been shot. (X) @canon-fcdder

Maybe Hobie should be concerned with how quickly he threw himself between Pav and the BotW, and subsequently the fired bullet from the guy's gun, but concern would mean he regretted it in some way, that he had the thought of not doing it in some way, and that wasn't even close to being the truth. Hobie would die for his friends, hell even some strangers have been shielded full body by the punk, and that wasn't likely to change. Even before the healing factor that came with his powers, he would throw himself into danger without hesitation, now he just had even more of a reason to do it. He could take it, and while Pav also had a healing factor, Hobie would rather save him the pain of having to use it.

Long story short; it wasn't the first bullet Hobie and taken, and it wouldn't be the last, that was for damn sure. Luckily this time he didn't have to fight through the pain to finish the bad guy off, the benefit of a team meaning that while Hobie hit the pavement shook off the pain, Pav, Gwen or Miles could take the guy down without an issue while he focused on the spiderman he had just shot instead of the one swinging towards his face shoe first.

Another benefit to a team was that they were too busy with the bad guy to really notice Hobie had been shot in the first place, the punk able to shrug it off and cover the blood up with the buttoning of his vest while the others delivered the wannabe villain to the police station.

Most of the others, anyways. It was kind of hard to hide an injury from the one he had taken it for in the first place. In a way, Hobie felt what he was doing, protecting Pav like this, was wrong. He wouldn't be able to shield him forever, no matter what universe they were in, life always got messy. But was it so wrong to want Pav to stay that bright, optimistic ray of sunshine for just a little longer? To let him hold on to the super part of being a superhero for as long as he could? Besides, Pav wasn't stupid, he didn't get his powers because he had it easy, that was unforrutnely a constant with not just the spiders, but all of those deemed superheroes. He knew the world wasn't perfect, that eventually bad things would find him, but he still stayed optimistic despite it all. Hobie wasn't about to be the one to burst that bubble with realism, that would just be cruel. Sure, he was a bit nihilistic, the world sucked and there was no real way to fix it no matter how much he near killed himself trying to make things even a little bit better day after day, but the world was also filled with beauty like Pav if one knew where to look, and that beauty would persist if one took the time to preserve it as much as they could.

So, with all that in mind, Hobie took the most obvious course of action and tried to avoid Pav completely, and thus save him from having to see the full scope of what the bullet that was meant for him had done, his watch already queueing up a portal to take him from Pav's world to his own. "Right, 'nother barmy behind bars, 'nother piper pied. You guys got this now, yeah?" But he didn't wait for an answer, the punk throwing a wave over his shoulder as he staggered walked towards the portal. "Aces. Mozzle and brocha, 'n all that shit."

[babbletaels]

Lets speculate about Zoras and how they age!

In ocarina of time, Ruto is a similar size to Link as children. After Links seven year slumber, Ruto has grown and looks to be a similar age to Link, both almost adult.

In breath of the wild, Link and Mipha look to be the same-ish age with Mipha looking a bit younger than an adult Zora would. It is implied that they were childhood friends and the Zora in the domain who are over 100 years old remember playing with Link when they were kids.

None of the Zora in breath of the wild or Tears of the kingdom look like the age that Mipha was, but I refuse to believe that she is the only Zora in the whole domain who is a little bit short so I'm deciding that she's short because of her age.

Sasan and Finley are an interesting case for this study. Whether they fall in love or not, the facts stay the same. When we meet him Sasan is around 18, and he thought that Finley was going to be "much" older than him. This can mean anything from a few years to decades with the logic of an 18 year old. In any case, Finley says that she is waiting for her growth spurt, making it seem like it could happen any minute now, but as we see in Tears of the kingdom (5+ years later), she still looks the same so her growth spurt hasn't arrived yet which is confusing.

In the domain, we can clearly see a pattern. There are some "old zora", some "adult zora" and some "child zora", with the only teenage looking zora being Mipha herself. This phenomenon - there not being any/many teenagers, no young adults, no older adults, no almost elderly, heck I would even claim that the child Zora look like toddlers so technically there are no kids either - is very much pointing towards what Finley said, the Zora age by having growth spurts.

This can also be strengthened by the Sidon fan club consisting of two members that look just like adult zora, but one member that looks like a toddler. Of course people of all ages can be in a fan club, but this one has only three members and they seem to be good friends. Usually adults don't start clubs where they swoon over a celebrity with children, so I'm thinking they are pretty close in age but one of them just hasn't had her growth spurt?

This brings us back to Mipha and Link. I've heard some people claim that Mipha was an adult when Link was a child, probably because she was eloquently writing in her journal about seeing him for the first time when he was a kid. But factor in that she mentions that Link "grew up" before her, and the fact that Finley - a Zora child - was writing messages to Sasan making him think she was very old, this all points to that mipha looked like a toddler for a long time as Link was growing up. Since she doesn't look quite fully grown yet, I'd say she pretty recently had her growth spurt during the events 100 years before botw. This would partly explain/excuse Zeldas shock regarding Miphas skill, Hylians probably know how Zoras age and Zelda probably knew that Mipha was very young and recently looked like a kid, even if Zelda never saw it herself.

The actual numerical age of the Zoras growth spurts don't seem to matter a whole lot, and it could even be that the ages vary by up to a decade or even more, which could be why Finley thought she was close to her growth spurt 5+ years ago.

Now we're coming back to ocarina of time. If we assume their biology works the same, this would totally explain why Ruto looks to be the same age as Link in both the past and the future. If we were to go with the theory that Zora just age slowly, then Ruto would not look the same age as Link and we would have to conclude "that was millions of years ago, they evolved since then" which is a boring excuse.

It doesn't really matter at which age you put the growth spurt, but I personally would actually put it around 15-30, because it just makes sense evolutionarily. The species on our earth that stay children for the longest are humans, and there is a reason for that; children are vulnerable. You can see with Zora children that, while they can swim better than a Hylian, they have significantly smaller fins than an adult, and they are very small as well. You can take care of a child until it grows up of course, but as we see in botw and totk, Finley is very much longing for adventure, and it's just a better biological trait for the species to grow up before doing dangerous things. It makes no sense to be a toddler for 50 years, even for a species that lives until they're 300. Sure time may seem like it moves slower because you live longer, but it actually doesn't and the longer time you're vulnerable the higher the risk is for the species' young to die before they can reproduce.

Sooo my theory is that Finley was probably 20 - because it seems in botw that she has waited to grow up for quite a while, and then 5+ years pass and she still hasn't grown - and Sasan is 17-18 and he was like "man she's so oooold".

And my theory is also that Mipha and Link did grow up as childhood friends so they're around the same age maybe she's a few years older, and Mipha reached her growth spurt 2-3 years before the calamity which is enough years to practice fighting (I haven't seen any Zora children doing that), show her more mature beauty to Link, be chosen as a champion and practice driving the divine beast

[powdermelonkeg]

Zora headcanons please?

There's so many kinds of Zora; how about I do them all? :D

River Zora

So, the River Zora were the first kind of Zora we were ever met with in the LoZ series.

Capable of shooting fireballs, this variant of Zora is EXTREMELY territorial and defensive of their domain. And with good reason; their eggs are a rarity--a River Zora might lay only two eggs in their entire lifetime, which can reach up to 800 years. And monsters, especially water-based monsters, tend to be scavengers, meaning that if a Zora isn’t careful, their nest can be raided and the eggs devoured before they have a chance to react.

The River Zora are vibrantly colored, with the ability to puff up to three times their normal size and possessing side-fins to use as flashy warning signs against potential predators. Living in a place like Hyrule means you have to have all kinds of tricks up your sleeve!

But all that flash isn’t just for show; when they’re stressed, their skin releases a toxic substance that can cause paralysis in nearby enemies.

You can see it here in Queen Oren’s fountain, how the water’s gone dark purple (along with the size magnification mentioned previously).

Their mouths contain special glands that secrete a kind of organic napalm. When creating a fireball, they gather some of this substance in their cheeks and ignite it with a spark of electricity, similar to an electric catfish. This ability takes time for them to develop, and fireball accuracy is a point of pride among their soldiers.

Their diet consists of mostly trout, and their domain is hidden in a waterfall beside Death Mountain. However, by BoTW’s time, the River Zora have fled Hyrule for distant Holodrum, where there’s remarkably less threat of extinction.

Zora Warriors

These are actually the result of River Zora adapting to salinity! Also called “Geozards” to differentiate them from their ancestors, these Zora have lost their toxicity and pufferfish-like abilities in exchange for denser muscle mass and near-impenetrable scales. The frill atop their heads is their only biological sex indicator; frill means male, no frill means female, and the sex of a Geozard is determined by the temperature their egg was kept in, like alligators!

They also have an increased capacity for firepower compared to their more docile inland counterparts, an adaptation developed in the presence of more aggressive waterlife out in the open ocean. The napalm they produce is a LOT harder to get off of yourself, so watch out!

Lake Zora

Most famous for their queen, Ruto, Lake Zora are blue-white in coloring and have fins that mimic the patterns clear water would create on the seafloor. Unlike their vibrantly-colored firebreathing cousins, these Zora are stealth hunters, blending in with the water and staying very still before darting out to catch their prey in a split second.

The well-known fondness for jewelry that Zora have started with this subspecies, where earrings, necklaces, and gemstones were first utilized as bait, similar to metallic fishing lures. Since then, the fondness for shiny decoration has only grown, peaking when the Zoroyal family was entrusted with the Spiritual Stone of Water. Since receiving it, the gifting of sapphires between Zora has been a token of engagement, similar to how rings are in our culture.

Early stages of Zora life strongly resemble tadpoles; upon hatching, they’re little more than eyes and a sharklike tail. As they mature, however, the rest of their body develops, tucked into the curve beneath their faces, before eventually emerging into a Zora guppy.

Zora guppies are...clumsy, to say the least. Their bodies haven’t grown quite enough to support their heads yet, so they need neck support at all times. It’s just like human babies! It takes a Lake Zora about three years to get to the point where they can support their own head weight, so during that time, the parents have to be extremely diligent with their baby’s safety.

Bay Zora

The Zora that live in the Great Bay of Termina are almost identical to their Hyrulean counterparts.

Almost.

These Zora have had to adapt both to salt water and the presence of predators larger than them, so on top of the skills the Lake Zora possess, they also have a faster swimming speed, a tolerance to acid, and the ability to create a weak electric field around themselves to ward off potential attackers.

Falls Zora

This subspecies of Zora actually marks an evolutionary transition point between the Lake Zora and the Sea Zora. They still possess muted coloration to blend into the water for stealth attacks, but they’re starting to branch out; sunset-colored fins and bioluminescent spots on their headtails mark the development of several key traits BoTW Zora possess.

It’s also the point where we first see sign of the red and purple color mutations.

But by far the most interesting point of this particular era in Zora history is their cultural development.

This is the point in time where they start decorating their domain with the trademark Zora silver we know them for in BoTW, with intricate lacing designs in semi-see-through walls.

We also see the first use of Zora spears, along with masks worn by soldiers and metallic jewelry, signifying that the Zora have begun to develop the means to forge tools.

This is huge, from a worldbuilding perspective. Aquatic races tend to get locked into a stone-age level of tech, because it’s insanely difficult to forge metals without fire and without cooking yourself. The techniques they use to make these weapons and decorations, though they remain a carefully guarded Zora secret, are the reason they can make grand palaces like we see in BoTW.

This era also marks the appearance of Zora armor; as in, clothing created from Zora scales.

Magical garments for breathing underwater existed before, but the presence of this here means that Zora can both shed and craft their scales into a kind of chainmail mesh. In later years, this kind of garment would become the equivalent of exchanging sapphires, specifically for inter-species relationships in Hyrule.

And, finally:

Sea Zora

These are probably the Zora you all were expecting. I’ve covered the reasoning behind their coloration and physical variation here, so let’s get to the stuff I haven’t quite covered yet, shall we?

The Zora of BoTW are highly adapted to salt-water conditions, capable of breathing in both fresh and seawater. Their scales, however, are thinner due to generations of enjoying a peaceful lifestyle, making them highly susceptible to burns, frostbite, and electrical nerve damage. This makes elemental arrows a huge threat to the Zora population; it’s an ongoing debate in their kingdom on whether or not it should be banned.

A Sea Zora’s lifespan consists of about 20 years of being a guppy, at which point, they develop their “sea legs.” As you’ll notice, this is much longer than the standard infancy of their ancestors; while Lake Zora matured at a similar rate to humans, Sea Zora more closely resemble the lifespans of River Zora, which can lead to generations of Hylians passing by in only one Zora lifetime.

After growing out of their guppy phase, Sea Zora stay at a relatively small size, even into adulthood, until they hit their growthspurts. This final stage of Zora maturity is triggered by environmental factors, such as temperature, abundance of resources, and emotional stability, though some Zora take longer to reach that finicky balance than others. The growth stage takes about two years to finish; Mipha, a hundred years prior to BoTW, was right in the middle of hers, thus making her much smaller than other fully grown Zora at the time.

On a cultural note, Zora from this era participate in neck elongation, like many human cultures in Africa and Asia.

In this practice, coils of metal are wrapped around the neck to give the appearance of it being longer than it actually is. Contrary to popular belief, this doesn’t actually dislocate the neck and vertebrae; instead, it works by pushing the collarbones down and the chin upwards.

We can see this practice on Zora of any age, and all walks of life; it’s even present in the Zora Armor, to a lesser degree.

Notably, though, Royal Zora and Zora in direct service to the Zoroyal family haf elegant frames rather than coils, as a secondary indicator of status.

Luminous stones are popular with these Zora, and it’s believed that this started as a mirror to their developing bioluminescence. And they have a lot of it; unfortunately, however, it’s on a scale humans don’t perceive very well, as to us, the most glow we get is right above Muzu’s eyes.

But for Zora? They see A LOT.

Sidon, for example. We see him like this:

But Zora night vision isn’t as good as ours, so they’d see something more like this instead:

(Not an accurate depiction, a rough estimate done by someone with little art skills)

The spots on his head, the brightly colored edges of his fins, and the luminous stones all stand out, letting Zora identify each other in murky waters easily.

Sea Zora eyes possess special cells in them specifically for detecting luminescence. These disappear in strong light:

But are visible in darker settings, like rainy Zora’s Domain, in the form of tiny dots on the outer edge of the iris.

These cells work by catching miniscule amounts of light and color and reflecting them, causing weak dots to become much more pronounced, at the cost of their night vision overall.

Hope this answered your questions about the Zora!

[cereza15love]

Zelink is possible after Majora's Mask

I  have been thinking about this for a long time, so I have decided to  share my ideas of how this pairing is possible. This will be a large  text but I hope you enjoy. I'm  going to start with the time between MM and TP. I think that there are  hundreds of years between Majora's Mask and Twilight. I say this  because:

a) The Zoras live  hundreds of years and in Twilight Princess we can see that have passed  many generations of Zoras, because they look very different to the ones  in Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask.

b)  Hyrule has changed too much and it's unlikely that it has happened in  100 years or less. And also I say this because in other games like BOTW,  100 years have passed in Hyrule and almost nothing changed.

So,  the point of this is: It really doesn't matter who OoT Link stayed with  to define the fate of TP Link, since many generations have passed and  therefore, the families has to be separated and too many things could  have happened. I say this because many people think that TP Link being  rancher it's a key factor in determining who stayed with OoT Link, but I  think that it isn't true. And next I'm going to explain my theory of  how TP Link could have ended in Ordon. As  we can see, Link is the only hylian in Ordon so it's very probably that  him or his family weren't from there, like inmigrants. But then, where  is Link's family from? First of all, they have to be from Hyrule because  they are hylians and Ordon is a province. I know a place that appears  in Twilight Princess and it was unoccupied, I´m referring to...  Snowpeak´s Ruins! Why I am saying this? Because it looks that the people  that lived there knew about Ordon, so it wouldn't be unreasonable that  when that place became uninhabitable, they went to live in Ordon. Many  people thought that the Snowpeak's ruins were Ashei's home, but that is  false because Ashei doesn't recognize that place, so other people lived  there and I think that it was Link's family. That would explain why Link  is the only hylian, he isn't the owner of the Ordon Ranch, his house is  separate of the village and he isn't relative to the mayor or the  people in Ordon. Well, now I'm  going to explain how Link have Epona and he knows the Epona's Song. And  it's easy to explain. The first point is that isn't necessary that TP  Epona be descendant of OoT Epona, think of this, it´s an animal and we  can found many horses of the same color, so it´s easy to think that Link  or his family found it in any place. Other posibility is that Epona has  its own spirit that reappears at different times, like Link and Zelda  and even other characters. Or we can think in a situation similar to TP  manga, where is mentioned that Epona isn't a mare of the ranch and in  reality is a mare from the militia, in this case, like an heritage from  the people that lived in the Snowpeak's ruins. Now about Epona's song, I also thought in different possibilities:

1. OoT  Link taught that song to his descendence. In Majora's Mask we see that  Romani teaches Link that song and he remembered it. It's easy to think  that he do the same thing with his children and more if he has the   Ocarina of Time and Epona.

2. Malon  taught that song to other people, because she sang that song all the   time and for sure many people visited the ranch. What if that song   became sort of popular in Hyrule? And that is how Link's family heard   that song. Or what if a descendant of Malon taught that song to a   descendant of Link? We can use all of our imagination.

3. Epona's song in Twilight Princess is only the reuse to the soundtrack and isn't very relevant.

I think that I already talked all about TP Link, now I'm going to talk about OoT Link. I'm  going to start when he went back in time. We know that Link told Zelda  and the royal family about everything that happened in Ocarina of Time,  I'm not going to talk about that very much, but I'd like to cite the  intro of Majora´s Mask: " In the land of Hyrule, there echoes a legend. A  legend held dearly by  the Royal Family tells of a boy... A boy who,  after  battling evil and  saving Hyrule, crept away from the land that  made him a legend...  ". With this we can realize that the royal family  knew about Link's feats and with this he gained the trust of the royal  family. Also we can see this when Zelda give him the Ocarina of Time and  when she mentions:   "I'll never forget the days we spent together in  Hyrule...". That means that Link and Zelda got along very well and  probably the royal family approved this. They were so close that even  Zelda mentions: " And I believe in my heart that a day will come when I  shall meet you again...  ". With all of this, it's sure that Link and  Zelda met again after Majora's Mask and probably it was a very happy  meeting. Also, I don´t see impossible that they have been able to  develop something more than a friendship after a time. Now  I'm going to talk about Hero's Shade. We see that he has an armor, so  probably he became a knight so for sure he spent so much time in the  castle and he was able to spend a lot of time with Zelda. And also I  noticed something interesting about his armor. It looks fancy and it´s  very similar to the Magic Armor that we see in TP, which coincidentally  looks like a male version of Zelda's clothes. It can be a proof that  indicates that OoT Link became noble or royality. Other  thing that I found interesting from Hero's Shade are the Howling  Stones, which have Sheikah symbols. It´s know that the Sheikah are very  closely to the royal family, so the fact that Link uses these stones to  pass his songs and skills means that he was close to the Sheikah and  this can be possible if he ended up being part of the royal family. Here  is where I'm going to relate the Snowpeak's ruins with Link and Zelda  from OoT. The Snowpeak´s looks like their owners were militaristic, a  fact that we can relate to Hero's Shade, and we see that is a luxury  mansion but there is something most important that we can relate with  Zelda and it is... there are symbols in the mansion that also appears in  Hyrule Castle. So... that indicates that the owners of that mansion are  related to the royal family. My think about this is: Any descendant of  Link and Zelda from Ocarina of Time lived there.  I think that Link and  Zelda or any of their decendents could have had at least two children,  one of them would inherit the crown while the other could become more  independent and give rise to the family that lived in the Snowpeak's  ruins. My conclusion about all of this is: The  Hero of Time and Princess Zelda could end up together after the events  of Majora's Mask. They had children, one of them would inherit the  throne along with their offspring, meanwhile any descendant built the  mansion from the Snowpeak and lives there with his family.  Unfortunately, a catastrophe occurred which caused them to go live to a  more peaceful place, which would be Ordon. It took many years for the  families to separate long enough to give birth to Link and Zelda from  Twilight Princess, to such an extent that the blood bond between them  has been lost.

I think that is  all. I hope you liked it. And if you have more ideas for this beautiful  pairing, I invite you to write them in the comments. Zelink 4ever  <3!!!

Note: English isn´t my native language, so I'm sorry if anything is badly written n.n"

[thisloveforyourmom]

some headcanons

 - revali is better than any other rito at archery, but teba is better than any other rito with aerial maneuverability. teba’s flying is repeatedly mentioned as his greatest skill, so while revali still outclasses him in archery and his Gale, teba can dodge and weave with a bit more skill once they get in the air. 

 - similarly, that’s why teba volunteered to draw fire when link helped him with vah medoh, and it was his greatest help to revali when he went back to help him with windblight ganon. we repeatedly see the lasers cutting off revali’s path, and we don’t ever see teba get an actual shot in except for once, suggesting that his role, like before, was to draw fire from the aerial lasers, which we see him doing before passing things off to revali once he’s gotten its attention. this is especially relevant considering revali’s lines to link in botw (like “it plays dirty” and his advice to “watch your blind spot”) which suggest that it was the lasers that gave revali the most trouble in the original fight rather than windblight itself.

 - the rito don’t appreciate silent types like link as a general rule. they’re extremely community focused, and to sit back and wait for someone to tell you what to do – to avoid bearing your brunt of the mental load – is viewed as shirking and not putting in your fair share to the community. if you see something that needs doing, you’re supposed to do it, not wait for someone to give you the OK. noncontribution of just about any kind, even verbal, is seen as a shunning of your responsibilities to the whole (this, of course, creates issues for rito who don’t speak very much as well).

 - it follows that honesty is very important to the rito. when someone asks you if you’re able to handle something, you had better say no if you can’t, and yes only if you’re completely confident that you can do it. it doesn’t matter your age or experience level. if you’ve proven you can do something, you’ll be asked to do it when the time comes. 

 - the rito frequently run errands or other things for each other as a method of community support. it’s a rite of passage for rito children to be asked to run their first errand, because it indicates that the community as a whole trusts that the child is mature enough to be relied on. the higher the regard of the adult who needs the errand done (it’s a bit of a taboo for a parent to try and be the one to give a first errand) and the difficulty of the errand both factor into the honor of the task, but overall, completing your first errand is seen as an entrance into adult rito society, regardless of what it actually is. there’s no lasting harm in failure, but children who accept an errand and then fail it are typically chastised for not knowing their limits and/or being dishonest, and typically have to wait a while until they prove themselves enough to be given another errand. as a whole, though, adults don’t ask for hard things and don’t ask those they don’t trust to do them, so most children complete their first errand on their first try. 

 - the rito have red or pink spots on their cheeks until a special molt that signifies their entrance into true maturity. some more colorful rito, like kass, retain these spots, whether because it’s part of their true coloring or because they failed to fade, but it’s very uncommon. 

 - revali has not reached this age, but he’s very close to it. he’s determined to prove himself in time for his adult molt, since it’s relatively unusual for someone his age to prove themselves as capable as he has, and he worries that failings will be seen as signs of his immaturity that prove it was a mistake to make him champion. his height also suggests that he’s not quite grown, as he’s more than a head shorter than teba.

 - teba is very surprised by revali’s age. not because he thinks he’s too young to lead, but as a father, he feels like it’s a lot of pressure to put on the shoulders of a young adult, even one who’s proven himself to be quite capable. he still doesn’t approve of revali’s attitude, but he understands it. he’s known - and been - his fair share of proud, insecure rito teenagers, and he believes revali will grow out of it now that he has a chance to grow up.

[repentantsky]

The difference Between JRPG’s and WRPG’s, and why we should stop comparing them

If you’re like me, you love RPG’s of many different genre’s. Whether they cover fantastical realms like Skyrim and Final Fantasy, or more technologically advanced ones like Borderlands or Star Ocean. 

Like all genre’s most RPG’s of different genre’s also suffer from different problems because of tropes and reused settings that people can grow tired of, but talking about RPG’s from two different parts of the world, is a whole other problem. Japan for example, is mostly marketing itself to Western players, while Western RPG’s, are mostly marketing themselves to Western players...uh wait, why does that make them different? 

It’s all because of style choices. See, Japan like most countries, has a lot of traditions that make a lot of it’s products fairly same-y. As I said that happens with everyone, but Japan has to try harder with smaller series to get western appeal, which is required to have a successful selling game, unless it’s a mobile title, since those all do really well in Japan, because people can just game on their way to and from work. I digress, but Japan is so rooted in tradition, that you can watch an episode of Gigantor, the anime that is considered by many to be the first anime ever created, and Demon Slayer, and notice a lot of similarities in the way the characters are speaking, because Japan has always made their shows where actors talk like they would in real life, which isn’t always true in other acting platforms around the world, which of course means, this translates to video games. 

Specifically what it means, is that Japan has to hop a cultural barrier that Western games don’t, and they have to rely on a lot more tropes, because there are only so many ways to translate the same basic plot of a JRPG, for Western audiences, before things become too cliché. A lot of RPG’s are successful in doing this, like the aforementioned Final Fantasy, and other JRPG’s are coming through with successful games to, like Fire Emblem. Persona and Shin Megami Tensei, Atelier, and several others. All of the games coming through lately, lead people to believe that JRPG’s are a thriving genre in the west, but that’s not really true. 

If you were to ask any random person what the most successful JRPG of all time was, a lot of people would probably think of a Final Fantasy game, but not even Final Fantasy 7, has come close. In fact the only JRPG that even made it to the top 10 best selling games ever, is Pokemon Red/Blue/Green/Yellow as a collective, with four different versions. The next best selling one is Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal, and in fact, only 11 of the top 49 best selling games of all time, are RPG’s, and all of the JRPG’s are Pokemon titles. Final Fantasy 7 has still been wildly successful, as the original has sold over 11.8 million units, and the remake over 5 million, but the fact of the matter is, that even though RPG’s as a whole are the biggest genre of the top 49, the few that made it are exceptions to the rules. In fact, of the top 10 best selling games of all time, 6 of them are by Nintendo. The other 5 excluding Pokemon, are Wii Sports, Super Mario Bros. Mario Kart 8/Deluxe, Wii Fit/Plus and the original Gameboy version of Tetris, which itself is on there twice because EA’s version is number 3. so you’re actually better off in Japan, not making a JRPG. 

There’s a lot more that can be gleamed from looking at the list, so you can check it out here if you want: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games 

The point is that JRPG’s, aren’t always as successful as people think they are. I mean sure, you don’t have to be on the top best selling games list to be successful, but Persona 4 Golden on PC is considered a massive success for selling only just over a million units since it’s release, and the Tales of Series, which is one of the longest running in gaming, as recently as April of this year, had it’s sales numbers made public, and Tales of Symphonia, the undeniable Final Fantasy 7 of the series, sold a total of 940,000 units in the United States, and the game, easily the most successful title from Tales of, only managed 2.4 million in total. None of this is to say, that JRPG’s are struggling, because most of the ones I brought up are shining examples that they aren’t, but going back to that top 10 list, Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto V,  just the top two of that list, have sold 345,000,000 total units. That not only beats the entire mainline series of Pokemon, it’s only about 2.5 million short extra, of beating the original 151′s total sales, with how many spare units the two games over Pokemon’s  300,000,000 million total sales mainline games, which means likely, the two of them will beat the series out at some point in the future. 

Western RPG’s, don’t often suffer from as many problems, because they don’t have a border to hop, and it shows with Elder Scrolls, which has sold 58 million total copies with only five mainline games, and 30 million of those came from Skyrim alone. It took Pokemon, the undisputed champion of JRPG sales, 20 mainline games to reach 300 million, which means arguably, by the time Elder Scrolls reaches it’s 10th installment, it will have caught up to Pokemon’s first 20 games total sales. Borderlands, which is arguably the Tales of to Western RPG’s in most people’s eyes, has actually outsold Elder Scrolls with only 4 mainline entries, one of which is considered bad by many, with a total of 60 million total units sold. The better comparison, surprising for many I’m sure, for a Tales of comparison, is actually Fallout, which has sold 13.51 million units, to Tales of 23.5 million units. 

Enough about numbers for a few minutes, 3 paragraphs about it is a bit much, but the fact of the matter is, Japan struggles more overall to make successful RPG’s in the West, than the West does in the West, and it’s all due to how much of a challenge it is to hop that border. 

Outside of sales numbers, the other major difference between JRPG’s vs Western RPG’s is how they are classified. Generally, when someone thinks of a JRPG, they think of a fantasy world, with leveling, where rare items can be won off bosses, but your main way of improving stats is to level up, and have enough money to buy the best equipment at each new town you enter with a shop. However, a lot of games have been getting that label slapped on them by their marketing teams or fans, and some of it is just wrong. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is one such game, despite the drops from enemies being the only correlation between BoTW and JRPG’s. The correlation was made by fans, which might seem like an innocent mistakes, and in fact could be nothing but that, but then there’s Monster Hunter, which actually does have two JRPG’s attached to it, in the Stories 1 and 2 games, but who took the reigns of JRPG to market, calling Monster Hunter World, a JRPG. despite it having few differences from other Monster Hunter action games, outside of having a story, and having nothing more to do with JRPG’s than Zelda. A lot of fans of Japanese games will classify simply playing as a fake character an RPG, which normally would be fine, but in games, that’s not how genres are defined. If that were the case, all of Yakuza’s games would be JRPG’s, instead of just Like a Dragon, and in fact most games would be RPG’s, and they obviously aren’t. Bubsy 3D RPG anyone? No? Ya sure? Yeah I didn’t think so.   

The west has the exact opposite problem of under classifying it’s games as RPGs. While sure, you wouldn’t call Halo an RPG, unless you know, Master Chief was shooting an RPG, you absolutely should call Ratchet and Clank one. Think about it, your main playable characters all have HP, most of them have weapons that can level up, and the action setting of these games, basically should make Ratchet, a response to Level 5′s Dark Cloud series, which did all the same things for combat. However, it’s just seen as series of action games, despite it also being a lot like Borderlands. 

The point is, there are a lot of things that differ JRPG’s and WRPG’s from sales, to marketing, to style and so many other factors, I would run out of characters available to me, before I get through them all. There’s nothing wrong with these genre’s being different, but people classifying them as similar, could harm either since they don’t often jell that well together. So please, think before you compare, and for those rare RPG’s, where you can’t tell the difference, makes sure you find out where they were developed, because a lot of games you might think are JRPG’s, could in fact be Korean or Chinese. 

[only-by-the-stars]

the annotated Tome of the Wild

Part 6: Into the Wild!

- I have no regrets about torturing you all with that dream at the beginning. Not just because it was a bit cruel, but because it’s a nod to the series tradition of Link starting his adventure by oversleeping.

- Anjean is a character from Spirit Tracks. A game in which you use a train to explore New Hyrule. Which I put into the chapter that has a speeding train play a pivotal role in Link’s accidental fall into the river, without realizing it till after the chapter was up. THIS WAS HILARIOUS TO REALIZE.

- A pale yellow half-moon and a canopy of stars presided over it all THERE’S THAT MOON AGAIN

- Teba! I like that guy. In BOTW it’s established that he looks up to Revali a lot, and is trying to master his Gale; this is understandable, given that Revali was a legendary hero of the Rito, who fell tragically in battle a hundred years ago. But when he gets to meet him during AOC, he’s... less than impressed with Revali’s behavior towards Link. He still admires his skills, of course, but that hero worship has been tarnished a little by the actual personality of the Rito Champion. It’s like that old saying about how you shouldn’t meet your heroes. So for this, I wondered: what would he think of him if that “hero of legend” factor were removed and Revali was just an exceptional student who also happened to be a major jerk? And thus you get his veiled references to behavior he won’t tolerate regardless of a person’s skill level.

- Aryll put one hand on her hip and thrust her other arm into the air. “Experiment time! OH YEAH!” She giggled. “He says that every time we get to do science stuff.” Another reference to Robbie being Aryll’s teacher.

- And we have our first onscreen appearance of Riju and Medli! I’d mentioned them in passing in one of the letters in things I didn’t send, but now they’re here. I chose them to be Link and Mipha’s friends for a couple reasons. One is simply that I really like both of them; another is that they’re close in age to those two, so it was easy to make them all the same age without it being weird. Medli is one of my favorite characters in the series, and I really liked Riju a lot, especially after being able to fight as her in AOC, so I have a lot of fun bouncing them off Link and Mipha.

- “Yes, we do see.” Riju sounded like she could barely contain her glee. “Thank you, Aryll. You've just helped us solve a very irritating mystery.” And thus is Aryll inspired to play at being “Detective Aryll”, thanks to Riju’s thanking her for this. She and Medli have been just as confused as Mipha about Link’s disappearing act, and very angry, particularly on Mipha’s behalf, as they’ve seen firsthand just how hurt she is by his behavior. But now, seeing that he made a mixtape for her? That changes everything. As soon as they see it, they finally understand: he’s been acting this way not because he suddenly dislikes Mipha, but because he’s got romantic feelings for her and is unable to talk to her about them. And as I established in Mipha’s second letter in things i didn’t send, they’re also aware of her love for Link, and so they really want to get the two talking to each other so this can be sorted out at last.

- “Don't they have to be somewhere wet?” Link glanced back at where the school was getting smaller and smaller as they kept walking. “I know they need a lot of water.” Yeah, like the river you’re about to fall into very soon.

- “You're right! I almost forgot! It talked about that in a show Mom was watching last week about people who catch frogs for making medicine and stuff. Did you know some people actually like to eat them, and think they're a delicacy?” A reference to how you put them in elixirs in BOTW, as well as the Akkala Buns that Midna loves. Link’s disgust here is a callback both to that and to his refusal to eat a frog in that memory in BOTW with Zelda trying to get him to eat one for science.

- Could this night go any more downhill? It can, actually. Literally, in your case, Link. Another bit that was completely accidental and I found myself laughing about later when I realized during the editing process.

- Look. Riju and Medli absolutely want their friends to get together, and they’re more sympathetic to Link now that they know what’s behind his recent actions. But they haven’t completely forgiven him yet, and so they kinda got their revenge by fucking with him a bit when he came back for the tape. Which they did genuinely put in Mipha’s pocket as a way to try to help the two start talking to each other and confess their real feelings.

- “Just think of us as mail carriers!” Medli piped up. Also this is a reference to how the Rito delivered mail in Wind Waker.

- Link's heart skipped a beat as he saw who was standing next to it, her sweater stuffed into the elephant's head-shaped basket as she put her helmet on and climbed onto the seat. Mipha’s bike is Vah Ruta.

- Bazz and Gaddison are, of course, two Zora who were friends with Link in the Domain when he was a kid there, who along with Rivan all formed the Big Bad Bazz Brigade. So naturally, they’re his fencing team teammates.

- “Oh yeah, that fucking guy.” Gaddison rolled her eyes. “Mr. 'I'm the best at everything and don't you forget it, you chumps can't hope to keep up with me, wah wah how asinine'.” She flapped her hands in a mockery of wings, and Link had to struggle not to choke on his water. Two things here. First, I really enjoyed writing Gaddison mocking Revali and using his ‘asinine’ catchphrase. Second, Link seems to keep choking on water, doesn’t he? First when Midna reveals her favorite meal, and now again. Hmmm...

- She laughed too, but something about it sounded strangely off. There was a long pause, as if she was weighing what to say next, and then she took a deep breath. As I established in the final letter in things i didn’t send, Mipha is well aware that Link was at her practice, and is trying to find some way of asking him about it, figuring that the walk to the graveyard will be a good opportunity. She’s also been trying to hide how hurt she’s been at Link’s behavior, so that’s why her laugh sounds off: she’s startled by him acting like himself for that brief moment, but doesn’t want to let it show, so Link is unaware for now of just how deep her pain goes. He’ll find out soon enough, though. And of course, Mipha is also unaware of the tape that’s so, so close, something she later feels a lot of horror and pain over.

- “... Oh. I see.” He looked up in time to see Mipha turn her head away, an unreadable expression on her face. “I understand, of course...” This is the moment when she all but gives up on him, which shatters her heart. It’s perhaps the most agonizing missed opportunity in the whole chapter, as the tape is right there and she doesn’t know, and Link fucks up by pulling away again. He does reach for her, which might have changed things if Revali hadn’t picked that exact moment to walk in and interrupt. If not for that, Link would’ve touched her arm and started a conversation that would’ve led to a breakthrough that didn’t require a near-death experience. All these points of divergence are going to haunt them both later.

- Mipha tries to be outwardly polite, but she can’t stand Revali because of how he treats Link and never would’ve dated him. She goes to the graveyard because she wanted to try and get a reaction out of Link, even if she can’t bear to look at him for fear of what she’ll see on his face, something she feels ashamed of later, but that attempt at politeness just feeds into Link’s insecurities, unfortunately. “The love is requited, they’re just idiots”, indeed.

- To fill out the graveyard group, I chose Yunobo and Komali. As a descendant of Daruk, it stands to reason that he’d still be related to him here, and attending school with Link and the others. Plus his anxious personality makes for a perfect fit for such a scene. And Komali is another Rito from Wind Waker, who is friends with Medli, so that was another no-brainer.

- Mipha's expression was closed off and neutral as she stared down at her own hands in her lap She is trying her hardest to conceal how heartbroken and miserable she is, the poor girl.

- “Give it a rest, Revali!” Riju, sounding remarkably like her mother. I went ahead and made Urbosa Riju’s actual mom in this AU, and this is my little hint as to that.

- “Hey, what's all this ruckus, then?” bellowed a loud, croaky voice. “Buncha Poes sneaking into my graveyard? I'll show you what for!” Another reference to Poes, and though I don’t mention his name, the gravedigger is of course Dampe from OOT, MM, ALBW, and the LA remake.

- “Link, look!” She held it out as he walked over to join her. “I got a frog!” Which means you’re close to water! ... oh shit.

- Which brings us to the cliffhanger, with the reveal that Link and Aryll are drowning while the events in the Wild are happening. I was so excited for this, it’s what so much foreshadowing has been leading up to. I even stuck it in the first letter of Link’s in things i didn’t send, when he compares the effect Mipha has on him to drowning. Which is easy to mistake for yet another use of water imagery in connection with our lovely Zora princess, a recurring element in my work, but becomes more sinister when you know what befalls him here.

and that covers part six!

[mm-magnolia]

BOTW Map-Distance Reference

Hello! I’m here to deliver my take on realistic distances concerning BOTW’s map of Hyrule. I wanted to develop this because I’m reaching the point in my own fic where I needed to novelize distances. Then, I realized that I should share this in case other people want to know how long it would take to get from Point A to Point B via horseback, foot, etc. Yes! I will give you all the tools here!

As a disclaimer, I know this probably isn’t the first time someone has done this. I’m taking a page from @botwstoriesandsuch own calculations and their post was the stepping stone I used. All the websites I used will be at the very end. I am open to corrections! I’m just a girl that loves writing and math, but I am no means a certified mathematician, physicist, or demographer 😊

So, the foundation of all calculations comes from this comment that Impa made about Blatchery Plan:

Using objmap.zeldamods.org, I plotted out the likely distance one would take to travel from Kakariko Village to Blatchery Plain (specifically, the exact spot where Memory #17 is).

Here is my first assumption: Impa says that it will take a “half day’s time” (i.e. 5 hours of daylight) to travel from Kakariko to Blatchery Plain. I’m going to assume she means “half day’s time by foot”. This is where the math comes in.

The average walking pace of a human is 5.0 km / hr. Being that it takes 5 hours to walk to Blatchery Plain from Kakariko, the distance can be found with 5.0 x 5 = 25.0 km. Now, on the map, the distance is actually 1.62 km so there’s definitely a skew. To find the skew, simply divide 25.0 km / 1.62 km = 15.43 but I’ll round it to 15. So that means, whatever distance you mark using objmap.zeldamod.org, the distance is actually 15 times the distance indicated. In simpler terms, 1 km = 15 zkm (Zelda kilometers). So the actual distance from Kakariko to Blatchery Plain is 1.62 km x 15 = 24.3 zkm [Visual of work below]

Now to find the time it takes to travel that distance, you need some set speeds. I use foot (5.0 km / hr), horse-galloping (45 km / hr), horse-cantering (27 km / hr), and horse-trot (17 km / hr). I haven’t calculated the speed for the Master Cycle Zero yet. But anyways, you need to keep the speed in km / hr. Do not try to change the speed to zkm / hr because it won’t make sense. If you tried to convert the average walking pace to zkm using the 15x multiplier, that means a person is able to walk 75 km in one hour — doesn’t make sense. So the 1 km = 15 zkm is only valid for calculating distances with the objmap.zeldamod.org map. Speeds should stay in km / hr.

To further illustrate my point, I calculated how long it would take for Link to travel from Kakariko to the Blatchery Plain via horse-cantering (27 km / hr; the 2nd speed setting for a horse in-game). Using dimensional analysis, I divided the distance to travel (24.3 zkm) by the speed (27 km / hr). Then, to make it make sense, I converted the hours (0.9 hr) to minutes (54 min). So from Kakariko to Blatchery Plain, it will take Link 54 minutes on horseback-cantering to reach his destination. [Visual work below]

What does this mean for the grand scale of Hyrule? Using the same map, I found the length and width for Hyrule’s landmass:

10.30 km (15) x 8.30 km (15) = 19,235 km². This is where I falter because I don’t know anything about demographics, less of all medieval kingdom demographics. I plugged it into Medieval Demographics Made Easy (www.rpglibrary.org/utils/meddemog/).So a kingdom of this size can comfortably host 769400 people, given that 57% of it is arable land and 43% is rivers, lakes, wilderness (Hebra mountains, Gerudo desert, Gerudo highlands, Faron Woods, Death Mountain, etc.) I would probably scale the numbers down even more considering that certain races occupy certain areas (only Koroks in the Lost Woods, only Gorons on Death Mountain, etc.) But I googled the population because I was a little skeptical, but medieval London and Paris had populations around that size. So given pre-Calamity, Hyrule at its prime, its plausible for Hyrule to have a population close to 4/5 of a million.

So there you go! I’ve given you the tools to figure out the distance and traveling times throughout Hyrule. The only speeds I’m missing are the Master Cycle Zero, Paraglider, Bullet Time Bounce, Shield Surfing, and Wind Bombing. You can figure out the area for settlements as well. Just draw out the length and width using the map and multiply both factors by 15 before multiplying the numbers together.

I hope this wasn’t too confusing! Credits to @botwstoriesandsuch for the idea. I have no idea if someone else already did this and found the same thing, but oh well. If it’s not too much, please check out my work. Corrections and feedback appreciated!

[razorblade180]

Thin Divide: Rwby Botw part 3

[Outpost Ruins]

Jaune:Alright, let’s go over what we’ve learned so far.

Ruby:*holding both slates* Okay, for starters it looks like anything that’s in key items is shared between players. You’ve only just around but have the same number of Korok seeds and soul thingies I do.

*number goes up by one*

Ruby:uhhh what?

Jaune:Looks like someone founds another one. There must be something finite about these things that makes us have to share. Whatever they’re used for we should decide as a team probably.

Ruby:If we ever find anyone else.

Jaune:Don’t be like that. Next thing we noticed was towers and shrines. *opens map* Apparently you can fast travel to activated ones.

Ruby:However, I tried using it to go way over to this blue one of this plateau but couldn’t. I’m guessing we might still have to actually climb the tower.

Jaune:Or it’s locked until we find the person who activated it; which brings us to our third major discovery.

Ruby:*sees a picture of Jaune on her slate* the moment we found each other we got linked somehow. *taps icon* I can see your location, health, and stamina currently. We have the same stats so I figure everyone else currently does.

Jaune:Not to mention the most handy thing about this. *clicks her icon twice*

Sheikah Slate:*calling Ruby*

Jaune:They’re basically like our scrolls and we can call each other.

Ruby:Looks like this game encourages splitting up. Expecting you and friends to essentially divide and conquer.

Jaune:Yeah but from what one of the shop keepers said apparently the more people in a game at once, the game will automatically make itself more difficult to compensate.

Ruby:There’s technically eight people in here plus Oz so.....

Jaune:One person could find themself in a nine person situation.

Ruby:You think that’s what this is? *looks at guardian*

*laser sight on her forehead*

Ruby:*ducks down*

Jaune:No I think we’re just noobs.

Ruby:Lame; oh yeah we forgot about what happens when you lose all your hearts. It’s horrible......everything hurts, then everything just gets dark.....

Jaune:.....are you ok?

Ruby:I really hate this guardian....

[Kakariko Village shrine]

Blake:*walking out* That was useful combat info. Now let’s put it to the test. *starts walking*

[Outpost Ruins]

*ding!*

Jaune:Hm? * looks at the slate* Hey Ruby, check this out.

Ruby:What?

“Gameplay mechanics”

Jaune:This is new *reading it*hey do you have a shield?

Ruby:Yeah but laser breaks it in one shot.

Jaune:Even with a perfect counter?

Ruby:A what?

Jaune:I’m reading it right now; looks promising. So what time does the laser fire? *grabing the shield*

Ruby:The timing is weird but I personally wait for the eye to glow and- what are you doing?

Jaune:Testing a theory. *laser sight on him*

Ruby:Jaune! Dying really sucks! Even if it’s fake.

Jaune:Well we can’t sit here all day. *sweating*

Ruby:*covers her eyes* I can’t watch this.....*peeks*

*Laser fires*

Jaune:*perferct counter!*

*laser flies back and blows up the guardian*

Ruby:........I’ve been at this thing forever. All I had to do was that!?

Jaune:In hindsight, probably could’ve circled around somehow. Anyways it’s over. *looks at the shrine* Shall we?

Ruby:You’re surprisingly calm about this.

Jaune:I like games. *opening shrine*

“One player per entry”

Ruby:Looks like shrines are a solo thing. Since you took out the enemy I want to go in. *mumbles* I refuse to be dead weight*

Jaune:*chuckles* Be carful in there. Want your shield back?

Ruby:Nah, it looks better on you. *door closes*

Jaune:*smiles*

*5 minutes pass*

Jaune:I wonder what’s going on there?

*ding! Remote bombs acquired*

Jaune:Remote bombs? *one poofs into his hand* ......sweet.

*door opens*

Ruby:*holding a bomb* Guess what I g- oh I guess we share runes too.

Jaune:Alrighty then, where to next?

Ruby:I have to the shrine on that snowy mountain a little ways away; and two others.

Jaune:Let’s split up then meet to go to the mountain together. Saves time and I got a feeling that one might be tricky.

Ruby:Imagine spawning up there; looks freezing. If the weather is a factor in this game then oh boy....

[Somewhere on that mountain]

Weiss:*standing next to a campfire. Nothing with her but the old clothes*

Weiss:*walks a few feet*

*immediately starts freezing to death*

Weiss:*walks to the campfire*.......*sits down* Someone please help.....

[bxstiae]

[ ⚜  / —– 🇼​🇴​🇱​🇫​ 🇭​🇪​🇮​🇬​🇭​🇹​ 🇩​🇮​🇫​🇫​🇪​🇷​🇪​🇳​🇨​🇪​🇸​.  ]   between verses/worlds.

Pardon my mess of an explanation but this is actually super important!!! At least for me because this really is a key factor in some interactions & what happens. 

Link is as short man in general. ( like 5′7″ish ). Compared to other male Hylians? That’s not the average height. He’s about full grown too at his age as well. He might make it up to maybe, maybe, 5′9″. But. That’s besides the point. What I’m getting at is that despite his human height ( which stays the same with each verse), as a wolf, it truly differs. 

For example, Link in Hyrule, as a wolf. Stands at about 4′3″ ?? Most people who are not afraid of him -- like Agitha ( who is a child ) -- can look down at him. This also follows suit in BOTW ( albeit he’s taller in BOTW because Wild Child uses him as body pillow )

Come the Pokemon verse or FE Verse? He can stand at a good 5′4″ -- even taller if he makes it so ( maybe 5′6″ on a good day). While I need to figure out ( for the most part ) the discrepancies for this, its mainly due to the fact that I don’t have Midna partnered with him. 

Taking Ganon down at his mere normal height is hard. Hence Midna’s added support makes him feel bigger. ( no really, gameplay of the final battle? Link is capable of taking down a giant boar -- something he cannot physically do without Midna ). Yes he has super strength and whatnot, but in my eye, he needs to be bigger in the other-worlds to make up for the lack of Midna.

So yes, he’s like the size of a small bear in some aspects. Can he still be picked up by others? Yes. Taller, well-built, characters can pick him up. To put it in perspective -- Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson could probably pick Link up and give him a bear hug. While I do not suggest that, its totally possible.

Its just like picking up his normal human self. Taller characters can do it. 

Yea, anyway. I hope it helps with possible interactions you want to see in the future. Don’t just expect Link to be some large dog-sized wolf. He’s bigger up close. And can have small children ride his back too. Makes for a great conversation starter though for anybody who sees him next to another person.

[cardinalfeng]

LoZ: BotW Review

I know I don’t really like post game reviews but I’ve loved Zelda for a really long time and I wanted to talk about this new installment because I just finished it.

Let it be said however: Spoiler Warning! I’m talking about all of the main quests and a small amount of the side quests.

So, Let’s start with the great plateau. I thought this area was ingenious. Not only did it get you right back into the feeling of Zelda, with locations like the Temple of Time, but I felt like it was really a mission statement for the game, and I loved it. I encountered the Stone Talus right after the Stasis trial, so I had the hammer, but it took a few tries to realize that the hammer was a better weapon than the swords I had. I thought the sense of mystery throughout the entire area was awesome, and the fact that there were somethings which were just as hard as areas in the rest of the game, like the decayed guardians near one of the shrines. And the fact that you re-encounter the old man at the Temple of Time was awesome, because you have 4 spirit orbs and so, before you know to look at the steeple, you just walk inside and see the goddess statue glowing.

I also liked the run from the Great Plateau up to Kakariko Village. On that trip I encountered moblins and lizalfos, which were the other two extremely common enemies in Hyrule, and the difficulty spike was present but manageable. That whole trip also introduced Hestu, and had one of the most amazing tonal shifts in the game. I went through the East Barracks at night, and it was an extremely hard and lonely area, especially when I had like 2 swords and a few arrows. However, upon leaving that area, you meet a friendly NPC, and then a stable, which leads to not only catching horses, but also changes from the loneliness to feeling like you have friends somewhere at least. 

In Kakariko Village, I feel like they capitalized really hard on the Sheikah. It’s where you learn about the memories, and Hyrule’s past, and the Sheikah’s past, and the Yiga. It was pretty intense in terms of the whole story line. But, it again helped me feel less lonely in Hyrule. And the side quests weren’t hard, but they were full of personality. 

The hike to Hateno Village was also interesting, because of the sheer number of dead guardians you see near Fort Hateno. However, the Hateno Village shrine was pretty terrible. The motion controls are pretty inaccurate and unfun, and I won by basically cheating. Though the goal is to show what the switch can do, I really felt that it was more tedium than fun. I felt the same way about bringing the ancient flame up to the Tech Lab. It was mostly just walking through the village. For comparison, I really enjoyed the Akkala one. However, the NPC’s in both Hateno and Kakariko were fantastic and full of personality, in a way that felt more like an older Zelda, like LTTP.

Meta-game I think was pretty interesting. Sure, it’s basically just Korok seeds, Shrines, Towers, and scavenging. However, the sheer number of things you can find really just filled up my time. And things like shrines and korok seeds are genius little ways to have tons of puzzles filled in the game. Such as the “Steady thy heart” shrine, which was a mini-dungeon, and on the way to finding it, I found like 2 korok seeds, and there’s a bit of combat involved too. And the towers were also their own puzzle-combat combination, which just felt very Zelda, even if it was such a new feature. However, the Gerudo Tower, for the Gerudo Highlands was a load of bullshit, and I had to look it up. It’s just an issue of placement. 

The Divine Beasts were a really cool idea, and I think that there were enough variations in the formula of get to a place, do a fetch quest, fight the divine beast, finish the dungeon, beat the boss. I really liked the Zora’s Domain one, because of the sheer factors involved. The Zora people hate you, you need a shit ton of shock arrows (you didn’t but I played ball), and you need to get inside Vah Ruta. I felt like that mission wasn’t just to get inside of Ruta, but really for Link’s sake, and that of Hyrule. It was multi-layered, and the fetch quest was mostly combat. And Ruta was an interesting gimmick, and I enjoyed the dungeon in its entirety. 

The Goron City quest was fun, and people often harsh on it for getting into Eldin and not being fireproof. However, on either stable next to Eldin you can get fireproof elixirs or fireproof lizards. Plus, Eldin is literally crawling in fireproof lizards. I thought that Rudania as a whole was really fun, but I wish that they’d stuck with the darkness inside Rudania that was there at the start. It might be annoying at first, but the puzzle possibility and interesting mechanics were too good to pass up. I think Arin Hanson is right, however, that the boss cutscenes shouldn’t happen when they do. Rather, when you’re about to fight the Divine Beast, to see it in all of it’s glory. Because I could decide for myself to fight the massive volcano lizard.

My least favorite quest was Vah Medoh. First, getting to Rito Village wasn’t hard. It’s not in a dangerously cold area, Tabantha tower is really close, and Medoh is right above it, so it’s impossible to miss. Second, the fetch quest was really close and not hard to get to, and the task to get Teba on your side was aggressively easy. You have 3 minutes and it took me 30 seconds. Then the battle against Medoh just felt like the same task as the flight range, but with bomb arrows, and one less target. With Teba taking fire, and with Teba as cold and flat of a character, there’s no collateral for Link. Even after you find out that he’s been hurt, I didn’t care because the game gave me no reason to. The Dungeon wasn’t hard, and it’s gimmick felt shockingly similar to Rudania. The boss was easy, and as long as I had arrows, didn’t even mean Link had to get within close range. Furthermore, Revali is annoying and condescending, and has few redeemable qualities until after the boss fight, making me wonder why I even freed that asshole.

I liked the Gerudo quest, but I wish that it didn’t have the rupee gate to get inside Gerudo Town, and it felt like 2 dungeons in one. The Yiga Hideout and Naboris were both a dungeon in their own right. Naboris’s gimmick was annoying at points, and the boss fight had too many phases, but it all felt original and interesting. (Note: I did the beasts in order of Ruta, Naboris, Medoh, Rudania). My biggest point about the game is that there should have been more dungeons. The Gerudo quests left me satisfied, while every other one felt too short. If there were 8 dungeons, plus Hyrule Castle, that might be enough dungeon.

In terms of animals and extra stuff in the game, there were really great things. I liked how Lurelin Village didn’t seem to be balanced on Link, and was just there in Faron. I liked the Triforce Springs, especially the quest to save Naydra, which was new, but fascinating. Tarrey town was super fetch quest filled to build, but another way to make the player really feel how they affect the world. The labyrinths were complicated but fun, as were many shrine quests. The memories got me acquainted with a combination of Hyrule, the modern day, and 100 years ago, and were an interesting way to have a player choose if they want exposition or not. The Master Sword was an interesting way to get the player progress on their own but still have greater goals. Hyrule Castle was really fun, but a little too disjointed to allow for exploration without risking total decimation from the guardians (and the North Gatehouse is such bullshit).

Finally, is the ending. I personally love all of the cutscenes and the boss fights. The first one felt like a greatest hits of the previous bosses, but was still fresh and interesting to see how the mechanics interacted. Dark Beast Ganon was a more classic Ganon fight, but made Zelda’s role both prominent and non-intrusive, and explained the weird malice eyes. All of the cutscenes afterwards were amazing and lead the way to a great set of post-game quests to fix up Hyrule. And then the game stayed the same as if I never beat Ganon. With all of the cutscenes, I would love to see typical NPC Zelda, and travel Hyrule with her, even fix up the castle, use the Guardians to make a game plan against Ganon in the future. Sure it makes Hyrule less dangerous, but it gives the player power in Hyrule’s future beyond Ganon, which is where every Zelda game stops defining Link, and where Botw could have strived to be better.

TL;DR: BotW is a fantastic game that fills the time with tons of activities, and the changes to the Zelda formula only make it more fun. However, the Dungeons were too few and far between, and the ending was particularly underwhelming given the sheer number of hints at post game were in the final cutscenes. But overall, an unforgettable Zelda experience, and the best in a long line of great games.

[michaelmacaw]

I kept making excuses and pointing fingers.  I indirectly blamed people who couldn’t help me, successful people, and unrelated factors like my old job for my lack of motivation and attempts at trying.  And even when I tried anything, I gave up after failing once or twice.  I used my age as an excuse to claim I’d missed my chance when so many younger people were finding success in things I was interested in.  I sat around for four years after leaving my old job, pointlessly throwing my weak resume at companies and blaming the world when I wouldn’t get hired.

And then I continued to do so even after getting my new job!  I got angry when I started getting double shifted.  I claimed it was exhausting me despite only taking 2-6 hours of my day at most, many of which were spent doing nothing but sitting down looking at my phone or playing BotW.  I kept making excuses.  Like I have my whole life.  I kept parts of my mind closed off to the changes I wanted to make beyond finding a better job with the experience from this one.

I have observed several successful people lately.  One of them is a bird-loving, creative-minded acquaintance that a lot of people know.  The other is a voice actor who has similar interests to mine and has been in the spotlight for several recent roles.  Seeing their lives and hearing their situations put a lot of things into perspective.  Where I would once spend all of my time envying, I instead pointed the negative feelings in towards myself and by doing so I’ve finally seen through all of the self-sabotaging and weak-willedness I possess.

I’m going to start it all over from the beginning.  Even at almost-30, I will go back to square one and start several interests/dreams over from zero.  Violin, voice over, life in general.  I’ll put out the effort, I’ll get coached, I’ll work myself hard during my free time.  I’ll stick with it and keep myself out there, while not biting off big, overly-ambitious projects that I can’t manage by myself.

Am I doing it for admiration and money?  I want both of those things!  Everyone does!  Of course, I’d LIKE them! ...but, I’m doing this because it’s what I need to do.  It’s what I need to do, so I can do the things I WANT to do.  I’m not doing this with the intent of glory or a monetary payoff.  I’m doing it because they were my dreams.  I should’ve started taking them seriously back then. 

I didn’t. 

I will now.

Thank you to everyone who has ever supported me or wished me luck.  I will still need help and I hope you can all be there for me, as I will be for you.  It will be a very, very long road.  I may be well into my 50s or 60s before I reach a point of satisfaction.  But better my 50s or 60s than my 60s or 70s, or my 70s or 80s. Better get prepared.

(also I’m getting my head shaved bald next week because my natural male-pattern baldness is getting disgustingly bad and my hair is un-salvageable now.  But that’s not related.)