Always a bit puzzled by people saying that anyone who wanted long-term consequences for TotK Zelda's sacrifice are "edgy".
I'm not even particularly in the camp that she should have remained a dragon forever (I think this should have been Ganondorf's fate, it would have been sooo much more impactful than to explode him and move on but anyway). To be honest, I wish the rules for turning back would have been 1) clear 2) active gameplay on the player so that it feels like it's something we have earned, and 3) not make her have amnesia about it and/or at least having her gain some crucial insight because of the experience.
(also: doesn't she crave knowledge? isn't that insanely mean to have her watch over every civilization and every bit of history ever and then take it away from her? kind of dislike how totk privileges the comfort of the player's feelings over what the characters would actually want or need tbh)
To be perfectly honest, I fully expected us needing to turn her back before engaging Ganondorf so we would fight him together, especially since Zelda as a compagnon exists in the game code already (though in a very subdued state). It feels very very strange to me that all of this mechanic of Sages following us existing and yet we never have the very climactic cool Zelda-staple moment of facing Ganondorf or Ganon together (OoT, WW, TP, ST and probably more that I'm forgetting all did this in some way --even BotW had Zelda more involved than in TotK). I'm not sure Mineru was a compagnon that was needed over Zelda honestly, especially given the kind of non-insight she gives us on the zonai (even if the idea of the mecha is cool, it really could have been Zelda using her zonai + sheikah knowledge to pilot one for us or something).
But anyway: yeah, even if this isn't what I would have wanted personally, I think wanting Zelda to remain a dragon is kind of arguably more respectful of her relationship to Link, in a way, that what the game ended up doing. When she enacted this sacrifice, Zelda decided to trust him to such a extent that she lost herself, reciprocated his trust in her and his devotion to her, and now the future of Hyrule exists beyond her and beyond what Hyrule once was, but she trusts them to follow through and be happy and she will watch over them from the stars moving on. It's fine if we manage to save her from that fate, but even if we don't, honestly this sounds like a beautiful story/tragic romance to me, if you want to read it that way. Tragedy doesn't necesserily involve edginess. Fictional pain isn't always mean, or out to get you.
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hermit horror week day 4: season 7 or taken over
Xisuma slowly blinks at the console logs for the server again. He's very tired; he's been collecting blackstone again, and it's very tiring, collecting blackstone. He's been building a lot of pretty houses, and stocking a lot of shops, and he hasn't had time to look at the console much recently. He probably shouldn't be now, because he's tired, and tired people make mistakes.
He makes a lot of mistakes; he's silly like that. A big derp. It's why he has to be careful, since he's been tired so much lately. He definitely shouldn't have the console open.
It's just, earlier Impulse had a question, since his moss farm kept lagging, and Xisuma thought it would be easy enough to try to find the root cause of. And he did find the root cause of it--Impulse's farm is too fast and his storage simply doesn't keep up with the amount of moss--but there's... some other things...
He blinks again at the dates on the server files. The last edited dates. Slowly, he clicks again on his own player data, and tries to make sense of what he's reading. Files like this, they aren't really meant to be that human-readable. It's--well, it is mostly json, so it's mostly human-readable, actually, but a lot of it is still encrypted, for player safety, which would. Maybe explain what he's looking at? He thinks? He's--well, he does have root access, is the thing, because he's the admin, but he still shouldn't be able to look at any player willy-nilly.
He's a little too much of a derp to be trusted with that. He probably shouldn't even be looking at his data! It's just. That last edited date. Xisuma doesn't edit his own player data. That way lies madness. He's, uh, pretty sure he knows some people who went a little mad doing that. So the fact of the matter is--well, it's not the only file that's been edited recently, he tells himself. Just because it's a lot of memory files that seem to have been edited, as well as access permissions--that's... normal enough for a new season, right?
He's...
He doesn't notice his other self walk up behind him.
"Oh, hey Xisuma. You finished gathering materials for our next build, then?" Evil Xisuma says. All of Xisuma's hairs stand on end.
"I mean, I've gathered enough to get started," Xisuma says.
"Pity. I was really hoping you'd manage to get everything. I thought maybe we'd finish today, but I guess we can't now."
"I--you're right. I'm really sorry."
"No, no, don't worry, don't worry, my friend," Evil Xisuma says. "We probably couldn't have finished today anyway, even if you said you'd try for it."
Xisuma's heart is in his throat. "Sorry, my head's just been. You know how I am. Silly me, forgetting things."
Evil Xisuma shakes his head. "It's awfully lucky I came back this season. Think of all the important things you'd be forgetting without reminders!"
Xisuma looks down and away.
"Gosh, and now you're... playing around in the admin console?"
"Oh!" Xisuma says. "It's, er, nothing really big..."
"Can I see it?"
He barely resists the urge to close out of his player data and hide that's what he'd been looking at. He doesn't know why he wants to hide it. It's not like--well, if Evil Xisuma got mad about it, it would be... right, wouldn't it? Because, well, Xisuma knows full well he shouldn't be looking at or editing his own player data. Editing your own data is the way to madness, and Xisuma, well, he's been so tired lately. He could easily accidentally hit a button. He could easily accidentally hit delete. He has root access, after all.
His heart is in his throat again. He shuffles his feet. "Sure," he says, finally. "I, er, I promise, I wasn't doing anything. I just noticed the last edited date on, uh, files that aren't automatically created by the system? And I thought, gosh, that's weird. I'd only been in there to check on Impulse, really, after he'd had some lag issues. I was just finishing up. It's nothing--the date's weird, though, right? That's all I was noticing."
He watches Evil Xisuma's fingers scroll through all of Xisuma's data. It's not quite fast enough that Xisuma isn't sure he's reading it, and suddenly, Xisuma feels very small.
Finally, Evil Xisuma hands Xisuma's tablet with the admin console open back to him. Xisuma looks down, and Evil Xisuma has closed out of the player data again.
"You just forgot the last maintenance date," Evil Xisuma says.
"Really?" Xisuma says.
"Oh, yeah, for sure. You're so tired lately. You silly derp. You've just been forgetting things easily. You should really get more rest!"
"Oh, but then we won't finish our projects," Xisuma says.
"I guess we wouldn't," Evil Xisuma says back.
"It's just--it's. Most of the time, access permission for player memories isn't edited during maintenance, and I just--I don't remember putting your name down?"
"Why wouldn't you?"
Xisuma tries to think.
"I don't know," he says finally, small, unable to meaningfully articulate anything about what's wrong with it. "I guess it only makes sense, if I'm forgetting things so easily."
"Exactly! Gosh, we make a good team," Evil Xisuma says, and he smiles at Xisuma. Xisuma crookedly smiles back.
"Yeah, we do," Xisuma agrees.
"Don't pull that out again unless I say so, okay?"
"Okay," Xisuma agrees automatically, and then he knows he will not. It makes sense. If he was upsetting himself over nothing like this, why, imagine what he'd do if he could open it whenever? He'd just constantly be upsetting himself!
"Now, my friend, let's return to building the Evil Empire."
"Let's!" agrees Xisuma, and just like that, the entire encounter slips from his mind.
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