#Zonai script

[pocketseizure]

Ancient Zonai Script These characters are believed to have been used by the Zonai people. They have a different shape than the letters carved into the stone walls of Zonai ruins. You can often find them swirling in the illumination that hovers in the upper portions of the Shrines of Light.

Designer’s Note

There is an expression called kotodama [the “spirit of words,” or the illocutionary concept that the act of speaking certain words can affect reality], and the Zonai characters are intended to embody this image of “power.” Conceptually, the idea is that “Zonai energy is controlled by using these Zonai characters.” Inspired by surviving hieroglyphs from ancient times, this design is intended to evoke a sense of divinity, majesty, and awe.

By the way, did you notice that there are two types of Zonai script? One is the commonly used alphabet that you can find in locations like the sky islands. The other is an older and more powerful script whose use was only permitted to a limited number of people, such as royalty, priests, and shamanesses. This latter type is inscribed into the sealing helix used by King Rauru during the final battle against the Demon King in the Imprisoning War.

[niteshade925]

April 13, Xi'an, China, Shaanxi Archaeology Museum/陕西考古博物馆 (Part 2 - Shang and Zhou dynasty):

A 1:1 replica of a Warring States period (476 - 221 BC) horse chariot that was unearthed in an ancient tomb in Gansu province. The original artifact was made of lacquered wood, decorated with gold, silver, bronze, turquoise, and other semi-precious stones; it's basically the "Lamborghini" of its time. This replica was just sitting in the hallway in between exhibition halls, and it's very big:

Another one of my favorites, which is also one of the stars of the museum. These are called xizun/牺尊, which are animal-shaped bronze wine vessels (notice the lid on its back). This particular pair is "deer-shaped", but also has patterns on the sides that look like bird wings and paws that look like those of predators. Ugh they are so cute...🥺

A Western Zhou dynasty (1046 - 771 BC) "lunch box" made of bronze, called a luxu/录盨. It was found inside of a Western Han dynasty (202 BC - 8 AD) tomb, indicating that even Chinese people from 2000 years ago had an interest in collecting artifacts from earlier times

More bronze food/wine vessels from Shang dynasty (1600 - 1046 BC) and Zhou dynasty (1046 - 256 BC). Top one is called a gui/簋, bottom left is a gu/觚, and bottom right is a jue/爵. The tall-footed wine vessels can be used to warm up wine before drinking, by heating it with a small flame placed between the feet.

This is what a complete set of bronze vessels from Shang/Zhou dynasties looks like. This particular set, called "fanjin and thirteen vessels"/柉���十三器 (translated as "Altar Set") is currently at the Met. This diagram below gives the name of each vessel:

Bronze chariot decorations with turquoise inlays. The bronze would have looked golden back then

A little bronze dragon. Cute.

Late Western Zhou dynasty pendant made of jade and agate beads called a yupei/玉佩, and from what I can gather, this one should be part of a necklace, which would be one heavy necklace indeed. I feel like a lighter modern replica might go well with sweaters though:

Left: necklaces, bracelets, and armlets from Spring and Autumn period (770 - 476 BC). Right: another jade and agate yupei from Spring and Autumn period, but this one was probably supposed to be hung from the waist.

This one is known as the Rui Gong ding/芮公鼎 or "Cauldron of Duke Rui", which is a bronze tripod ritual vessel (known as ding/鼎). It is inscribed with the text "内(芮)公乍(作)铸口宫宝鼎，万年子孙永宝用", which roughly translates as "Duke Rui cast this treasured ding, may his descendants use it for ten thousand years to come".

More bronze vessels. The top two are ding/鼎 vessels. Sidenote: notice the right one......does it look familiar? I'm pretty sure the rectangular ding is one of the inspirations for the design of TotK's temple of time. Also note the design patterns...I'm fairly certain these are the inspiration for TotK's aesthetics. TotK's Zonai script is also clearly inspired by Seal script/篆书 (I do want to make a post on this but my hands are pretty full atm)

Gold decorations on accessories:

An (incomplete?) bianzhong/编钟 (bronze bell set) and bianqing/编磬 set. The pentagonal stone chimes on the bottom are part of the bianqing.

A paper that studied the oldest face cream found in China (link to the article on Nature for those who have access).

Wadang/瓦当 (decorative roof edges) from Warring States period featuring various animals and mythical creatures, and their moulds:

[ganondoodle]

(oh hey, we didnt have a long rant in a while, this wasnt supposed to be so long, as per usual with me ... i looked up some refs of the botw sonau ruins since i wanted to see how to combine its design to my sonau design in my totk rewrite- and this happened ... in case this sounds too angry or aggressive, its not meant like that, im not imploding about it, its just frustrating and annoying to me)

i have a problem with pretty much every inch of totk, and theres lots of big problems, and lots of things i find absolutely bafflingly stupid decisions-

one bafflingly weird and stupid decision to me, though there are way more important ones, is the nigh complete seperation from botw sonau (zonai) design aesthetic and totk sonau design aesthetic- its so .. weird and utterly unecessary it will never stop bothering me, its one that has relatively little impact in development but huge impact on the believability of the world

you have these ancient ruins of long gone people (that imo should have stayed a mystery, since that sense of lost history you cannot grasp makes both the world more believable and real feeling and will never let you stop thinking about, if you care about that kind of stuff at least- but i talked about that in length before im sure), but whats left leaves you still with a pretty clear design aesthetic, at least in the buildings that remain (the armor less so bc it really doesnt look like anythign ancient and just doesnt really fit together)

and then you make a game around them- but ... completely redesign their aesthetic .... in a rather big contrast too, for literally NO reason, there is not a single reason to do that, not even the excuse of trying to seperate the two games in their core aesthetic (like in the case of the shiekah- though that too is stupid bc ITS A DIRECT SEQUEL- IF YOU DONT WANT TO MAKE MORE OF THAT DESIGN THEME or leave it in for that matter THATS CORE TO THE PREVIOUS GAME DONT MAKE IT A DIRECT SEQUEL YOU DUM-) can do any work here, the botw sonau ruins werent many, it was background stuff, it wasnt a main theme and it didnt carry any importance in the game itself

like, botw sonau architecture was dark stone with red highlights (a color that usually fades rather quickly, imagine how strong it had to be once, maybe it was even more colorful at some point), bird, boar and dragon carvings, torches in bird shape, alot of swirls and round patterns among the blockier rough shapes, its was pretty detailed with patterns and pictures all over it --

totk sonau? blendingly white stone, all blocky shapes like unfinished blender models, not a swirl to be found, green hologram lights (or cold white light, i dont think there are any totk sonau torches, just those weird candle things- most light sources are lamps in impeccable shape all giving off that cold white light) and gold blocky script, theres rarely alot of detail on them, the pattern most often present beign a scale pattern ... one which i dont remember appearing anywhere on the botw sonau ruins in that way/that often, the only animal motif is a dragon head every now and then and it honestly feels tacked on, like they scrambled to try and connect the two in any way shape or form, white gold and green, theres nothing red anywhere, they neither connect to the botw sonau architecture nor to the one armor set- or its description, totk sonau have nothing to do with the phirone (faron) region (aside from that one quest that could have been placed anywhere), they are weirdly modern and techy, theres nothing "barbaric", not even their clothes are in any way connected (im so sick of all that gold tbh) even their magic isnt really .. magical, it all feels like science fiction type tech stuff (even though they said they wanted it to feel magical, couldnt be further from that tbh) the design of their magic symbols dont line up with their own building aesthetic or anyone elses even, its so messy

if you do the quest to get the fith sage its even more apparent- its the direct contrast between botw and totk sonau, its like a cut into a mod, theres no overlap, you cant argue that its bc the botw ruins where exposed to the elements and thats why the color differs- the totk sonau ruins left to rot both in the underground and in the literal sky are all just as if not more exposed, yet they all remain in rather good shape, all keeping the white and often completely colorless look, most damage being just some clumps of mold (?) or something having fallen over, and if they were protected so their color didnt change? wheres the red? the colors all should be in pristine shape then but its not bc there is no color

their excuse of "uuuh the hylians build those things in honor of the sonau!!" they tried to give doesnt work, like all other excuses, if they did why the hell does it look so different? sonau stuff was all over the place, you have the blueprints right there, WHY even build it? in those regions nonetheless that were of pretty little importance as far as we know, if this were the case they should be on the forgotten plateau or around hyrule castle but they are not- ALSO if the hylians built them for them .. so after they died out .. why then is there some weird mechanism with their actual aesthetic there in the ones in phirone? if they built it while they were still there ... why make it look so different?? ADDITIONALLY hyrules style of architecture is closer to the totk sonau one than the botw sonau so you cant even say it was influenced by their own style bc botws sonau is more different than both of them

it also adds to the .. feeling of something being off about the entire game (like it felt to me even shortly after starting to play), while i dont want to touch on the stupidness of how they handled totk shrines since thats another long rant i already did before, the sudden appearance of totk sonau style stuff literally everywhere (and the disappearance of anything not plot relevant shiekah bc it just went poof according to interviews and neither that nonsensical excuse nor anything in the game making sense- bc in the end they just wanted it gone and didnt care) would seem LESS weird if it was in the style of botw sonau, you know that style, its been here the whole time and more of it appearing would seem much less jarring, even if it doing so in completely non sensical ways- it would at least lessen that weirdness

i do not get why you would do that, did your designers have nothing to do so you made them make an entirely new aesthetic? did you not want your holy perfectly goodest god king to be anything but the most clean and kingly looking so you didnt even go for the barbaric idea from botw?(which i am not a fan of either) bc of course someone supposed to fill the role of perfect example of how to be good king of holy hyrule to zelda couldnt look "primitive"? was that given to the ancient hylians instead? with their designs going, to me, rather close to a mix of native american and ancient greek aesthetic (uh oh)- to contrast them to your superior alien that brought the idiots on earth technology since we didnt have enough tired tropes in here already? thought that design theme was more sellable? simply didnt care? (tbh, most likely in my eyes given the carelesness of the game to connect in any way to botw, much less in a meaningful one)

(those where written like questions but i dont expect anyone to answers for, it just sounds better)

[candy8448]

Thoughts on age of Imprisonment

Really long rant ahead:

These are me talking to my friend who very cassually plays zelda and knows generally the zelda lore and the older games

More thoughts:

Nooooooo i dont like thiss!!! I thought ppl were just speculation with a fourth wild era game but i thought it wouldnt happen, i REALLY DIIDNT WANT it to happen, im so tired of it. Nintendo is just milking it so painfully

This game has no character to it!

In botw, the great calamity was mentioned EVERYWHERE in the game, tied in at every moment, the world was affected and newly recovering from the great calamity, it was the biggest part of the game! The champions were super well fleshed out characters, their relationships with the new champions, as well as their relationships and impact on bith link and zelda were important, the game made you fall in love with the champion's characters, the champions ballad dlc made me cry. Each champion had a completely different and compelling personality and character development making you really care about them... the ancient sages in totk have no character to them at all. They are wise calm reagle people who apear in a single curscene each for like two mins. They have no personality, they all look the exact same with the same outfits which look boring, they have no connections to the characters apart for being the same races and the new sages, they all have basically the exact same script!! and we dont even know their names!!!

Totk's weakest point i think are the memories they were executed in the worst way possible that they felt completely detached to the actual game. The imprisoning war had no effect on the world, we learn nothing of it (the deapths and sky islands doesnt even connect to the story well, they are kinda just there "as a result of ganon" but it sucks! We know nothing of the imprisoning war! It happened IN ONE SINGLE MEMORY CUTSCENE AND THAT ALL WE GET OF IT

Botw had the great calamity so fleshed out, we knew so much of what happened down to akala citadel and the routes the champions took back to their divine beasts!

The themes of all the characters in botw are so good! The champio s had their entirely different styles and characteristics, totk has the same monotonous boring zonai rocks and patterns on everything its so boring

This is totk criticism but i never liked or cared abiut the zonai even in botw, it was cool seeing the ancient mystery civilisation, but thatw as all that the theorists were hyperfixationg like MAD on, like every channel and i couldnt care less. But totk came and cashed in on that and just made the zonai the most boring and least creative thing ever. All that mystery traded for meaningless who cares about them, no fleshed out, nothing. All we know is that they were the civilisation that founded hyrule but we dint actually know anything abiut them or their culture, the yiga who were new to botw had lore that tied in well with existing lore and tribes and had such fun personality, the bananas and ego, which the zonai completely lack anything. Also the style is completely different. The zonai ruins in botw have completely and utterly different architecture to the totk zonai that they may as well be different tribes, i dont like them, so playing them in aoi will be so boring cuz i dont care about them at all

We also dont know anything about the ganon's allies, they are all namelss gerudo warriors which is so boring. At least with astor, he was probably the person who provided the prophecy that we know so much about, at least the yiga were interesting characters, at leadt there were the corrupt divine beasts and blight ganons, there were so many interesting villians on that side. Totk/aoi will have what? Ganon... he doesnt even have any character or personality or goals other than main villian like that is so insanely boring, i dont have any motive to want to fight in the imprisoning war

And thats where i think the outlier between age of calamity being great and age of imprisonment going to be bad. AoC fed off of the knowledge, the adoration for the characters and things and lore we were given in botw, crafting it into a love letter of a game to botw, we were hyped to see the champions and to play as them, there was a reason to want to play it to see all these things we know of the lore play out before out eyes

Whearas AoI we know nothing about the imprisoning war. It had no effect on the world, we have barely 3 mins worth of lore on it, we have zero conection to it at all. The ancient sages dont have anything to them and we dont care about them, so why would we want to play as them? I bet they will all have the exact same fighting style as the champions in botw, and we've already seen the new sages and their fighting style in aoc. Sure it will be slightly different due to their sage powers but it wont be anything that special. There is no lore we will be excited to see unfolding in front of us, we have no emotions or connection to these events other than diconnected cutscenes that dont have any impact. Even raru and sonya are so painfully boring, just the kind and fair and powerful founders on hyrule who talk the same calm way as their sages, its so incredibly boring. The zonai have no culture, lore or personality thay is in any way interesting, and they will be so boring to play cuz every character will end up being a zonai character probably most likely. Also link wont be there, so they will have to find some arbitrary way for him to be here, maybe aoc link, which just does not work at all with the lore of totk that we know it just wont work!!

The roster im guessig will be: raru, sonia, zelda, ancient sages, new sages, link, terrako, ganon

If botw was meant to be courage, aoc meant to be power and totk meant to be wisdom, then what is aoi? The lil middle bit? The nothing?

Idk im sad about this game existing, it only exist so that nintendo can milk the crazy amounts of money botw and totk made. I miss when each zelda game was a passion project from the developer, even botw was that but then totk and aoi...

I was actively not wanting a new wild era game, the art style has now gotten so boring im so tired of it even if it is good, im tired of the grand scale game in the same hyrule for THE FOURTH TIME! Let me remind you, A ZELDA GAME HAS NEVER REVISITED THE SAME HYRULE BEFORE TIL THE WILD ERA

Even eow im tired of the style because its the same iversaturated artstyle and plastic toy look of every other nintendo game and series and it doesnt have that much if its own personality like every single zelda game does, it just reuses the links awakening style (which is really cute and fits la but not eow) and doesnt have its own identity like every zelda game does its so sad

Also we've been here for so long, botw released in 2017, was announced years before that, we've been mingling in this era for 8+ years meanwhile no hero has done that before! Oot and mm released one year apart then that hero was retired, the hero of legend had four games but didnt run anywhere this long even with oot and mm releasing in the middle of his games, im so tired of the wild era and i so so so want to move on

[pitchblackespresso]

The greatest love triangle in the Switch Zelda games

Is not between Link, Zelda and Mipha. It is these three

Hear me out.

Paya and Tauro are already a fairly popular ship in the fandom, with mild basis in canon (more on that later). What fewer people bring up is Tauro's other not-so-secret admirer: The humble (Dr!) Calip.

This man is known best for two things: being the nuisance stopping us from even just looking in the direction of the floating ring ruin until its quest, and, more relevant here, his nigh obnoxious ego. All he strives for is fame and recognition, yet in the midst of his self-aggrandazing ramblings, he expresses admiration for one man only: Tauro. Here's what he writes in his diary (found next to his bed, in his room that he happens to share with Tauro)

As self-absorbed as Calip is, he deigns Tauro to be worthy of his admiration, meaning he holds Tauro in high regard. However, an unexpected competitor vies for Tauro's attention: enter Paya.

The newly appointed Kakariko chief starts to learn about the Zonai ruins for the sake of her people, and becomes unexpectedly good at it. It is implied that Tauro spends a fair bit of time teaching her and assisting her with research, culminating in Paya learning to read Zonai script. This, well, does not sit well with Calip, as he cannot stand the idea of Tauro's precious praise going to another. Here's an exchange that happens when Link shows them a photo of the Zonai inscriptions inside the floating ring ruins, and Paya deciphers a word that left even Tauro stumbled:

Calip's response: jealousy at Tauro praising another, especially Calip's greatest rival!

So Calip proceeds to promptly put Paya back in her place by instead deducting that the place the script is referring to must be the Zonai Ruins in Faron. When Tauro praises him in turn, Calip exceedingly gloats about this, even attempting to turn the word "fantastic" into a pet phrase between him and his most admired person

Alas, Calip may have lost the race already. For you see, Tauro seems to have set eyes on someone else. This detail is already somewhat known, but when looking above Tauro's bed in Kakariko (and we know it is Tauro's bed because of the extra cushions to compensate for his size), something interesting hangs on the wall

A portrait of Paya.

And we know it is Paya because of the red Sheikah eye, the red ribbons, and even the red eye make-up all matching Paya perfectly.

Now why would Tauro have a picture of Paya, somebody he spent a great deal of time with studying ancient relics they are both passionate about, someone he (by his own words) greatly admires, hanging above his bed? So she may watch over his dreams?

My condolences Calip, but it seems Tauro and Paya would indeed make a fantastic couple.

[loz-chainsofcorruption]

Headcanons on Gerudo?

Comment or reblog with any and all headcanons you may have for the Gerudo people! We've got some information on them, of which I'll list under the cut (do tell me if I got anything wrong or am missing anything)

But there's a lot that could be filled out, so I'm curious of y'all's thoughts since I'll be working on a project that will heavily involve the Gerudo. I'm especially curious on any thoughts regarding the males since there's not much information there. Like, we only ever see Ganondorf, unfortunately. How old do you think the male must be before he officially takes the throne (Riju is 12 when she takes the throne I believe, but is that because there was no other blood relative to take charge until she got older? Would the throne auto be handed to the male as soon as he was old enough, or would the chief keep ruling until he was a certain age? And how old even is "of age"? The girls in the dating/how to deal with voe class look like full on adults) Do you think his contact with girls that haven't come of age is limited? Do you think he takes a lot of wives so he can help populate the Gerudo with more full blooded Gerudo? Or only one wife?

But honestly I'll take ANY headcanons. I'd love to absorb some things for this project òwó

Reblogs to help more people see this would be much appreciated

What we know:

They live in the desert

They're often, but not always, thieves

They're tough, resourceful warriors (they seem to use scimitars, even duel weilding, spears, swords/claymores, bow and arrows, and shields)

They're mostly female, ruled by a chief, but one male, who becomes king, is born to them every 100 years (though that is so odd to me because 100 years is not a very long time and it's just like? Never mentioned beyond the fact that it's a thing? There's never "oh yeah the past king, my mom/grandma knew that guy". Like. It always feels more like hundreds of years go by... And "they only have male children if the previous guy is dead and since Ganondorf was sealed and not dead, they didn't have any" doesn't make sense because if Ganondorf was alive at the very founding of Hyrule, as that's where the Zonai are placed in the timeline, that would mean a male was straight up not born throughout the entirety of history, right? Any thoughts?)

They're not a fan of outsiders but especially are against men entering their area, unless, perhaps, they have proven themselves somehow (except like, in FSA? According to the encyclopedia, they're kinder to outsiders as a way to reform ties with Hylians after being driven out)

They leave home to find partners amongst Hylians and, at least in botw, the married women don't typically come back except to sell their wares according to Spera (though we don't ever see them settled down anywhere outside of Gerudo Town? Where they at? We know at least one mama came back bcuz a guy is in jail wanting to see his wife and kid, and we also know at least one vai who does stay with her hubby, but that's all? So idk) - their children go back to live with the other Gerudo until they're of age

Their family name comes before their given name

They seem to have their own religion

They have their own language and script

The position of chief is sometimes passed down from mother to daughter (like in the case of Riju), but sometimes seems to be a case of having to prove oneself (Dohna from EoW) (perhaps this has to do with the wishes of the previous chief, whether they want it passed down to their child or for it to be a sort of competition of who deserves it the most)

[pomgore]

master kohga and blademaster sooga headcanons

hey guys welcome back to my youtube channel

after a few weeks of replaying ToTK i got yiga brainworms again and thought i'd elaborate some of my thoughts on the timeline of kohga and the yiga clan, as well as a sort-of AU where sooga is a part of the canon timeline and joins the yiga clan about a decade before the events of BoTW, as opposed to being present and established in the clan during AoC. worth mentioning that this is a) wildly self indulgent and b) just my little ideas, not something i think Should be true but rather i think would be interesting and fun and sexy if it were true, and c) its long. its so long guys i have too many ideas.

disclaimer: not all of the relationship dynamics described below are entirely safe or sane, although all of them are consensual. if this were a fanfic it would probably warrant the tag "under-negotiated kink." reader beware! in particular some of these headcanons address the sorta-controvery surrounding how kohga and sooga first met (and whether it makes their relationship Unconscionable), so, you know. read at your own discretion, and if you don't like it then call it quits !

headcanons and doodles under the cut

kohga

ohhh kohga. oh this guy.

born a sheikah some 40-50 years before the calamity to an esteemed family with expertise in the Esoteric Arts of the sheikah clan (namely magic). kohga was also trained in these arts and upon maturity (traditionally age 20 per my miscellaneous hyrule kingdom hcs) joined the direct service of the royal family, in essence a spy and enforcer where may.

was also educated in hyrule's history (per sheikah tradition) and excelled in historical political theory/analysis. when he wasn't working in the royal family's service he was often nose deep in some thousand-year-old manuscript on zora/hylian trade economy. huge dweebus

as a result of his interest in scholarly pursuits kohga was put on a historian track alongside his service to the kingdom. he became privileged with a lot of restricted or forgotten records on hyrule's history and was eventually admitted entry to the shadow temple for study of its ancient carvings and scripts. the shadow temple served the same purpose as it did in OoT (although at the time of kohga's admittance was falling out of use), and it has a similar taboo of discussion so kohga is understandably shocked to learn that the sheikah were/are torturing enemies of the crown for information/disobedience.

the first seed of rebellion is planted upon kohga's discovery of the purpose of the shadow temple, but kohga felt he didn't understand the purposes of the kingdom well enough to put up a fuss about the morality of their methods (and, being in service to the kingdom had already done his fair share of morally dubious things on behalf of the royal family) so he continued his studies of the shadow temple's edifices and tried not to think too hard about what he was seeing or hearing while present. who knows, maybe violence is a necessary evil for hylia's blessed lineage !

i think that the thyphlo ruins in botw/totk are the remains of the shadow temple. like hey it makes sense. maybe built on top of an even older ruin dedicated to hyrule's history initially as a monument to the richness of the kingdom (and zonai stuff if we're including totk canon, which atp i'm disinclined to do LOL) which later devolved into the place where the kingdom's Richness was Effectuated. also cmon in botw its literally a shadowy ruin of a temple like it makes sense guys

while pursuing his studies and translating ancient hyrulean kohga kept uncovering epitaphs to conquered rulers and kingdoms and eventually pieces together the kingdom of hyrule's history of subjugating hyrule the continent's societies. the offenses against the gerudo were especially egregious but there was a story for each race of a "too-uppity" leader trying to cecede/reclaim/counter-conquer regions of the expanding hyrule kingdom and getting absolutely thrashed by hyrule's armies and the secretive, vicious race of the sheikah. second seed of rebellion is planted.

at some point kohga's fellow scholars noticed how much time he was spending at the shadow temple and collectively agreed to keep an eye on him. kohga was far from the first sheikah to pay undue attention to the blights on hyrule's noble history

a recurring character in hyrule's more mythological history, the demon king/demise/ganon, caught kohga's attention as a) a uniquely vicious opponent to the various heroes of hyrule's history and b) often manifesting in the form of a revolutionary or dissident, usually amassing popular support before engaging counteroffensives to the kingdom of hyrule. there was some troubling rhetoric about becoming the lord of all hyrule and destroying the world associated with this figure, who is sometimes depicted as a god and sometimes a man, but kohga, familiar with the historical practice of exaggerating "the enemy" figure's cruelty, took this to be embellishment by hylian historians.

around the height of kohga's research on the shadow temple, where he was filling in blanks in the readily-accessible sheikah historical records with what he uncovered at the temple, the sheikah's relationship with the royal family (already strained due to the "ugly" history of the sheikah and the lessened applications of the sheikah's talents during times of peace) was soured nearly to the point of irrevocable damage. haven't worked out all the details on this idea yet but essentially some sus sheikah operation under orders from the royal family is uncovered and spreads to other societies, who become suspicious that the hylian kingdom is about to go through another expansion period/start exerting more direct influence over the peoples of other regions. almost every sheikah in service to the kingdom (with the notable exception of high-status families like impa&purah&robbie's lineage) were dismissed and the sheikah were forced into an even sterner isolation from the rest of hyrule. they began suffering with resource scarcity as a result, along with general marginalization from the other peoples of hyrule. SO MANY seeds of rebellion in kohga's heart! ultimately kohga was still not driven to action because he suffered less in his own family's privilege (problematic!kohga)

while the sheikah were still out of favor with the rest of hyrule kohga continued his research, now moving towards a specialization in the stories of the demon king/demise/ganon throughout history. eventually he was approached by fellow sheikah, who expressed that his fascination with the demon king in this time of uncertainty towards the sheikah might be Misconstrued. in turn kohga pointed them towards the ways in which the sheikah were used by the kingdom of hyrule for their own (usually reprehensible) ends and how time and time again the sheikah were the ones who were mistrusted and reviled for things that the kingdom ordered them to do. kohga gained some of his first followers this way before he even really organized a counter-movement, but so too did he gain his first opponents after expressing his first radical opinions to less radical minds.

not long after this kohga was summoned by the presiding elder of the sheikah for a private discussion on the dangers of the restricted knowledge kohga was privileged to. the intent in revealing that information to kohga and permitting his studies in the shadow temple was to produce more reasons for the sheikah to work loyally beneath the royal family in service of the will of the goddess, with revelations related to the consequences of Not Doing That equally abundant in the histories of the shadow temple's records. the elder said that this time of misdoubt will pass and the sheikah will be called upon again in recognition of their worth. kohga said many things to the effect of but what about now and why should we let the world believe we are the wicked ones when we're not and the royal family wasn't always the authority over all hyrule and maybe they shouldn't be now, all of which earned him the reproach of the elder and those most loyal to the elder, the royal family and the goddess hylia, given the understanding that hylia directly blessed the royal family with the right to govern hyrule with benevolence. kohga officially declared that particular understanding bullshit given the royal family's demonstrated lack of benevolence and as a result loses faith in the stories he's been told about the goddess.

worth mentioning up until this point i think kohga did believe in the goddess and prayed to her/practiced rituals associated with her common to most sheikah. he wasn't particularly devout, given the religion was inherited rather than "found", but during the in-between of the sheikah being ousted from the monarchal government and the culmination of kohga's radicalization, he probably clung to the idea of the goddess as best he could, hoping that if she was truly merciful and favored the sheikah, she would do something to clear their name and bring them prosperity again. desperate, embittered prayer in the middle of the night to an unmoved carven effigy.

as a result of kohga's increasing desperation towards the idea of hylia, his investigation on demise brings him to extend his scope to stories of the goddesses and their interactions with this demon king. since this was more mythology than history it fell outside of kohga's expertise but he did his diligence in finding patterns in the narratives of hylia and the goddess's wars with the incarnations of demise. the stories predictably favored hylia and reviled demise, but when demise incarnated as ganondorf and suddenly hylians took hylia's role and non-hylians, most of all the gerudo, were synecdochic to demise, kohga realized that stories of hylia served foremost to justify the hylian kingdom's conquest of hyrule, and the means by which they did so. he came to associate hylia with the deceit of the kingdom and demise with those scapegoated for the kingdom's crimes. he also discussed these analyses and the unfairness of the sheikah's present situation with other sheikah. you can see where this is going.

in light of kohga's dissenting faction beginning to spread throughout the already-diminished sheikah kohga was brought in public fashion before the elder for another "discussion" (this time more of an outright argument) where the elder tried to convince a increasingly disillusioned kohga of the nobility of enduring disrespect for the rewards of a (distant) future and the grace of the goddess, and kohga argued back that things need to change now and the sheikah deserve more respect than to be the kingdom's ugly mark on its beautiful and contrived face. this went on in a loud and dramatic fashion, and when kohga left the town following the fight people were pretty sure he wouldn't come back.

kohga went to the shadow temple but was intercepted by hylian soldiers, who kohga p much cussed out as he went on his way. the soldiers followed him and nearly got to the shadow temple before sheikah (not inclined to kohga's point of view but neither inclined to let non-sheikah discover the temple) intercepted them and turned them away with stern warnings. the soldiers went back to the castle and spread word of a secret temple only sheikah were permitted to enter. this story becomes quickly warped.

kohga returned to the sheikah town after some few days spent in the shadow temple (all the while dreaming strange dreams) to find the sheikah in the midst of a religious schism related to the ideas kohga propounded days earlier. kohga, now motivated to action by the injustice of the situation kohga leapt into the fray on the side of his own faction, demanding that the sheikah stand up for themselves and assert who they truly are to the rest of the world rather than hiding behind notions of kingdoms and goddesses and divine wills. despite the participation of many sheikah in this argument on both sides, sometimes with scuffles even breaking out between members of opposed factions, the elder named kohga alone as an exile and demanded he leave and take his fractious ideas with him. kohga demanded in turn to stay put, and was forcibly escorted from the town by sheikah fighters, some of whom he once worked alongside in service to the crown. kohga condemned all of them as frauds and cowards and went alone into the wide world.

for a while kohga tried proselytizing to travelers he met on the road but the opinion of the sheikah was as low as it had ever been and, being a sheikah of some nobility, kohga's forehead was tattooed with the eye of the sheikah and he couldn't escape his associations with the clan no matter where he went. eventually other sheikah who followed him into exile caught up with him and they worked together to sustain themselves and survive, in the meantime discussing the nature of the injustices they'd faced. they organized as a small group with kohga as the de facto leader. this is sort of the proto-establishment of the yiga clan.

not long after kohga and the defected sheikah left, the first remnants of ancient sheikah technology associated with the calamity of 10,000 years ago were uncovered.

kohga decided to take his little club to the shadow temple and show them some of what he'd learned of the kingdom's past. as they came upon the temple they saw a red glow above the trees and witnessed the active destruction of the shadow temple by not only royal soldiers but members of the sheikah clan. the rest of the defected sheikah, seeing their own clansmen there, didn't proceed into the temple, but beyond all of kohga's vitriol towards his former clan and the kingdom he felt a deep connection to the history documented in the shadow temple, and seeing it razed to the ground he went and tried to enter the burning ruin. he was initially hindered by the soldiers and the sheikah, but he threw all of them off and went into the actively crumbling ruin.

descending to the lowest chamber where murals and bas-reliefs of demise were made, kohga in his abject hatred and desperation dropped to his knees and prayed to the demon king for a way to preserve all he knew of the crimes of hylia's lineage, and a way to lay those crimes at their feet. in the deep and dark, kohga's prayers were answered. to preserve his knowledge, his hylian soul was unmade and replaced with the soul of a monster, as to make him functionally immortal and bind him irrevocably to the demon king. i think this process works something like trading essences with the horned statue. the demon king didn't need to give kohga a way to have his revenge, because all of his anger and betrayal and power and charisma were already present and already manifesting the means by which his revenge would be had. when kohga left the smoldering ruin of the shadow temple behind, he looked no different than when he entered (although as time passed this would change) but his sense of purpose was magnified immensely.

now at last we come to the events of the calamity and botw! kohga established a broader following in the handful of years between his prayer and the calamity (it's around this time that link and zelda became prominent names and thusly rose to the top of kohga's shitlist--a goddess incarnate and her stupidly talented protector were of course enemies two and one) and once the calamity occurred he amassed a great deal of followers desperate for explanations and purpose that the yiga clan could offer. kohga definitely came into his own as a leader at this time, and his promises of a changed world under the guidance of demise as well as people to blame for their suffering were attractive to the terrified and desolated masses.

from there it kind of proceeds as one would expect of the outlined history. kohga does well leading but his followers' boundless loyalty and enthusiasm give him the leeway to get lazy, he gets his hand into as many peoples' business as he possibly can and becomes incredibly meddlesome, incredibly influential and as a result incredibly dangerous, and as he amasses all of this power begins losing sight of the original offenses that raised his alarms with WRT hyrule's kingdom and the sheikah. he endorses violence easily, first against "oppressors" and then against whoever would stand against the yiga, and by the time link rises from the dead kohga is a firmly established player in post-calamity hyrule.

the mythology of kohga himself among yiga and the rest of hyrule's people alike can vary. some people think kohga is an inherited title carried by many people for the hundreds of years the yiga have been around, some people think kohga is an incarnation of demise, some people think he sold his soul for power, some pople think he doesn't exist. kohga doesn't bother clarifying one way or the other.

as far as the functions of kohga's "immortality" go, being a monster by technicality, if he dies (always by unnatural causes, he doesn't age after his prayer to demise) he returns to life with the blood moon. between his death and resurrection he floats around as a little poe. because i think thats cute :3 after calamity ganon is sealed away by zelda, kohga still has his monster's soul but cannot return to life if he dies, so he is Extra Careful (dying is still painful and unpleasant and cosmically inconceivable for kohga no matter how many times he does it--really only a couple times--so he tries to avoid it even while capable of "respawning") from then on.

having watched a great deal of people live and die, initially caring about many of them but learning to distance himself as they went on dying, kohga as a rule doesn't make close interpersonal connections. he's pretty good at pretending he cares about someone but otherwise tries to keep his heart close and protected. this of course goes out the window when he becomes close to sooga.

sooga

since kohga's life was lived on a much grander scale and he had a hand in many significant events related to sheikah history, i think it would be apt for sooga's life to cover a smaller scale, involving regular people with insignificant lives.

born about seventy years after the calamity to a half-gerudo mother and a hylian father (i'm thinking he was from hateno? sooga's grandfather might have been a soldier stationed at the fort there) who live semi-nomadically and in general poverty. sooga wasn't born in gerudo town or to a mother who put significance on her heritage so it wasn't necessarily odd that sooga was born a male child, but his mother's lingering gerudo superstitions did make her relationship with sooga a little uneasy even when he was a baby.

since the calamity a couple of things have changed in hyrule, most notably a) the sheikah reconciled with the royal family before the calamity due to their knowledge of the ancient sheikah technology and artifacts and b) post calamity, the yiga are far from the only criminal organization to have formed of the vestiges of hyrule's civilization, and groups of opportunist bandits and thugs who threaten vulnerable folks for money are common to find. with the shaky restoration of hyrule's armies in the later decades after the calamity some of these bandits are routed, but they're still far from Under Control.

that being said sooga's mother and father, being poor and desperate, get involved with some of these petty criminal organizations and end up owing more money than they can pay back. one day while sooga is about five the loan sharks take his father away and sooga nor his mother ever see him again.

sooga's mother is still under threat of the sharks having taken out her own loans she's failed to repay, so while struggling as a merchant she begins taking sooga south to the gerudo, hoping to find refuge in her hometown with her kid. traveling from necluda to the gerudo region is a pretty tall order for a lone mother and a young child, and they are being pursued by criminals, so this journey is incredibly difficult on sooga's mother and sooga as a result. as sooga grows up his childhood is characterized by perpetual fear and hardship. his poorly health as a consequence of hard living creates another financial burden on his mother.

sooga and his mother make it to the gerudo desert when sooga is fourteen years old, managing to lose the pursuant criminals once the climate of the desert heads them off. this period of the trip is the most desperate for sooga and his mother, who barely survive off of raw plants and fruits they can find in the desert without being able to cook the necessary foods or elixirs to make it through the desert easily. passing through kara kara bazaar and strangers taking pity on them and offering food and water is probably the only way they survive through the very last leg of the journey.

they arrive at gerudo town on sooga's fifteenth birthday. though the calamity didn't have a profound effect on the gerudo save an increase in monster activity and trade suffering, the superstitions of gerudo culture stipulate that even though sooga hasn't matured, he is not welcome in gerudo town. sooga's mother is faced with either leaving the desert with her son (if they even survive the return journey, they have nowhere to go and loan sharks will be waiting) or going into gerudo town alone.

sooga and his mother live just outside of gerudo town for three days, and on the morning of the fourth day sooga wakes up alone. for a while sooga begs and barters outside of gerudo town, trying anything he can think of to get the guards to let him in, and although they pity him and bring him as much food and drink as they possibly can to sustain him, they can't let him in. when sooga understands he's been well and truly left behind, he wanders off into the desert, expecting to die there. (sidebar: no hate on sooga's mom. i think it's stupid how women are expected to sacrifice their lives for their children in mother-child narratives. but sooga's the main character here so it seems like she's the bad guy)

sooga wanders for about a month, mostly sustained by food the gerudo gave him which (if sooga were of a sound mind and able to ration it, it would have gotten him well past the desert). sort of stumbling around half blind he doesn't exactly have a destination, save finding somewhere suitable to die (his angst is half his upbringing and half being fifteen years old). it's in the midst of his roaming, on the verge of collapse, that sooga is found by two yiga footsoldiers and taken to the karusa valley hideout.

sooga is taken before kohga, who is none too thrilled with having a half-dead teenager thrown at his feet and after finger-wagging at the yiga footsoldiers for a little while, facilitates sooga's recovery and when sooga is lucid again, kohga explains that he, master of the yiga clan, saved sooga's life and so now sooga can either go back out into the desert and live his life as he sees fit, under the pretense that he never raises a hand against the yiga clan for the rest of his life, OR he can join the yiga clan! sooga, who is by now familiar with the consequences of unpaid debts and considers himself insurmountably indebted to kohga, says that he will join the yiga clan.

yes kohga met sooga when sooga was a teenager. everyone take a moment to clutch your pearls and let's move on.

sooga is sort of collectively raised by kohga and the yiga clan, since he doesn't really Belong to anybody and so his specialty isn't inherited (holdover sheikah traditions) he gets training in every field of yiga expertise and, once fully recovered from the health complications of his uprbinging, proves to be incredibly talented and doubly enthusiastic. life and purpose and community have been bestowed upon him by the benevolence of master kohga! he works very hard to be worthy of these gifts. in the meantime, living among a large settled community for the first time, sooga also learns How To interact With Other People. this may be the only thing he does not excel at.

upon witnessing sooga's immense talent kohga decides to train sooga in some of the more esoteric sheikah techniques that few yiga have the disciple to take on. sooga is essentially fast-tracked through the yiga ranks once it's clear that he's kohga's star pupil, and when kohga is seventeen he a) becomes the youngest blademaster ever honored as such among the yiga and b) realizes he has a massive, profound, potentially life-ruining infatuation with master kohga. i think that having his life saved and given meaning by a charismatic, powerful older man during his formative adolescent years would probably definitely permanently alter sooga's brain. i know it would mine !

later the same year sooga is dispatched on a rite-of-passage blademaster assignment where the newly-minted blademaster is sent to a region far away from the yiga headquarters to attend to whatever duties necessitate the blademaster's intercession there--in practice this is mostly monitoring comers and goers, keeping in contact with the blademaster network while learning to wrangle their assigned footsoldier detachment, but sometimes can entail intimidation, enforcement, and hit-work based on whether a person of interest to the yiga is in the area to which the blademaster is assigned. sooga is sent with two more experienced blademasters all the way to akkala, and refines his yiga talents there for the better part of three years (nothing particluarly exciting happens during this dispatch, the trio mostly camps out by robbie's lab and spies on him and steals his paper deliveries).

sooga returns to karusa valley with his skills honed to near-perfection and having matured to adulthood in his 20th year, and when he comes back he is so very competend and beautiful that kohga a) takes notice and b) has a crisis. more on that later. sooga of course doesn't take notice because kohga goes to pains to hide it and he's all wrapped up in his own pining angst.

sooga spends five years as a blade master, and at age 25 is promoted to master kohga's right hand, the second highest station a member of the yiga clan can occupy and a role that has not been occupied for some twenty-odd years following the death of the previous right hand. during the events of botw, sooga is 28 years old (but has old man energy. bro has lived a LIFE and he's not even 30 yet.)

kohga and sooga

i like drawing kohga laying on lavish pillows can u tell

kohga's crisis is twofold: first, based on undisputed cultural mores suviving from pre-calamity times, kohga is afraid he is a freak creep nasty cradle robbing pervert for becoming attracted to (and later falling in love with) his once-pupil sooga. understandably so! second, because kohga is no longer human (in the sense that all the races of hyrule are "human" by virtue of souls, sentience, favored by the narrative in opposition to monsters, etc) he'll have to reckon with sooga's death one day and even before then might somehow insinuate himself close enough to sooga that sooga takes notice of his inhumanity, which kohga has never allowed to happen with anyone else and does not intend to start with sooga.

sooga's crisis is threefold: first, in mirror to kohga's first crisis, sooga's attraction to kohga is based not in small part on the way they met and the interactions they had when sooga was still considered a youth. like kohga saved sooga's life and made him into a nonpareil whose life had purpose and whose presence was wanted, and who wouldn't fall in love with the man responsible? but because kohga saved sooga's life and cared for him and tutored him while sooga was still a youth, sooga's attraction is complicated by its impropriety. does not help that sooga as a high-ranking blademaster and later a right hand is in almost constant proximity with kohga AND that literally almost every yiga knows how they met, so sooga couldn't come up with a more seemly lie even if he wanted to. second, related to the former, sooga has unwaveringly priced kohga as a good and honorable man (to other yiga anyway) who is also familiar with the circumstances of their meeting, and as a result probably wouldn't have sooga even if sooga did approach him with his feelings. third, sooga is absolutely dependent on the yiga clan to give him purpose, and if he somehow screwed up his working relationship with master kohga enough that he wanted to leave, he would have nowhere to go and no-one to be. sooga would probably kill himself before jeopardizing his place within the yiga clan, and his weird unseemly feelings about his master are, to him, too much of a risk to voice.

while sooga is pretty much a pro at bottling up his feelings and shoving the cork all the way down the neck of the bottle, kohga deals with his feelings less gracefully, often unable to stop himself from favoring sooga or getting close to him/comfortable with him and generally making it kind of embarrassingly obvious he has a thing for sooga. this interspliced with kohga's own angst about his feelings creates a sort of weird tension in kohga and sooga's working relationship, where kohga is very friendly and sometimes outright affectionate, but always seems to be holding himself back a great deal and cannot be made to say even one sincere or sentimental thing in sooga's presence, which sooga notices but can't diagnose. sooga is a bit obtuse woops.

while i'm undecided on a lot of events regarding the catalyst of their relationship/who confesses first/etc etc etc, i think that the loss of sooga's eye (probably a month or two after sooga is promoted to right hand) in a fight with the gerudo while defending kohga is what finally gets kohga to be sincere in sooga's presence. sooga up to this point has had a lot of scares (and given kohga a lot of scares) with near-death encounters but this one is officially Too Much for kohga and he almost breaks down while sooga's in recovery. when sooga is lucid again he gets the scolding of his life from kohga, which is pretty much kohga very angrily listing all the ways that sooga is important to him and coming up with creative threats for if sooga tries to throw himself on the sword for kohga againor if demise forbide he Dies. sooga still doesn't Figure It Out but he takes kohga's threats to heart and starts honing the talent of shoving a lackey in front of a sword instead of taking the hit himself (still not very good at this).

after this kohga is a bit more emotionally open to sooga, but this only makes all that he's holding back more obvious to sooga. sooga Still Doesnt Figure It Out

i do think sooga is the one who confesses. again under what circumstances, i don't know, but no way in hell is kohga confessing first.

once they are together, kohga's worries about their relationship early on are a very tricky obstacle for he and sooga to navigate, made more difficult by sooga's steadfast beliefs as to what their relationship Should Be. the reservations kohga had about their previous relationship as master and pupil are compounded with their current statuses, where sooga is still subordinate to him. he wants very badly to be equals with sooga, but sooga is flat out obsessed with being in service to master kohga, like he won't let go of the life debt thing and he just plain doesn't want to be kohga's equal, since thus far his life has been defined by serving kohga's will. sooga doesn't want to be considered equal to kohga because he thinks he just Isn't. it's a violation of chain of command, its an egregious assertion of pride, its bla bla bla.

the compromise here is probably sooga-sided, but i think they get around the question of equality by instead making sure that one's power over the other's is balanced, as opposed to removing power dynamics from the equation altogether. even before they engage a romantic relationship sooga exerts plenty of influence on kohga, convincing him of smarter paths/better allies/whether mercy should be offered to an enemy (usually not), he holds sway over kohga's decision making and also plenty of power within the yiga hierarchy in his own right. so eventually sooga agrees that, if kohga must have power over him then he must also have power over kohga, which in practice manifests as sooga overruling kohga's more wild flights of fancy and asserting himself when he is certain kohga is about to make a Bad Call. in turn kohga is still sooga's master, bosses him around when they're in public and leaves him a lot of the more boring administrative work, but when they're alone together there isn't an interplay of status to necessarily consider, and any power dynamics they mess around with in sexual contexts are for fun.

worth noting that for sooga, kohga being his "master" is at least partially related to a sexual sort of fascination sooga has with being specifically kohga's subordinate--again, i do think sooga's attraction to kohga was directly informed by how they met. if this were 21st century planet earth it would be wise for sooga to actually discuss this with kohga to ensure that both of them were on the same page, but since they're in [mumbles time period] hyrule it's more implicit. kohga later discovers the sexual appeal in their power dynamic with sooga's (comparatively) enthusiastic guidance.

relatedly: if this were 21st century planet earth sooga would have an absolutely mind boggling daddy kink.

kohga's desperate terror of losing sooga and sooga's own terror of failing to adequately repay his debt to kohga kind of tie them together around this looming notion of death. no matter how many times sooga saves kohga's life he feels like it isn't enough of a repayment, and every time sooga saves kohga's life kohga just becomes more and more afraid of sooga's inevitable demise. in some corner of their relationship is always the terrible reality of death, as well as kohga's secret of immortality.

i think kohga's history and true nature are the very last things sooga learns about him. kohga is so incredibly protective of his past that i really only think it would come out under a situation of extreme duress, like an encounter with someone from kohga's past or a near-death experience on kohga's end instead of sooga's. kohga feels guilty for letting sooga imperil himself on kohga's behalf when kohga can't die forever, not really, but he doesn't know how to explain it and although he's proud of his covenant with demise he's ashamed that he can't rightly call himself anything but a monster, who for all the yiga' work in ingratiating themself with ganon are still enemies of all sapient peoples of hyrule, and spoken of by sheikah and yiga alike as base and wicked beasts. this all kind of circles back to kohga's "human" history of being reviled and cast out by his clan.

they are each other's own most exploitable vulnerability. sort of like pair bonded chinchillas. one of them dies and the other one follows right after from chinchilla grief.

THANK YEW 4 LISTENING :]

in case you didn't see it here's a post of kohga and sooga's faces in color with my most recent designs I FORGOT KOHGA'S OTHER TATTOOS THOUGH so dont look too closely

[vicmillen]

So I've seen several art pieces playing with the long-term nuclear waste warning messages, and it gets me thinking.

There's like, at least five to six languages mentioned in totk, right? There's Hylian, ancient Hylian, ancient Sheikah, ancient Zonai, the Zora script, and possibly an ancient Gerudo language. It's safe to bet there's probably also one each for Goron and Rito. We also sees a lot of the storyline revolves around translating ancient texts, and a lot of researchers dedicated to this.

What if there is a Hyrule version of the Rosetta stone? In the form of these long-term nuclear waste warning messages. Like imagine these messages carved into those pillars that rise up around the castle in botw. Not just in Sheikah but also ancient Hylian and the long lost Zonai, and the ancient language of the other four races? What if that's how they figure out the Zonai language despite not much record of it is known even before the calamity strikes?

I just think it's a very interesting idea. Imagine the pillars are absolutely covered in repeating texts of varying font and sizes. The direction the text goes in is different for each language, but they all repeats the same message. Again and again, warning off the future generations from this place of ancient evil. As Link and Zelda went into the cavern deep under Hyrule castle, they saw these same messages carved into walls and framing the murals that tells of the birth of the demon king. The text gains length once they went beyond the old castle tunnels, not just warning against a danger but also warning against disturbing this place that seals the danger. They have no choice but to proceed though, because it seems like the seal is already disturbed enough to let the gloom leak out. So deeper they went, despite the walls warning them against it every step they take.

(It's also fitting for the theory that the Sheikah is drawing energy from Ganondorf's mummy corpse and using it to fuel Sheikah tech. But Ganondorf the nuclear power plant is a topic for another day.)

Also here's how I imagine the text is divided. since the original one in full is a bit weird when they also build an entire castle on top.

The section above ground on the pillars:

This place is a message... and part of a system of messages... pay attention to it!

Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.

What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.

The danger is in a particular location... it increases towards a center... the center of danger is here... of a particular size and shape, and below us.

The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.

The danger is to the body, and it can kill.

The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.

The additional bits once they went underground:

This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.

The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

[aufi-creative-mind]

I hc that the Bargainer Statues are early depictions of the Fierce Deity (who's true form therefore has 4 eyes), who is referred to as a Kishin in Japanese, which according to folklore, are wrathful, powerful, even scary-looking beings & vicious fighters, but are also deeply compassionate, benevolent, & protectors at there core. They're said to enact just & righteous vengeance for those who've been wronged.

Anyway, my thoughts are that he is the 3rd in the Hylian/Demise triad, being where the Hero's Spirit originates from. I also hc that he created the Sheikah much like how Hylia created the Hylians. (So, if the naming conventions follow, his true name could start with "Shei" or "Sheik.")

Anyway, he's a god of war, the moon, heroism, & death. Which is why Link is always able to see spirits. He gathered spirits & fought or soothed Poes (the enemies) either by fighting them or playing the Song of Healing.

The Dark Clumps being pieces of the pseudo-flesh that spirits form to create Poes & the Depths Set being made from this pseudo-flesh.

Also, I hc that the symbols are actually ancient Sheikah script, which the Fierce Deity taught the Sheikah. And before losing or giving up his immortality, he tasked the Sheikah with taking his place, which is who delivered the spirits to the Bargainer Statues before Link.

This is part of the reason why the Sheikah are so heavily associated with death & graveyards.

As for who the Bargainers are, they are this thing called a bushin in Japanese culture, which there deities have the ability to split pieces off of themselves & create lesser copies that rule over certain areas, but are lead by the source deity. The same is said for the Goddess Statues. Basically, Hylia & Fierce gave up their immortality, but the statues are still being run by their bushin.

Stop me, I will literally talk you ear off if you don't.

Anyway, what are your thoughts??

.................................................... OP. My guy, my gal, my non-binary pal. Why did you drop this on my inbox? This needs to be its own proper post! This is a very fascinating take on the Bargainer and the other known deities in the Zelda world.

-

Ngl, I haven't thought much about the Bargainer and their role is since there's so little in their lore. Other than "guiding lost souls into the afterlife without prejudice" and exchanging materials, weapons and outfit sets in return of Poes... (Kinda like how the Goddess Statue exchanges Blessings for Hearts, Stamina and Sage's Wills).

And seeing so many Poes in the Depths in a state of purgatory, makes me think that they are akin to the Grim Reaper of sorts. On top of the Yiga notes about how those "strange statues" would rip the souls out of fellow members if they come too close to it in the Depths.

I also imagine that the name "Bargainer" is a recent title when they were (re)discovered by present-day Hyruleans. And their true name had already been lost to the looooooong passage of time. And for all we know, the "Bargainer" was the god(dess) of the long extinct Zonai people.

That's about as far as I have for the Bargainer.

As for other deities like Hylia, Demise and the Fierce Deity, I don't have much beyond what is present in the games and the popular headcanons shared within the Zelda fandom.

I do have headcanons on how each race and clans interpret these deities and their own faith systems. For example, the Sheikah view Hylia as a "two faced" deity with "light and shadow" themes in their faith. Which is in contrast to their Hylian counterparts who have more clear-cut views on Hylia as the benevolent protector-goddess of their people (And why the Horned Statue exists and is shunned and hidden away).

(Though this is all part of my BotW-TotK Family and Legacy story.)

TL;DR I don't have a lot of ideas / headcanons on who or what these deities are. BUT I do have headcanons on how they are interpreted by different peoples/races.

-

But seriously though OP, if you're reading this, you need to create dedicated posts and elaborate more on these headcanon ideas. They have POTENTIAL to become some very delicious reads.

[loregoddess]

Ask: Top 5 Zelda universe facts

In no particular order...

The fact that WW Link isn't even considered "the hero of the era" like, even before Skyward Sword retroactively added Demise's curse to explain the fateful reincarnation of "the hero's spirit", the dialogue between The King of Red Lions and Jabun confirms that Link is literally just Some Kid with no connection to the legendary hero whatsoever--but this Link is So Determined he ends up proving his worth to the gods and becoming the hero like, I dunno. I feel like LoZ leans into the "fated/destined roles" trope a lot, which is fine I like it plenty, but I like "random dude saves the world out of spite" a lot too.

There is an insane amount of hidden dialogue in Twilight Princess, and some of it even changes depending on which order you meet NPCs, to the point where I've never actually found a 100% complete game script of TP bc I've replayed the game so many times and have seen a lot of the hidden dialogue that I know some of the stuff that's missing. Like, did you know that early on in the game you can return to Ordon like, immediately? I can't remember if you're allowed to return before the Forest Temple or right after, but there's unique dialogue that all the Ordon NPCs have that vanishes I think shortly after you enter the Eldin twilight area, and it's some of the most heart-wrenching dialogue in any LoZ game ever. Also as soon as you have the option and ability to go to the Lakebed Temple, you can instead go to Telma's Tavern where the Resistance members (sans Rusl bc he would have recognized Link, iirc he's still wounded back in Ordon at this point) will like, mercilessly tear into Link and tell him to get the fuck out bc they think he's some random weirdo (Shad is especially vicious with his verbal mockery of Link's outfit which is SO funny to me, I don't think a lot of people know this goofy city-boy nerd has apparently 0 fear of mocking a guy who's literally decked out in weapons and armor). If you do this, it also changes the dialogue that Wolf Link listens in on when bringing Midna to Zelda after the Lakebed Temple is completed, and also the dialogue for when Link "officially" meets the Resistance, which is like, an insane amount of attention to detail and extra work on the part of the writers and the coders.

Super minor detail, but I do love that the animators for the first Hyrule Warriors hid a lot of easter eggs within the actual battle animations for characters, like, specifically a few of Ganondorf's trident attacks are actual attack animations used by various Ganons and Ganondorfs in mainline games, and I thought that was a really neat extra bit of work to add in.

I know BotW/TotK are officially Their Own Separate Thing but like, the fact that the Zonai and the Oocca share the same description of "beings even closer to the gods who either made Hyrule or were directly involved in it Making Hyrule A Thing" is so funny to me. Considering what the Dominion Rod does, and the automatons of the Zonai like, I don't think it was entirely coincidental.

Not gonna lie, Santa Canon In LoZ is excellent...I hope we get more LoZ Santa lore one day. I think he should be connected to the Minish somehow.

[aikoiya]

LoZ Cultural Masterlist 2

Sheikah Culture:

Sheikah Kanji - Sei vs Shei

Sheikah Weaponsmithing Techniques

Elemental Weapons

The Sheikah's Ancient Task

The Mind's Eye

Becoming a Toxin Master or Mistress

Sheikah Cultural Tidbits

Shadowfolk Fighting Styles

Sheikah Arts

Sheikah Language

The Twili & the Sols

Sheikah Atavism

Sheikah Wedding Traditions

Hyrule's Pantheon in Sumi-E

Gerudo Culture:

The Curses of the Gerudo

No, Gerudo Aren't All Lesbians & Gerudo Tolerances (A Realistic Outlook)

Gerudo Misrepresentation | Warning: Mature Content (Nothing explicit, but it has some adult topics.)

An Examination of Gerudo Societal Pressures

"Lesbian-Coded" Gerudo

Gerudo Desert Expansion Wanted

Gerudo Desert Theory

Reproductive Magics & Other Weird Gerudo HCs | Warning: Mature Content (Nothing explicit, but it has some adult topics.)

The Gibdo

Vae & the Spring of Talthïrï | Warning: Mature Content (Nothing explicit, but it has some adult topics.)

Gerudo Wind Instrument

Results of the Child Timeline - Gerudo

Gerudo Cultural Tidbits

Gerudo Bathing & Spa Products

Gerudo Wedding Traditions

Gerudo Misandry Is Not Funny Or Okay

Gerudo vs Egypt

Banished to the Desert?

The Gerudo's Dark Past

The Gerudo Feel Responsible For Ganondorf

Gerudo Town - Is That A Hoodoo?

Heat-Loving Crops for the Gerudo Desert

Why Gerudo Customes Aren't Fair

How Would Surrogacy Work???

Sand Seal Ivory Trade

Infinite Water Origin Theory

Gerudo Settlements:

Ealiyah Town & the Highland Gerudo

Kàra Kàra Martown

The History of Kàra Kàra Bàzétto

Faron Gerudo Settlement

Gerudo Fashion:

What Gerudo Children Wear - Seriously, this needs to be fixed.

Random Thoughts - Gerudo Maternity Wear

My Thoughts on the Gerudo Vai Set

Desert Merchant Set

OoA/OoS Ganon - Gay or Culturally Accurate?

King's Victory Brow Ornament Update

Gerudo Fashion

Gerudo Language:

Gerudo Nomenclature

GeruLang: Diacritic & Diagraphic Characters

Gerudo Language 1 - Official & Other People's Ideas

Gerudo Language 2 - My HC Basics

Gerudo Language 3 - Verbs

Gerudo Language 4 - My Nature HCs | Warning: NSFW MDNI (Nothing explicit, but it has some adult topics.)

Gerudo Language 5 - My Cultural HCs | Warning: NSFW MDNI (Nothing explicit, but it has some adult topics.)

Gerudo Language 6 - My HC Highland Dialect

Gerudo Languages 7 - People & Relationships

Gerudo Sayings & Expressions

Happiness: Someone Wants To Use My ConLang!

Gerudo Pantheon:

Gerudo Pantheon | Warning: Mature Content (Nothing explicit, but it has some adult topics.)

The Goddess of the Sand | Warning: Mature Content (Nothing explicit, but it has some adult topics.)

Seven Heroines Symbol Analysis

Zonai Culture:

Latin Zonai

Where Did the Zonai Live & Other Things

Zonai Views on Masculinity

Figuring Out the Depths Script

Other LoZ Masterlists:

LoZ General Masterlist

LoZ Wild Masterlist

LoZ Cultural Masterlists: 1 & 2

LoZ Scenario Help Masterlists: 1, 2, & 3

LoZ My Fanfic Masterlist

LoZ Great Fics Masterlist

LoZ Linked Universe Masterlist

Other Important Masterlists:

Aikoiya's Writing Tips Masterlist

Master Masterlist <- Go here to see some of the other fandoms I mess around with.

[jellyfishvibes]

It wouldn't leave my head so here is a quick mock-up of what the handkerchief from these fics

I imagine the loftwing and sheikah corner are the 'front' that get pinned infront of her

Rant below v

So the ancient Shiekah, Zonai, 'Ancient Hylian' (Skyward Sword Hylian) and Gerudo are correct (I think it was hard to find a sheet for written Zonai),

The Fae is actually Ocarina of Time Hylian that I drew over to make it like loopy looking (I used the ancient Hylian and the Book of Mudora from lttp as like a reference but I don't think I used any actual characters from them)

Zora is something called Willow Script that I saw on tiktok, I believe it was made for use in dnd?

The Rito is Norse rune looking but I don't think it's actual Norse runes, mainly cause it translates directly to the English alphabet and also cause the image I used leads back to multiple fantasy wikis so I'm unsure where it originated from

And the Goron is from a language making website? I found the sheet on Google images I don't think it's from anywhere else

All the original ones I've added are for ~vibes~ only I'm not making them 'canon' for lack of a better word, they just fit the vague image in my head of those scripts

[isa-ah]

EXACTLY

Like adore Tulin but what I loved about BOTW was we had two groups of champions: the ones from the past Link has to remember, and the unofficial new ones you have to bond with in this new Hyrule to get the job done ( Teba, Sidon, Riju, and Yunobo) and it was a neat way to present 2 storylines in a single go while letting the player learn about Hyrule at the same time Link is. We're both discovering and rebuilding but TOTK plowed over everything, making some new older "champions" that remains literally FACELESS because the onus is supposed to be on the people you connected with previously (and though I adored the wind temple, I hate that Teba got pushed to the side in favor of Tulin. He was a counterpart to Revali and we don't get to explore that enough as it is...)

teba is one of the parts of botw that really bothered me LOL all of the other champions have in depth memories and plotlines and characterization and arcs and then you get to tabantha and teba just goes ugh. fine. lets go. and then leaves as soon as you get up there and thats it! thats his whole plotline. he has next to no lines, characterization, or relevance beyond helping you breech vah medoh. and even MORESO in totk where he just goes hey go find tulin. and thats IT LOL

the ancient sages having 0 personality or relevance, especially when it comes to their individual awakening cutscenes, is SO confusing to me. why are they all reading the same script? why are all of the cutscenes identical? is there no culture or perspective you can offer? you experienced the battle the exact same way across the board? why even show them? they dont interact with zelda beyond being asked to put their bodies on the line. they have no narrative weight. they show up and die and thats.. it. why were they even there

but i honestly feel that way about the entire past segment of the plot. idk how into zeldatube you were in the years after breath of the wild, but the zonai got picked up as a topic a few years after botw came out and went through a huge burst of content and theories that went on so long it became an in-joke to mention them- or their characteristic swirls and architecture- and back around to being an earnest exploration of their vague presence in botw... to. that.

they were characterized first and foremost as an exploration of how ruins of a "mysterious tribe" would have worshipped the triforce. secondarily, if we are to believe the barbarians armor was zonai in origin, theyre identified as a "warlike tribe". thats what we have. their architecture is HEAVILY influenced by birds / dragons / boars for the triforce iconography, and they fought their way across hyrule (leaving ruins all over the place).

but in tears of the kingdom, what thorough line do they have? at all? their architecture is COMPLETELY different. they never once mention the triforce. they were seemingly an a-religious tribe that deified their ruler more than any goddesses or golden power. theyre shown to be puritanical largely passive figures, "inherently good."

its at complete odds with everything we knew about them. and its not ever broached. they dont talk about their culture at ALL. the snippets we get are erroneous. the youth partook in tests of courage. the temple of time exists. all of the zonai are dead or left. they can draconify with their stones of power. and thats... it. really.

there are the labyrinths- iirc they were headed by the lord of boars, dragons and? owls? and thats really it. they utilize the same uruborus statues and constructs, but seem like a completely different (and much more familiar) flavor than rauru or mineru. but.. to what end? (and why.. are the labyrinth rewards... meta callback armor???)

why even use the facade of building upon the zonai if youre not using anything established or establishing anything new LOL bizarre use of resources honestly

[desertforged]

@herospledge sent: "I've not seen you here before. Who are you?"

He's been trying to lay low for the last few years since the Princess and her knight had defeated the Calamity. He held to little of his past these days, trying to blend in with the Hylians. He wore their clothes, spoke their language, even joined their Zonai research team.

He had climbed up a large set of ruins that had fallen and was copying down the ancient script found there when he heard another's voice.

"I'm just a research assistant. Not much else." It was as much of the truth of anything else. "You're standing in my light, if you don't mind."

[risingshine]

@songoftime222

"Ah, Mineru! Perfect timing."

Bathed in warm sunlight, the small gazebo inside their royal gardens was rather pleasant this time of year, accompanied by light winds that rustled grass and trees, a melody of birds...and the shuffling of servant and guardian constructs.

The king offered a seat to his dear sister - and if she would take it,

"I do apologize if i called you from something important; you may return to it if needed. However I simply must show you something."

A servant gently placed down a moderate-sized, hide-bound in unusual script, as well as a wreath of paper with zonai notation.

"An older gentleman gifted me this journal: it seems to have been written in an older form of hylian - and notates evidence of a time where hylians lived on one giant island in the sky! Isn't it fascinating?"

[i-am-a-megalodon]

someone who knows about linguistics, please explain zonai script. i have seen several theories online. some say it's based on katakana but the syllables may be a little shuffled. some say it's this complex cipher involving strings of letters and numbers or something. a friend told me the secret stones have stylized chinese characters on them represesnting their respective element.

i want to know what's going on. i wanna know how to read the stuff.