#and then accidentally finds an evil cursed sword that causes her to kill the royal family and the rest of the silver sentinel

[pyrotechnicdarts]

avoiding school work by drawing my weird little warforged fighter and her wife(cursed sword)

[faith-trustpixiedust]

Descendants AU with this. The villains poured all of their remaining strength into creating a curse that would cause Ben to die on the night before his 21st birthday or something. There isn’t a cure they know of, but there’s some really cryptic message written in the Fae language that has no direct translation to anything in any human language although Fairy Godmother says it’s loosely “an act of union”, so they assume it’s an act of true love.

One day when they’re about 12, Chad runs into the castle yelling about how Ben just accidentally got slightly scratched by a sword gifted to Chad by Mulan, and they run out to find Audrey sobbing on the steps with him laying unconscious. Then he sits up and the perhaps minimized “slight scratch” vanishes and Audrey is wiping the streaked mascara from her lashes. 

Belle and Adam tell the three young royals about Ben’s curse.

“So what you’re saying is I’m practical immortal for eight more years?”

“We think but we wouldn’t want to-”

Ben yells “YOLO!” and jumps out the third story window into rose bushes below.

“-tempt fate.”

“I’m fine!”

He immediately sets out for Arendelle, Northuldra, and Ahtohallan to have Elsa hit him with ice magic then goes up to see all of his ancestors in ice sculpture form. He finds the recipe the Evil Queen used to make her poison apples, and bakes them into a pie. He visits Merida in Dunbroch and asks if Mor’du is still around. Chad and Lonnie egg him on, Doug and Jane try to stop him, and Audrey cries every time he gets hurt even though he keeps telling her he’s fine.

This goes on for a couple years, then Adam tells him he’s going to have to stop jumping out of planes without parachutes if he wants to become king and be serious. Ben then tries to donate both of his kidneys (Belle firmly puts her foot down on that one) and tells doctors at the local research hospital that they can inject him with whatever they want because he’ll survive it, and he wants them to learn. 

His antics have also made it into the news a few times, which a very frazzled royal PR team dismisses as him having beast blood.

We arrive at the events of the first movie. “Dad, I’ve decided to bring over four kids from the Isle of the Lost.”

“The children of our sworn enemies? Living among us?”

“What are they gonna do? Kill me?”

“They might try to take down the country.”

“Then I’ll tell them they’ll have to come through me first.”

They don’t let him tell the VKs about the curse, in fear that they’ll try to manipulate him somehow. Mal eventually connects the dots after hearing Hades talk about this kid prince who has cheated death over a thousand times now...plus she saw Ben drink a vial of poison for kicks and giggles and that helped confirmed it. He tells them the truth after Maleficent wrecks the coronation.

“Let me save you next time!���

“Ben, let’s not let there be a next time.”

“No but if there is...let me protect you. I kinda can’t die for five more years.”

Uma threatens to drown him and he laughs in her face. Harry says he’ll hook him, and Ben talks about the time he juggled chainsaws. Gil replies by saying he’s juggled eggs before, but his papa got real mad when he dropped them.

It’s Goin Down is also a lot more chill, because tbh Mal isn’t that worried about Ben’s safety, except she’s not entirely sure if his curse still works on the Isle, or if it’ll still be effective once they leave. It does, which he proves by throwing himself out of the limo and into the ocean on their way back. Once she finds out she can shapeshift into a dragon, she and Ben totally sneak out to go do flying tricks.

Audrey is even more determined to marry him in this plotline, because she knows that after he turns 21, either his wife will rule Auradon or else his parents will, however none of her threats as evil Audrey really scare him that much because he knows she can’t hurt him, and he knows that she knows it too.

The only thing that has really scared Ben since hearing about his curse is meeting Hades after the barrier came down.

After the events of Descendants 3, Ben has been so busy with wedding planning, helping all the villains find new homes, and supervising relationships between the heros and their respective villains that he doesn’t have time to do his usual stuff. Ben, Mal, and their families go for a cake tasting, and suddenly Ben is laying on the floor, struggling to breathe. Everyone but Hades and Maleficent ignore him.

“Not that I particularly want you to marry that, but don’t you think eating dessert while he can’t breathe is a bit harsh?” Maleficent asks.

“Yeah, and I’m kinda off the clock right now so if you guys want to save him...” Hades tells them.

“Oh he’s fine, he can’t die until he turns 21.”

“Dear, the curse broke months ago.” It turns out the act of union was uniting Auradon and the Isle, and Ben is extremely allergic to hazelnuts but never got tested as a kid. 

[yay855]

Legend of Zelda Lore Tips

So I’ve seen a lot of people confused about how the Legend of Zelda series works in terms of lore. So I’m here to set you straight! You can find the whole thing under the cut.

1: Reincarnation

Despite what most people think, reincarnation only happens once in the Zelda series, during Four Swords Adventure, where Ganondorf is reincarnated as... himself, basically. Thanks to Skyward Sword, we now know:

* Link does not reincarnate, ever. He bears the Spirit of the Hero, some esoteric trait that is passed on from hero to hero, which may just be the approval of Hylia herself. This sometimes carries through his bloodline, but not always. Furthermore, the Spirit of the Hero can be both destroyed, and remade, as seen in The Wind Waker, where Link is not the chosen hero, but a normal child who made himself into the hero. That said, Links usually share some traits, such as having a love of food and sleep. But, as shown in Twilight Princess, they are all different people.

* Hylia does not reincarnate, ever. After the first Zelda died, Hylia returned to her status as a full goddess. Her descendants, the various Princess Zeldas throughout the series, don’t reincarnate either. Every Princess Zelda after the first one (who was the goddess hylia in a mortal body) is a demigod, a mortal descended from a god. Their power comes from this connection to Hylia. Furthermore, as evidenced in the first two Zelda games, it is tradition for the Hyrule Royal Family to name their firstborn daughter Zelda- the Zelda in The Adventure of Link is the aunt of the Zelda from the first game.

* Demise does not reincarnate either. His incarnations bear not his soul or spirit, but his hatred. His “incarnations” are essentially just people whose hearts were corrupted by hatred or evil.

* Ganondorf, as I stated earlier, only reincarnates once. Every other time, he is sealed away, typically returning after his power is regained.

2: The Curse

Despite what many believe, Demise did not lay down a curse after being defeated in Skyward Sword. Fi says as much, his power was gone. Rather, he laid down a prophecy, which he infused with what power he had left to influence, that his hatred would continue on in others, and they would continue to plague Hylia’s descendants and their champions for all eternity.

3: Ganondorf

Despite popular belief, Ganondorf is not Demise’s reincarnation. Neither was he unduly influenced by the prophecy/curse. Rather, Ganondorf was merely an exceptional man born into evil. He is the child of Twinrova, a fusion between two ancient and evil Gerudo witches, and as such, he inherited much of their power. And because they raised him, he became evil. His origin story is no more complex than that; he was simply a man born into power and evil, who happened to fulfill the conditions for the prophecy due to the hatred in his heart.

The only reason Ganondorf has lasted for so long is because he was the only villain to truly grasp even a fraction of the Triforce, which is itself creation given form. By taking the Triforce of Power for himself, his magic and strength were increased to ridiculous levels, causing him to be all but incapable of dying to anything but divine power.

He dies a total of three times across the series- once in A Link to the Past, once in the Oracle games, and once during Twilight Princess. In every other game in which he appears, Ganondorf is never killed, only sealed away.

However, it is clear that, by the time Breath of the Wild takes place, Ganondorf has become a force of nature, and lost what humanity he had left; he is a monster, a miasma of evil energy. This is likely due to him repeatedly dying, as seen in the Downfall Timeline- each time Ganon is resurrected, he loses a small piece of his mind, until he’s completely mindless in Link Between Worlds, used as a puppet by the real final boss to grant them extra power.

4: Timelines

The series is divided into four timelines: a unified timeline beginning with Skyward Sword and ending with Ocarina of Time, and then three new timelines spawned from OoT’s events: the downfall timeline, the child timeline, and the adult timeline. However, the timeline itself is largely just made up after the fact, and aside from a few games, most aren’t made with continuity in mind.

The Downfall Timeline is where Ganondorf defeats Link in their final battle, and a war is raged between the awakened sages and Ganondorf, ending with Ganon being sealed away in the Sacred Realm as a last resort. After spending an unknown amount of time in the sacred realm, Ganondorf’s power transforms it into the Dark Realm, a land of demons and monsters. In this timeline, Hyrule is in a constant state of decline due to Ganondorf’s influence, with monsters becoming more and more common even when Ganondorf isn’t around, to the point where it generally isn’t safe to venture outside by the time the original game comes along.

The Child Timeline is one where Ganondorf’s influence is never truly allowed to spread. However, this also causes Hyrule to slowly lose its magic, and to slowly grow more dependent on technology. By the time Twilight Princess comes along, magic is all but unheard of outside of divinity and the royal family; similarly, the Sheikah, ancient magical protectors of Hylia and her descendants, are all but gone, with only one Sheikah remaining, Impaz. However, it seems to make a small return once Four Swords Adventures comes along, as the four Links find various magical tools and items to help them on their journey. That said, it’s obvious that Four Swords Adventure was just tacked on to the Child Timeline because it didn’t fit anywhere else. Furthermore, Twilight Princess only happens because of how Link was sent into the past; by holding the Triforce of Courage in the future, Link accidentally created a time paradox, which caused himself, Zelda, and Ganondorf to each hold their triforce pieces in the new timeline despite not having split the triforce yet.

The Adult Timeline is a unique one. Hyrule is subjected to Ganon’s reign, but he is defeated by Link. Link is then sent back in time by Zelda, creating the Child Timeline, but the Adult Timeline still exists- and it is without a hero. Link is nowhere to be found, and the creation goddesses instead lead the peoples of Hyrule to the tops of mountains, before flooding it underneath a great sea. Ganondorf is sealed away underneath the ocean, inside the remnants of Hyrule, trapped in a bubble of time as the world moves on. However, Ganondorf’s power was not fully trapped, and he managed to escape after untold years to once more wreak havoc. After he is defeated in the Wind Waker, Link and Tetra move on to explore the world, eventually coming across a continent, which they rename New Hyrule. In this New Hyrule, magic and technology flourish in tandem, causing a technological boom; magical trains become the standard method of transportation, and the royal family itself sponsors it all. However, this land is home to an ancient evil which was sealed away long ago by the Lokomo tribe, a demon king named Malladus; the train tracks that New Hyrule relies on are actually chains which bind Malladus’s prison, which existed long before the people even arrived on that continent.

Finally, there’s Breath of the Wild, which has a unique problem of not really fitting into any of the timelines. It contains elements from every series, and was intentionally created separate from the rest of the series, likely in order to help further separate it from the rest of the series. Breath of the Wild contains many timeline-specific things, including:

* The Rito, which only existed in the Adult Timeline, and which were Zora transformed by the power of a minor god. Some argue that these Rito are not the same due to the difference in design, but the fact remains that they consider Medli to be one of their own, to the point of naming Vah Medoh after her- thus, these Rito must be descended from the Rito of Wind Waker.

* The Sea Zora, which only existed in the Child Timeline. They were transformed into the Rito in the Adult timeline, and were transformed into the monstrous River Zora in the Downfall Timeline. Some people defend them by saying that these Zora are relatively new to the region, but the fact remains that they consider Princess Ruto to be one of their own, to the point where Vah Ruta is named after her; thus, these Zora must be descended from the same Zora found in Ocarina of Time.

* Goponga Island, Kanalet Ridge, Mabe Village Ruins, Martha's Landing, Tal Tal Peak, Tabhal Woods, Ukuku Plains, and Koholit Rock, all of which areas named after places on Koholint Island, in Link’s Awakening, which itself took place on the Downfall Timeline. And Koholint Island is itself not a real place, but rather the dream of the Wind Fish, a place that is presumably never seen in any of the other timelines.

* Linebeck Island, named after a character in Phantom Hourglass, of the Adult Timeline.

* Lulu Lake, Mikau Lake, and Toto Lake, named after characters in Majora’s Mask, which takes place in the Child Timeline.

* Mount Daphnes, named after the King of Hyrule in The Wind Waker.

* Ralis Pond, named after the Zora Prince in Twilight Princess, in the Child Timeline.

* The Tunic of the Wild, which most resembles the clothing of the Downfall Timeline links.

* Vah Medoh, named after Medli (named Medori in the original Japanese), the Sage of Earth in The Wind Waker, found only in the Adult Timeline.

As such, it can be said that Breath of the Wild takes place in a New Unified Timeline, where elements from all timelines existed.

[syzygydreamland]

SQW day 5 - Waking up (Enchanted forest AU)

Hello hello! Day 5 of Swan Queen Week is already upon us, so here’s my entry for day I still owning but my ideas, and I’m still hoping you’ll enjoy reading my text!

Regina woke with a start. She tried to catch her breath and immediately regretted it: it felt as if she was trying to breathe through half a dozen cloths draped over her mouth, and the effort made her ribs hurt. In a fit of coughing, she eventually managed to roll to the side and ease the pain in her ribcage. She kept coughing for a few more minutes, the air wheezing in and out of her parched throat feeling like glass paper. When she had regained enough brain oxygenation to keep her head from spinning too much, she looked up and glared at her surroundings as if they had personally offended her.

The bedchamber was still as impeccably tidy as when the queen had gone to sleep, and a few warm rays of sunlight were shyly piercing through the heavy drapes. There was nothing in the room to indicate what could have roused her from sleep, until Regina heard a metallic noise behind her.

Regina turned around so quickly that she almost fell from her bed, and came face to face with a sword. Or, more precisely, a young woman holding a sword. Regina frowned an tried to sit up more properly, in an attempt to look more menacing.

“Who are you? And what do you think you’re doing in here? Also, please don’t point that thing at me.”

The other woman’s big green eyes had been filled with surprise when Regina had turned around. Her expression quickly changed, however, to one of defense at Regina’s snarl. Still, she lowered the sword and placed it gently against the bed frame.

“I’m Princess Emma of the White Kingdom. And you’re the Evil Queen.”

“I’m perfectly aware of who I am, thank you very much” Regina’s voice was thick with disdain and dehydration. She searched the young woman’s face for a few minutes, grimacing when she got the confirmation of what she was thinking. “You’re that idiot Snow White’s daughter.”

The princess narrowed her eyebrows as she nodded. “You must be incredibly bitter for these to be the first words you say after being asleep for over 20 years.”

“Well, excuse me if my conversation skills are not entirely up to your standards, Princess. I wasn’t exactly expecting to be woken up and have to make small talk with you.” Regina’s voice was still hoarse from the lack of water, and she couldn’t help the next coughing fit that escaped her. Emma jumped up from her seat to hand her a flask, which Regina eyes suspiciously.

“It’s water. Drink it, you’ll feel better.” Upon seeing Regina refuse the drink, Emma shook her head impatiently. “Don’t be stupid. If I’d wanted to kill you, I would’ve done it long ago. Now drink the damned water so you can stop coughing.”

Regina took a gulp and, relieved that she wasn’t rolling over in agony, took a few more sips until the cough had sustained.

“What do you mean, you would have killed me long ago?” Regina’s curiosity took her out of her angry staring at the intruder.

“I, uh… I’ve been coming here for the past couple years, every once in a while, to check on you.” The princess at least had the decency to look embarrassed.

“To check on me?” To say Regina was surprised was an euphemism. Never since her father’s death and her subsequent failure at casting the curse had anyone ever bothered to check on her.  

“There was talk about some other curse, a couple years ago, so I came to see if perhaps you’d woken up. You were still deep in sleep, so I knew it wasn’t you, but you looked so helpless I started thinking – what if someone came in and killed you in your sleep? I’ve been coming back ever since to make sure it wouldn’t happen.”

“Why would anyone want to make sure I didn’t get killed, least of all you?” None of what the princess made any sense to Regina. If her curse had worked, the young woman and her parents would be cursed to an eternal life of unhappiness, so why would she feel concerned in the slightest about her safety?

As if she was reading her thoughts, the princess answered “It probably doesn’t make much sense to you, but… I grew up hearing all about you. About how the Evil Queen had tried to curse us all but – luckily for us – failed and was condemned to a life of exile, where she decided to curse herself rather than remain unhappy and alone. I used to ask my mother about you, about where you were from and how you’d become the Evil Queen. I think I was terrified, at first, that there was no real explanation as to why someone suddenly turned evil, and that I was scared I could accidentally turn evil too… I was a child!” she tried to defend herself when Regina smirked. “Anyway, my mother finally gave in before my relentless questions and told me all she knew about you: how the two of you met, how your mother was, how my mother betrayed your trust and how you were never happy after your boyfriend died… As I grew up, I eventually made sense of all of it, and I understood that your pain and bitterness at other people’s happiness made you what we call the Evil Queen, and I ended up feeling sorry for you. So when there was word of this new curse, I used it as an excuse to find out exactly where your castle was, and I came to see you. And then I…” Emma stopped her rant and suddenly blushed deeply. She was breathless and didn’t dare look at Regina in the eye anymore.

Regina was left open-mouthed by all the princess had said. Finally, someone had seen her for who she was. In that moment it didn’t matter that this someone was her archenemy’s daughter that she’d fantasized about killing when she was just an infant; someone finally saw her as a person rather than this one dark, evil and dangerous entity. She looked down at her hands and noticed Emma’s hand was just inches away from hers. Without fully registering what she was doing, Regina placed her hand atop Emma’s, causing the young woman to look up at her.

“You’ll think I’m insane, but… I kept coming back to watch you sleep. You looked so peaceful, unlike in any other portrait of you I’d ever seen. I would stay here, by your bed, for hours and wonder how someone could be driven to such despair that she’d try to pretty much literally set fire to her own kingdom, terrorize her people and then curse herself for all of eternity when she failed. I also looked through your things – I’m sorry. I saw the last books you’d read, and I found your riding journal. The more things I found out about who you really were, the less I could hate you. And I started fearing those who hate you, for what they could do to you while you were so vulnerable. Regina – can I call you Regina?” Regina nodded quickly, urging Emma to go on. “As I watched over you, I think I started falling in love with you.”

It was like lightning had just struck Regina. This couldn’t be happening. No one except Daniel and her father had ever loved her. There must have been something so utterly unlovable about her that all who loved her ended up dead and with their heart crushed. And yet here she was, this young woman with her kind smile and thoughtful eyes, telling her she’d fallen in love with her as she was asleep and gently rubbing circles on the back of her hand. Regina couldn’t find her voice anymore, so she just listened as Emma spoke. Emma spoke of how she sometimes read some of the books to Regina, or how she would update her about the royal stables even though she herself hated horses. She went on to fill Regina in on what had been happening in the kingdom, and Regina was surprised to discover a smart and funny woman, nothing like her dimwitted father and unbearably optimistic mother. Emma kept talking for what felt like hours, until they reached the point in her story where she was animatedly explaining exactly how Regina had woken up.

“… and I took your hand in mine, and I kissed your hand to pay my respects, and then – you moved!”

For the second time that day, Regina felt as if she’d been struck by lightning.

“You… you kissed me?”

Emma’s smile faded, surprised at Regina’s reaction. “I’m sorry, it was – it was just your hand! I never would’ve – not while you were asleep! I thought –”

“No no, Emma, I’m not mad, it’s just… You kissed me, and I woke up?” Regina’s voice was on the edge of breaking, and she repeated that last sentence a couple times until recognition spread across Emma’s features.

“Ooooohh! Do you think – True Love’s Kiss?”

“I don’t know!” Regina was panicking now. She wasn’t ready nor prepared for all of this. But as she saw the blissful smile Emma was now sporting, she thought maybe, just maybe, things would be okay now.