#anyway i didn't intend for this to become a long-winded post about the game's plot

[fedoraspooky]

I'm curious, what were the events that led to Jabber draining a toon in front of others? Since he's trying not to draw attention to himself and all.

He didn't! When i mentioned the other players' reactions were priceless, I was talking about the other players and not their characters. XD

You see, while working at Googie's Diner, Jabber had sorta befriended a mouse npc named Scrabbles. They were occasional co-conspirators for causing mischief and snagging free food from said diner, stuff like that. It didn't quite scratch the same itch as getting into trouble with his sibs, but it was better than nothing. Jabber was chatty about almost everything imaginable but he barely ever talked about his personal life, and was certainly not the open book that Scrabbles was, but they were pals at the very least- probably the closest Jabber's had to having a friend.

Since Jabber was fading pretty badly at the start of the game, Scrabbles offered to try and find a way to help him out in exchange for free fries. Said he had friends that could sneak them onto sets just to get a little bit of screen time. Jabber knew it wouldn't be enough to help him- he and his sibs used to sneak onto sets all the time in the early days... But he kept his trap shut and accepted anyway, it would be easier than trying to explain and opening up that whole can of worms. Scrabbles never even knew he had siblings.

At this point in the game, I should add, the other players didn't know who he was an expy of yet, just that he was one. The only things they knew about Jabber at that point were the description I gave of him at the start of the game, how he acted, whatever sparse few things about himself he WAS willing to talk about with Scrabbles and Muddy, and some out of character clues I dropped here and there when we were figuring out character relationships and what the other player characters might already know about him.

As the plot progressed, another player character Kay T.K. (our resident Sesame-Street-esque puppet gal who's show was about making fun crafts AND making friends!) had managed to track down Jabber because she remembered how easily he had snuck into her set during filming once, ages ago... And she needed his help to get a magical artifact that could solve a big problem she was dealing with (her show got bought out by schlock horror studio Buzzsaw Studios and they were reviving her as a mascot horror monster, but she didn't want to keep living in the twisted, scary form they'd given her and just wanted to be her old self again). What's the artifact? Something extremely powerful, that was mostly seen as a myth akin to the Holy Grail...

The Typewriter that writes The Script. Of reality itself.

And somehow, this powerful godly artifact ended up in the hands of Buzzsaw Studios, up at the very tippy top floor under lock and key. Kay T.K. needed someone who could slip past the guards and help her get to it so she could write herself back to normal. And well, if anyone's capable of slipping past security guards and defenses, it'd probably be this toon kid who's been doing it since the 1930s!

Jabber wholeheartedly agreed to help her out, but primarily because he wanted to get his hands on that Typewriter for himself.

If reviving his sibs would take a miracle, then well... He would Take a miracle!

Problem was, he was getting too faded to be of much use. His abilities were severely weakened and at the rate he was going, he'd be gone before their planned heist even started. He needed his strength back, and most importantly he needed to buy himself some more time...

So he got Scrabbles those fries.

Met up with him in the alley outside the diner at night, when everyone had left, and... As Scrabbles snacked happily on them, Jabber thanked him for being such a good friend and, shockingly, finally opened up to him. Told him about his sibs. Told him about how they were created to be zany, but were too much so for the studio's liking. How they were locked away for so long, left to fade away...

But it was all going to be okay now. Because he found a way to fix everything.

And that's when he opened up his jaws, now lined with sharp teeth, and chomped down on him.

SO THERE YOU HAVE IT, THAT WAS THE LOVELY CLIFFHANGER I LEFT MY FRIENDS WITH FOR THE END OF PART 1. Like I said, their reactions? Priceless. XD

[valancedbreakfast]

I've been stuck in waiting mode unable to thinking about anything other than totk for a bit and just found this post linked from your more recent post and it got me digging into hyrule history nonsense to refresh myself.

I've got two minor corrections and then I'll get to my actual point.

1) Twilight Princess takes place in the child timeline not the adult timeline. More on that in a bit since it relates to something I want to say that I've not seen anyone talking about.

2) Phantom Ganondorf in OoT does have a sword pong segment. After you get him off his horse he floats around overhead and you play pong to get him down.

But that's just small corrections, my main point follows after some extra history nonsense I want to lay down that it feels like a lot of ppl haven't thought about.

So there's the whole confusing timetravelling nonsense of skyward sword that boils down to the three golden goddesses departed from the world leaving behind the goddess hylia as protector of the triforce. Demon King Demise wants the triforce for mandatory evil purposes. Timeywhimey shenanigans and Hylia reincarnated as Zelda and her chosen hero Link manage to defeat Demise and seal him in the Master Sword, but not before her sets a curse in play that kickstarts our whole cycle. Link and Zelda are cursed to reincarnate and an incarnation of Demise's hatred (later come to be know as Ganon) will forever follow them.

Okay, so time goes on and things happen and eventually Link and Zelda are reincarnated into what will be the Ocarina of Time portion of the timeline. Demise's hatred is also present here in the form of Ganondorf, the Gerudo King of Thieves. He hatches a plot to claim the triforce for himself yet again but it's long since been kept in the Sacred Realm for safety. More time shenanigans occur and Ganondorf manages to get the triforce but it splits and he only keeps part of it while the other two pieces go to Link and Zelda. And then our timeline is gonna get all kinds of fucked up because believe it or not, the zelda team didn't intend for every game in the series to be a cohesive timeline from the beginning and what we know as the timeline now is just the best they could come up with to fit all these games together. So anyway, we get three timelines from here depending on the outcome of Ocarina of Time, and this is where all of this comes to my actual point:

Fallen Hero Timeline: Link is defeated, Ganondork becomes Ganon, claims the full triforce and is super powerful. The sages seal him in the sacred realm which her corrupts into the dark world and that leads to A Link to the Past and other games. The thing is, GANONDORF is never seen again in this timeline. Ganon the boar demon king is revived time and time again by various means, but the Gerudo form is just gone.

Young Link Timeline: Link and Zelda defeat Ganondorf who has given up his Gerudo form to become pig boy Ganon. But then Zelda sends Link back in time to when he was a child before the events of the game. He tattles on Ganondorf and Ganondorf is arrested. That same Ganondorf is then banished to the Twilight Realm for his crimes. This of course leads to Twilight Princess where Ganondorf finds his way back to Hyrule. They just straight up kill him. And then later he's reincarnated and gets sealed into the Four Sword.

Adult Link Timeline: This one is honestly just weird. So Link and Zelda seal Ganon, but then since Link is sent back in time, it effectively leaves this timeline without the Spirit of the Hero. So when Ganondorf inevitably breaks free and tries to take over Hyrule again, like... there's just no hero to stop him. So the golden goddesses (who like... weren't even meant to be here anymore?) flood the whole world and we get Wind Waker. But all this does is mean Ganondorf can't get the triforce. He's still just kicking around and plotting and the Ganondorf we see in Wind Waker is literally the same guy from Ocarina of Time. The Hero of the Wind (who is literally just some kid, not a reincarnation of Link) fights his way through Ganondorfs minions and then just straight up kills Ganondorf. And then they go have a gremlin vacation and never come back. Like there's just no other instances of Demise or Ganon or Ganondorf in this timeline.

So anyway, my point was going to be that all the instances of Ganondorf we see are literally the same guy. But then in researching this I found out that he's randomly reincarnated for the Four Swords Adventures game? So like, I guess my whole theory is pointless. I was gonna be like, how did Ganondorf get under the castle and is all mummified and stuff. But I guess thanks to Four Swords Adventures we actually have precedence of there being more than one Ganondorf.

I guess that's my weird ramblings. I'ma go back to just staring at the wall and waiting for Tears of the Kingdom now.

what do u think totk is gonna b about

OH WOW I AM SO SO SO GLAD YOU ASKED!! HERES THE ESSAY I TOTALLY DID NOT HAVE PREWRITTEN ABOUT THIS SUBJECT!!

so arguably the biggest mystery left unsolved at the end of botw is the origin of ganon as we now know him -- "calamity ganon." in all other games (and by extension all known previous incarnation cycles) where "ganon" was the primary antagonist (incl. all ganon and ganondorf variants) ganon was something real, physical, and ALIVE. a man or a boar-monster, usually, but always something that was bound by the laws of nature to some degree and could be physically killed. botw departs from that formula (and by extension botw's CYCLE departs from the usual governing laws of its own universe--i'll come back to this point) by showing us a ganon that is far less human than any other known incarnation of demise. even in name, this incarnation of ganon is given no personhood--it's a calamity, a force of evil with no origin and no complex thought beyond a need for destruction.

The thing is, for all the game wants the player to understand this ganon as nothing but a mindless, monstrous force of evil, it also makes a point to identify this force as GANON, incarnation of demise. seasoned zelda fans will relate the calamity back to ganondorf the human king at the first mention of its name. anyone familiar with the cyclical lore or even just the basic formula of zelda games will recognize the cycle's steps being played out in such a way that the calamity plays the part of the king of evil. for those who don't make the immediate connection, urbosa's final line after the player frees her in vah naboris cements the calamity's former personhood: "it was written that calamity ganon once adopted the form of a gerudo." it's a deliberate hint to new players that the form we see ganon take in this game is not his true one.

So what is calamity ganon? what turned the newest human incarnation of demise so deeply inhuman? what happened to the human that calamity ganon once was? why, when the calamity struck, did it rise from underneath hyrule castle, with pillars full of armed guardians ready to aid it in its destruction? these questions are what i expect will be the main focus of totk. as for their answers, i only really have my own speculation, backed by some evidence from trailers and botw, which i'll outline now because that's the whole point of this post.

botw is 10k years removed from the last known instance of an incarnation cycle, a fact which is crucial to its story and worldbuilding. while there's no official source on how long periods of peace usually last between cycles, it's obvious from context that botw has gone much longer without a new cycle than any previous game before it, if only because of how much information about the cycle itself has clearly been lost to time. this lack of information is what causes a majority of the problems link and zelda face in botw. But it raises a question for those of us who follow the lore and have noticed the discrepancy: why was hyrule able to forget this information in the first place? Why was there such a long period of peace when the cycle ought to have continued? there's no other instance in centuries of documented hyrulian history where enough time passed between cycles for the idea of the TRIFORCE to be lost to time. how did it happen before botw? the answer, I think, lies with the hero and princess of 10k years ago.

there's a LOT we don't know about the hero and princess who came before botw, obviously. and I believe their story is going to be incredibly important in totk, given how it was teased in botw. we can assume, from context, that the incarnation of demise that this hero and princess went up against was the gerudo incarnation of ganon mentioned by urbosa. What botw tells us about this cycle is that ganon was powerful enough to need legions of guardians and four divine beasts ALONG with a presumably fully-realized hero and princess to defeat him, but that, with these resources, the hero and princess triumphed. what is not confirmed, however, is what exactly HAPPENED to ganon after his defeat. one could assume that he died, because hitting a human man with a sword enough times will usually kill him. however, there's another important piece to the puzzle when looking at loz cycles: zelda and her goddess power. the thing i'm going to be focusing on here is the fact that throughout botw zelda's power is referred to specifically as a "sealing power." it's significant to me that the concept of SEALING surivived when so many other crucial pieces of the cycle did not, because, in multiple previous games, "sealing" ganon does NOT mean he dies. in both oot timelines in which link DOES NOT return to the past at the end of the game (defeat & adult), the official explanation as to ganondorf's fate is that he is "sealed" in some form, either in the sacred realm or the twilight realm. (if you don't know what those are don't worry it's not important, what's important is that he is sealed.) alttp and twilight princess, follow the aftermath of these two timelines, in which ganon has been "sealed" but not killed. in both stories, ganon (specifically the SAME INCARNATION OF GANON AS OOT) eventually frees himself from the confines of the seal and continues to terrorize hyrule. so "sealing" is not necessarily synonymous with defeat or death, and it doesn't reset the incarnation cycle for demise's spirit, it just keeps the current incarnation dormant for a while.

i hear you saying, "blue, why the fuck does any of this matter? ive been reading for so long!" and i am sorry. i promise i will get there. the important point at this point is that SEALED does not mean DEAD or even DEFEATED, and that zelda's power in botw is exclusively referred to as a SEALING POWER. we can assume that this terminology is left over from the hero and princess from 10k years ago, because, by virtue of a 10k-year period of peace, most everything that botw hyrule remembers about the cycle appears to be left over from only that previous cycle. What this means is that, upon defeat 10k years ago, human ganon was not killed, he was sealed. and as i've already mentioned, there's a precedent in these games for a sealed ganon to come back to terrorize a new cycle's hero and princess. I think it's pretty obvious that the mummified gerudo skeleton seen in the totk trailers is that sealed ganon from 10k years ago. but those trailers take place AFTER link and zelda defeat calamity ganon in botw, so why is he still there, sealed but not dead?

the most obvious explanation to me is this: calamity ganon is not ganon. botw's blights give us proof that ganon is capable of somehow reproducing itself in smaller, less powerful doses to deal with immediate threats without having to leave its shelter in hyrule castle. if you recall, calamity ganon's first phase underneath hyrule castle is essentially a rehash of the blight fights, with ganon cycling through attacks previously used by its blights (and adding some new ones into the mix, obv.) One thing that struck me when fighting it, though, is that the fight lacks one signature mechanic that's been a staple of ganon battles in the zelda franchise since at least alttp: sword pong. in almost every game involving a fight with an incarnation of ganon, there's an attack pattern in which the player and ganon have to deflect a ball of energy between each other via their weapons until one of them eventually misses a swing and gets hit. calamity ganon doesn't have this attack in his arsenal, which is strange to me because it's an iconic move for loz final battles. the only ganon battle i can think of which DOESN'T involve this mechanic is oot's shadow ganondorf, a PROJECTION of ganondorf rather than the real thing.

can you see what i'm getting at here?

I don't think botw's link and zelda have gone up against their real incarnation of demise yet. I think the calamity was one of two things: either a genuine expression of rage/escape attempt by the sealed human ganon, or a calculated attempt by him to get modern hylians interested enough in the origins of the calamity to investigate and free him accidentally. The way the pillars rose from under hyrule castle, the fact that calamity ganon smashes through the floor of the sanctum and forces link to fight in that underground chamber, it all seems to beckon you to dig deeper. we know that that mummy is somewhere under the castle. Calamity ganon was a shootoff of its power meant to lead hylians to it. this is what i meant way back when i mentioned that botw's cycle departs from the usual governing laws of its own universe--link and zelda haven't actually played out the full cycle at all. what they've done is essentially the precursor to the main event--they've defeated agahnim, or zant, or ghirahim, but the true evil of this cycle has yet to be revealed. to that point, it's worth noting that, excluding shrine mini-dungeons, botw has WAY less dungeons than your average zelda title. most new-cycle titles (by which i mean games that weren't direct sequels featuring the same incarnation of a given link) are divided into 2 sections of dungeoning - the first section having 3-4 dungeons containing prize items needed to unlock some late-game functionality, and the second half having 5-7 dungeons and being accessible only after the player has completed the first section. botw has four dungeons TOTAL (not counting hyrule castle), meaning formula-wise it's essentially the first half of a cycle. i believe totk is going to be the second half of this cycle, with link and zelda having to fight the true evil -- revitalized HUMAN ganondorf.

so now we need to bring this all back to my initial point--why was there a 10k-year period of peace pre-botw, and how does any of this effect my predictions for the story of totk?

in simple terms, i think that the reason there was such a long period of peace was because 10k-years-ago-princess sealed ganon REALLY well. she probably came the closest anyone in hyrule's history has ever come to a TRUE defeat of ganon, because she managed to keep him ALIVE so he wouldn't reincarnate and SEALED so he couldn't hurt anyone for a really long time. what this implies is that 10k-years-ago princess knew on some level about the reincarnation cycle. she understood that if she couldn't keep ganon alive and incapacitated, he would revive and the cycle would start over anyway, so she did everything in her power to stop that from happening, and she did a DAMN GOOD JOB tbh. better than anyone who tried this shit before her. there are other bits and pieces of botw's story that point to the hyrulean civilization 10k years ago understanding the potential of a ganon reincarnation, most notably the fact that they buried guardians and divine beasts seemingly purposefully for later hyruleans to find and use should a new threat ever arise. this implies that 10k-years-ago hyruleans had a REALLY HIGH level of awareness about the cycle, in direct contrast to modern hyrule's REALLY LOW understanding of it. this is really important when we start thinking about totk.

we already have a decent amount of evidence suggesting that totk will deal with the events of 10k years ago and the hero involved in them. In several trailers now we've seen modern link's arm become weirdly, creepily fused with/corrupted by the arm that was holding mummified ganon in place under the castle. i think this arm is going to serve two purposes in totk. the first is a practicality thing: from gameplay footage it looks like the arm is going to basically take the place of the sheikah slate. the second purpose i think it'll serve is to be link's (and by extension the player's) connection to the events of 10k years ago. I've seen plenty of theories thrown around about what the arm is, but my personal theory is that it's some sort of prosthetic or tech that originally belonged to the 10k-years-ago hero. the way it's holding mummified ganon in place in that first teaser trailer looks less to me like an evil influence and more like something physically holding ganon down; a seal of sorts. (and in most games both the hero and princess's power is needed to seal ganon, so perhaps this is how the hero and princess managed to keep him dormant for so long: adding a physical piece of the hero to the mix?) in any case, i think that after establishing this physical connection to the 10k-years-ago hero, modern link is going to get some knowledge and flashbacks (potentially in the form of memory-style cutscenes like botw) that will serve to basically fill in all the cyclical lore that has been lost in-universe over the past 10k years. I've talked at length about how i believe link and zelda's initial failure in botw was due entirely to their lack of knowledge of the hyrulean creation myth and the REASON behind the motions they were carrying out, and i believe that by witnessing the 10k-years-ago hero and princess's journey, modern link will be given the knowledge he needs to defeat ganon.

[kitkatt0430]

Six Sentence Sunday be upon us. :D

Having been seized by the plot bunny for my Harrison/Tina/Jerry S2 Flash AU, I didn't really accomplish too much else this week. Also the fault of Atelier Ryza and Voltron.

That said, I've got some snippets to share anyway. First up is from a post game 1 Ryza story where Agatha is acting as the annoying older sister Ryza never asked for and Ryza is having a slow realization that the reason her feelings for Klaudia are different from everyone else is because she's got a crush. It's a sort of slow paced fic so I'm not really sure how long it'll be.

Agatha gave her a scrutinizing look that felt rather unfair.  Usually she only looked at Ryza like that when there was trouble afoot.  Trouble that was, typically, Ryza's fault.  But, for a change, Ryza had no plans to get in to trouble. "Come find me after lunch instead, then. I've got a few ideas for you." Agatha reached out and ruffled Ryza's hair. "Hey!" Ryza exclaimed, shuffling away and straightening her hair out. An actual giggle left Agatha's mouth. If it weren't at Ryza's expense, she might've been pleased to hear it.

Agatha is an interesting character whom I suspect won't be much in the second game - if at all - but I really enjoyed her dynamic with Ryza. And I was pleased to see in the end game scenes that Ryza was clearly spending more time with her after her friends left during what was clearly a time skip.

Meanwhile I'm starting to finally gain some momentum with my Yu-Gi-Oh story. Joey's finally met Tea and I'm about to introduce Pegasus for some villain PoV. I think once I move past the introductory scenes I'll get some better movement for this one.

The young woman whirled around and… oh. She was about Joey and Tristan’s age. And pretty wasn’t a strong enough word for a girl with a face like that. Even if she was scowling at Joey for the moment. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. Tristan and I come here sometimes, to get away from the noise of the rest of the city. I’m Joey.” He offered her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Tea,” she finally replied. “My name is Tea.”

Since Joey isn't rescuing Tea the way Aladdin did with Jasmine, Tea's a bit slower to trust this weird guy with a pet monkey. But they'll get there. While I intend to follow the basic plot from Aladdin - Joey meets and falls for the princess, gets recruited to retrieve a magic lamp, winds up the 'owner' of the lamp, wishes to become a prince so he can meet princess Tea again, winds up in the middle of an unexpected power grab from the royal vizhir, helps save the day, frees the genie, and is rewarded for his good deeds - I'm playing with a lot of the plot points. And, of course, being Yu-Gi-Oh the power of friendship is going to be important between both Joey and his friends as well as Tea and her friends.

And I really want to finish up Silence in the Night before I go on vacation so... wish me luck on that one. And, as always, I've got several competing Flash fanfic plot bunnies. Beware those bunnies, they're vicious.

(I'm not ready to post a snippet yet, but maybe next Sunday I'll include a little taste of the Star Wars fic I'm writing.)