i finished it, was kicked out of the game, and then spent the next 10 minutes drawing this. i will now go take a shower, most likely cry, and then go through the emotional turmoil of convincing myself to reset so i can do a geno run. i hate it here :D
[OLD ART ALERT] A COLLECTION OF SCENES FROM THE GILLIONS CATSCRATCH ARC THAT BROUGHT ME GREAT JOY. i love fishy chips especially when its just gillion being delirious and violent and hostile
You know you’ve hit rock bottom when you’re standing naked in front of a monument meant to honor a dead version of yourself while you’re alive, holding the Nightwing suit in one hand and the pill helmet in the other
just finished www #23: on your way, and i have many thoughts. all of them make me want to cry.
ame knowing as soon as she got back to the cottage that her actions had burned a bridge, not just with the citadel but with one of her best friends, and yet still needing to complete her tasks as the witch of the world's heart. the spirits she awakens so as not to leave the cottage untended or unprotected, and the way she asks and does not take. the note she leaves, should her friends make it there.
eursulon in the fire, followed by the man in black, who is a brother in the way all spirits are brethren, but not the sibling eursulon seeks. leaving through the burrow, fighting monstrosities, and seeing the citadel raze cities to ruin beside a jungle of rot. finding the tree. his tree. the tree that is emblazoned on his shield, his coat of arms, what he fights to protect. and inside... his sister. a family she made for herself.
and suvi. hurt but still afraid that ame will die if she stays. determined to not let that happen. conversations with steel where she says that another wizard said that the wizard sly lied, or did not tell the full truth. commiseration, but suvi holds back the full truth, and suspects steel of doing the same. an airship to fly north. to protect ame, yes. but the mage armor mean that no creature or spirit or witch will ever be able to touch her again. broken trust, if not broken love.
and through it all, the thread that the citadel represents a threat to the world's heart itself, and to all spirits beyond. the council of elders wishes to neutralize that threat. grandmother wren did not.
questions moving forward: what is the true purpose of the war on gaothmai being waged by the empire? why does kalaya's family look like suvi? is suvi going to have a villain arc? i have my theories, but i'll get into those in other posts.
thank you to the worlds beyond number cast and crew for giving us this incredible story. i'm so excited to see where you take us next.
do you have any thoughts on zelda not staying as a dragon? me personally I like it and am very cool with it mostly because I think zelda should get to be happy forever (and because I'm smart enough to know she changed back because of recall and not some ambiguous power of love lmao) but a lot of people seem to dislike that it made the draconification inconsequential?
i think there's like. some valid concerns surrounding inconsequentiality/"curing" the physical problems characters have as a way of giving them a "happy ending" but I think those concerns don't necessarily apply to totk in the way people seem to be applying them, especially irt zelda's draconification and link's arm.
most of the time when the criticism of this "magic cure" trope is applied to media, it's because the trope is used as a cure-all to erase a character's suffering or trauma and make them "normal" again, and often ignores the character development or themes of the story in favor of giving the character a happy ending. I don't think that applies to totk, though, because the "curing" link and zelda experience is both within the realm of possibility given the worldbuilding present in the game (recall could easily have done it, as you mentioned) AND thematically consistent with the rest of the game. One of if not the most important central themes of totk is the idea of failure and second chances. we see a hyrule that has been given a second chance after link's initial failure with the calamity brought it to the brink of destruction. we see characters who were deeply unhappy and entrenched in the shame of their precalamity mistakes like purah and zelda become active, beloved members of their communities. we see the people of lurelin village take back and rebuild their destroyed home. we watch this kingdom and its people make an unprecedented comeback after a century of struggle and ruin.
Similarly, totk's gameplay is LINK's second chance, his comeback from the initial mistake of losing zelda, of specifically being unable to reach her with his injured hand when they fell. The consequences of that--the master sword's corruption, the loss of his arm, and zelda's draconification, are all supposed to SEEM irreversible, because that's how LINK initially sees them. he believes that he doomed both himself and zelda all because of that SINGLE moment in which he wasn't enough, a viewpoint which is obviously left over from the pressure he experienced to perform to an impossible standard of perfection pre-calamity. The story of totk is about deconstructing that belief and proving it wrong. the mistake he made caused harm, but it's never too late to repair things. he can fix the regional phenomena ganondorf causes and rebuild those communities. he can revitalize the master sword. he can GET ZELDA BACK, with his own arm, uninjured and able to reach her this time. no matter how impossible those things may initially seem, no matter the perceived finality of his mistakes and their consequences, there is always hope. there is always a second chance. no one person's single mistake can doom an entire kingdom for eternity. the fate of hyrule was NEVER resting on link's shoulders alone. he was never their final hope. there was always going to be an after. the whole POINT of the draconification and the loss of link's arm is that they AREN'T final. they ARE inconsequential, because they were born of one mistake and ONE MISTAKE IS NOT THE END ALL.
genuinely don't understand people who gripe about someone getting into dunmesh for m/m pairings as opposed to f/f when none of them are even close to being the main point of the series
"Every big result always feels like a needed one. It's a happy feeling, it's a powerful feeling. Feels very good and nice also to keep a few people quiet."
see the thing that gets me about the nekoma v. nohebi match is that when naoi is helping yaku on the side of the court, he tells him, "shibayama may look weak, but he's strong" to try and reassure him and yaku just goes, "i know. it's not him i'm worried about" in response
and whenever i read that i'm just like "!!!" because yaku never doubted shibayama! yaku ALWAYS believed in him, even when shibayama didn't believe in himself! yaku trusted that he would carry! what the fuck was naoi even on! why would he say that in the first place! yaku is presumably the one who spent the most time with shibayama, training him and helping him and teaching him to grow! to connect! to become part of the team! that's YAKU'S number one pupil! how could yaku not have any faith in him? how could yaku think, even for a second, that shibayama wouldn't pull through?
also, his admission that it was lev he was worried about? which, yeah, i'm pretty sure all of us already knew — if anyone was going to be a weak link, it would be the cocky overconfident first-year brat who talked hot shit without anything to show for it. (and i'm saying this as someone who loves lev a lot, mind you.)
but what worried yaku the most was that lev didn't understand 'connection'. and while yaku could more than make up for it with his own skill, it's crazy to think that lev didn't understand it while yaku, of all people, was on the court. lev didn't understand until shibayama stepped in! and that's the crazier part: yaku couldn't connect with lev, but shibayama did. yaku and lev worked fine, yeah, but that wasn't what lev needed to understand. and that's okay! sometimes all it takes is the right person with the right words, and everything falls into place. and i think that's an absolutely brilliant and incredibly lovely lesson on how connection is also about finding the different ways to make puzzle pieces fit instead of sanding down their edges, because everyone is different and that should be something we are all understanding of!!!!