#mostly meant for lu people but not fandom specific

[catreginae]

Researching Games You Can't Access

I don't care if people don't actual want this or not, but I felt like putting down some sources so that people can experience or learn from games they do not own. I'm going to assume that you can't access games for whatever reason and you aren't just going to emulate it (no judgment either way from me).

Zelda Wiki

Bookmark this link right now! This my go-to when I need to brush up on some info, like who has what items, which enemies come from which era... spelling monster names because I never get lizalfos right on my first try ... I go here first! Go to the link provided because that wiki is not affiliated with Fandom, which makes easier to read because you'll have more article than ad. If you click on any of the titles in the main page, it brings you to the article about the game which gives you a pretty good synopsis and introduction to the characters.

I also like to go here for the galleries for character art.

I say click around and have fun!

Youtube

If pictures aren't covering it and I need more information or a better idea of the landscape that the pictures are giving me, I go to Youtube and find a playthrough. You can watch somebody play the entire game, 100%, and if you desire, with absolutely no commentary from the uploader.

I needed to brush up on Faron Woods from Twilight Princess so I typed in 'twilight princess faron woods walkthrough' and looked through a few videos to find exactly what I needed. I even took some screenshots for the minimap to use for myself later. I haven't gotten everything I needed from Youtube just yet but I'm pretty happy with what I got so far.

Zelda Dungeon

I think I'm kind of attached to this because I used it when I was young, but Zelda Dungeon has pretty good walkthroughs that can also provide more maps and pictures.

[thunderpetal]

Question.

Do you have any tips for writing?

Yes I do! This is all what just works for me though, so take it with a grain of salt.

-Rules are meant to be broken. Specifically, grammar rules. Okay, nine times out of ten, you should follow grammar rules, but sometimes a sentence works better if you purposefully don't use a comma correctly. Don't listen to the people who act like you will die if you use a piece of punctuation wrong. Learn what the rules of English are so you can have fun effectively breaking them later.

-Open the doc of your WIP every day. Even if you don't actually write anything in it, by at least reading over what you've written daily, your brain will keep thinking about that WIP and potential ideas for it. And for me, if there's a day I didn't write, even if I had free time and wanted to, mostly it's because I didn't even take the first step of opening my doc. If you want to write consistently, open your doc. Look at it. The sentences will come.

-Read a lot. Read books, read other fics, it will help you become a better writer without you even having to think about it. You can even go an extra step and analyse what it is you think makes your fave books so great, and try to put it into practice in your own writing, but you don't have to go that far. Just reading will tickle your brain, improve your vocabularly, and offer you fresh perspectives.

-Outline your longer fics. I find outlining oneshots that are less than, say, 5k words, is more of an optional thing, but for anything longer than that? Especially multi chapter fics? Babes, you need to outline. You will thank yourself later. Even having an idea of how a fic will end before you sit down to write it will help you massively in the long run. If you outline, you'll much more easily be able to do cool shit like foreshadowing and effectively building up tension. It will also make it easier to actually sit down and write if you know exactly what scenes you will be writing, and how they will play out.

-Related to the last point, here's something that just works for me: I love brainstorming in pencil. The only time I actually handwrite a full story is during my English Language exams for school, but brainstorming/plotting/outlining? Scribbling it all down in a notebook feels so much better than typing it into a doc. I highly recommend it. ESPECIALLY using pencil. Writing with a pencil just feels like I can roughly jot down my ideas way faster than I do when using a pen. Plus, writing in pencil just feels nice. It might not work for everyone, but it does wonders for me.

-Lastly, write what you want to see. Write all your most self-indulgent ideas. If you only write what you think is popular/what the fandom wants to see, as opposed to what YOU'RE most interested in writing, you'll probably enjoy writing far less and get burnt out. If you get an idea and you think it's good and cool, write it. Your passion will shine through. Equally, if someone's already written a similar concept, don't be dissuaded from writing your own take. I mean, think of how many Fierce Deity fics there are for LU! All with their own cool ideas and interpretations of the character! Imagine how boring it would be if only one FD fic existed. Even if you think an idea has already been done, or it's not something people would be interested in reading, write it anyway. You can ignore everything else I’ve said, but please follow this one. If you write for yourself, you’ll be golden.

[kyoupann]

You mentioned language/writing disorders in your handwriting headcanons. I'm curious about them since I know very little about those disorders [I only know a bit about dyslexia cuz my cousin has it]. Would you mind talking about them? Please and thank you.

I’m more than happy to share these language headcanons with y’all!! c:

For now, I’ll just address the two disorders I mentioned here, aphasia and agraphia

Quick disclaimer: I am not a professional and I’m very much still learning about language disorders. To be fair, it’s been only about a year and a half since I found out aphasia existed at all. All my knowledge on these disorders come from a couple of classes in my applied linguistics and phonetics courses and my own research. I encourage everyone interested in incorporating any type of condition into their writing to do your own research as I’m sure you’ll find better explanations than mine out there <3

I love seeing everyone’s take on Link’s lack of speech. I’ve seen people writing Link as hard of hearing, mute, autistic and all of them are amazing ideas that I’m sure represent many people in the fandom. However, I have yet to find someone who has attributed him a specific language disorder (and if you know of anyone, please let me know!!!)

Funnily enough, I haven’t played BoTW yet my headcanons are for that Link

My language headcanons for Wild (in both LU and general LoZ)

If the shrine could cause him total memory loss, or amnesia, I consider it very plausible that other areas of his brain were affected as well. After all, he died and his brain must have been inactive for quite a few minutes which is obviously big yikes in any situation. So, inactivity/damage in the brain = possible language disorder/expressive aphasia

               Language disorders are, basically, of two kinds: those which affect comprehension speech and those which affect production of speech. For Wild’s case we are of course looking at the latter. There are two areas in the brain that are responsible for language: Wernicke’s area and Broca’s area. Wernicke’s area is involved in the comprehension of language (both written and spoken), while Broca’s is responsible for the production of language. Damage to either one of these parts is likely to result in one type of aphasia.

               Aphasia is the loss of language comprehension and production due to damage in one area of the brain. Common causes are strokes and head trauma. There are many types of aphasia but for the sake of brevity, I’ll just focus on Broca’s aphasia or Expressive aphasia, which is the specific condition I headcanon Wild to have.

               Although its name is a bit confusing, Expressive aphasia prevents Wild from creating complete sentences. He would be able to speak, but his sentences would mostly consist of words with meaning (horse, house, beautiful) and will be missing articles and prepositions (the, this, a, on); he wouldn’t be able to create grammatically correct sentences, his speech would be slow and something like:  morning….uh…I…er…first… uh…. Apple… apple… er…. Eat... (The first thing I ate in the morning was an apple).

               The biggest issue is that expressive aphasia doesn’t affect language comprehension as much as it affects production. Wild could be able to understand written and spoken language with mild limitations (can read simple sentences but might have problems with indirect speech and multiple-subject sentences) And I say biggest issue because most patients with aphasia are aware of their struggles. Their intelligend is unaffected. Wild would be very aware that he is missing some words. This often leads to feelings of frustration and insecurity.

Think of expressive aphasia as “I know the word for it, but I cannot remember what it is” but… for most of your vocabulary.

               However, aphasia can be ‘treated’ with speech therapy. Language will not be the same as before, but it can get better. And there are many cases of people with aphasia using sign language as means of communication because gestures are produced/perceived by a brain area different to language areas! So, Wild would prefer to be mostly silent and use sign language to communicate with strangers, but would feel more comfortable speaking with close friends like Zelda and Twi, who he knows will be patient with him so he doesn’t have to worry about taking long to remember words.

               The other language disorder I mentioned was apraxia, but I meant to write agraphia. However, it is still relatively new to me and I haven’t had the chance to find enough material to work with, so I’m still not sure if I’ll ever really to commit to this headcanon.

But long story short, agraphia often appears with other disorders (like aphasia), there are so many types of agraphia! some affect the movement areas while others affect language areas in the brain. When there is no sign of other disorders it’s called pure agraphia and it’s the inability to write while still being able to read and speak. People with agraphia might have problems sounding out words, making sound-to-letter connections and they sometimes heavily rely on their orthographic memory for writing which results in frequent spelling errors.

As for Wind, I’ve been considering either agraphia or aphasia for him as well since he has been thrown against walls enough times, hard enough to cause at least some concussions :( that battle with Ganondorf? Yikes! But since he is young ™, he has a greater chance at easily strengthening his remaining language skills, they will not be on the same level as kids his age, but there’s the possibility of getting better than Wild with less difficulty.

So, tldr:

Broca’s Aphasia: loss of language production, can understand with mild difficulties but has problems coming up with complete sentences and speech is robot-like.

Agraphia: loss of the ability to write due to either damage to motor areas or language areas in the brain. Can read and speak with mild difficulties but has problems producing written language.

I definitely didn’t expect this to be so long 😂 I’m sorry! I hope I was clear 😞 still, I had a good time writing this since I never had the opportunity during my classes, so thank you so much for asking, Silver!! 💛💛

If you got this far, then you might want to be check my handwriting headcanons. If you have a hc about language/culture (or any type, tbh), feel free to share them with me anytime! I’d love to read them!!! 💛

[maptoourescape]

At least promise you’ll be back on roleplaying and writing when Lucy is back. In fact when will she be back? Maybe you still have contacts with her, even though you don’t rp?

Hey anon!First of all, I’m terribly sorry for not having been able toreply to your previous ask (because I assume it indeed was you who sent it?). There’s honestly no proper excuse I couldthrow your way in regards to my silence. All I can say is that I simply don’tknow where to even start in regardsto the whole Bill/Tom/Klum topic anymore. Truth be told, my thoughts on it areso complex and all over the place, that I rather just avoid thinking about italtogether most of the days. The mere prospect of having to word theentire mess makes me tired already.So I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you, butI really don’t think I’d even manage to write anything substantial in the firstplace. With the tour approaching, though, I’m pretty sure I’ll be indire need of a rant soon enough, seeing how I’m convinced Klum is going to join it as well at some point. I also thinkthe tour will provide me with some much needed first hand insight as well,which will be crucial in putting the pieces of what the fuck is going on togetherin a more coherent way. But let me not dwell on that other ask too long now, andaddress the matter of RPing at hand.I can’t promise that I’ll be back roleplaying - at least not in the format that you’re used to read, that is. Iwish I could, and I’d love nothing more than to jump right back in, but just asmuch as you’ve been left in the dark, I’ve been left in the dark as well.You see,I don’t even know if Lucy will becoming back at all.For lack of a more appropriate wording: she bailed on me.She’d hate this wording, I’m sure (I still know you so well, Lu) – she would think it’s harsh of me to say so,and hold a grudge against me for putting it so bluntly. But that’s literallywhat it was - or well - is. You might think I know something more about thematter, seeing how I’m part of what we had going here – hell, Imyself would expect of myself to know something more as well! – butalas, I really don’t.One day she was here, then the next - she was gone.The timeline of how this came to be is blurry when I think back on it. It’sbeen quite a few months in between then and now after all. But I think it allstarted with her being online less and less in the end of 2017/beginning 2018.She was working on her thesis back then, and asked me for some space – she is awoman who is very much so enjoys her educational prospects, and someone who cherishesher career a lot. A bit of a Hermione Granger, if you will. Her disappearanceswere not so far stretched out at first, but as time passed by, she only ever came online everyfew weeks, until she finally disappeared for good in March of 2018. That meansthe last I heard from her was actually more than a year ago now.And it evenfeels longer than that, in retrospective.I tried texting her on Skype a few times. Although I was hurt and feltbetrayed, I didn’t really word that out loud to her, because knowing her, she’dtake that as ammunition to justify her being away even more (“how could I evercome back, knowing you were mad at me” sorta scenario). So my texts consistedmostly of saying that I’m sorry if she felt pressured by me in any way, andthat I’d love to have her back.I still stand by it: I miss her. I am not someone who holds grudges, and I amnot someone who lets people go lightly once I hold them as dear to my heart as Lucy. She still holds, and probably alwayswill hold, a special place in my heart – she is an extraordinary individual whocomplemented me as a writer and artist, but more importantly as a person and asa friend, as well.I’d love nothing more than for her to come back and fill mydays and nights with artistic excitement and nerdy blabber.But I would belying if I’d say I don’t feel hurt, still.So long answer short: yes, I have ways to reach her. More than she mightimagine herself, actually. I could reach out to her irl friends as well, if everything elsefailed. I have my ways.The thing is though – I don’t think Lucy wants me to do that.I doubt she evenwants to be contacted at all.I’m pretty damn sure she knows I’m still around here. She knows where to find me if she would ever choose to do so. Andthis isn’t about pride – as said, I did try reaching out to her a couple oftimes (to no avail). This is about basic human decency. Lucy chose to walk outon me, so I feel like it isn’t exactly on me to pursue (nor persuade) her any further. That is a step she must make herself at this point. If she wants to be away from me, then I don’t feel like intruding her personalspace is really the way to go. She distanced herself from me, not vice versa,and protruding myself into her face just doesn’t seem fair.I love her, so I respect her decision not to be around me, even if I amdisappointed and hurt by not knowing exactly why she decided to just wordlesslyabandon ship.My suspicions are (ones that I voiced out to her as well, way back), that shefelt way too “imprisoned” with what we were doing, but had no idea how toproperly break it to me without hurting my feelings. I told her numerous timesthat if she ever gets bored with what we are doing, she can just tell me so,and that we’ll try to work our way around the issue. See, when I made thisblog, I was always very specific in what I wanted to do. I always wanted toexplore the relationship the twins have in a very “canon” way, if I may call itso. A straightforward, and very day to day like way. I wanted to exploreeveryday issues that they were facing, wanted to take the life they shared withus on social media and make it into a coherent little psychological explorationof their relationship. I was monotonous as fuck. And I think Lucy eventually grew tired of that. Of me. She wouldtell me, repeatedly so, that that’s not the case, but I don’t know if she was being entirelytruthful in that. It certainly doesn’t seem so now. BUt it makes sense. She was always the one that was gleaming with ideas. Ideas fornew and exciting things, AUs, all of it! In that regard, we were different.I feel like maybe I was holding her back – like maybe with me, she couldn’treally fulfil her full potential. I figured that that’s why she made a new blogaccount as well, eventually - in the late stages of our online interactions. She would say it was “because she had way too manythings piled up on her old blog, and couldn’t keep track anymore”. That “she justwanted to start fresh with all the other people she was RPing with, and that ithad nothing to do with what we were doing”. But I don’t think that was reallyall there was to it. Part of it, maybe, but not the entire reasoning. I wasshocked by her making another account, and it left a bitter taste in my mouth.She didn’t tell me she was making one, nevermind why she was doing it, so Ifigured she just wanted to start fresh with me as well, which meant ignoring the building upof our characters that we had going on for more than two solid years at that point. And that was harsh. We were deathbykaulitz andmaptoourescape, you know. It was an experience. It was ongoing, and personal,and very close to my heart. And with her making a new blog, it felt like shedidn’t really feel the same way anymore. Maybe that’s when “the beginning ofthe end” truly began. Perhaps she just wanted to start anew, and felt likethere was no way to do it without hurting my feelings. Perhaps she just feltlike there’s not much more she could begin to do with me any longer. That itwas boring, and repetitive, and exhausting, and unexciting.Last I heard of her, she told me she was “ashamed that she couldn’t keep up herpromises of doing more”. That “she didn’t keep to her word she gave me, when shesaid everything will go back to normal once she finished writing up her thesis”.She said, and I quote this time: “I value reciprocity a lot. Whenever I receive, I want to give back.And I couldn’t do that.”Maybe at the end of the day, what drove her away washer inability to understand that I really wouldbe okay with it eventually if she truthfully told me that she just can’t do this with me anymore.Maybe what drove her away was her thinking “I can’t give back to her as much asshe’s giving to me anymore, so I guess the best way to go about it is just toabandon ship entirely and never come back again, because not facing it is lesspainful than having to admit it and along the way maybe hurt her feelings”.As much as it pains me to say it, I haveto:her leaving me was more painful than her being tired of my RP skills couldever be. But me being me, I still want her back. Perhaps she mightthink I feel like I only lost a RP partner that day. But it was more than that.She robbed me of a very dear friend, and never gave the two of us anopportunity to actually work around whatever the issue at hand might have been.Iimagine she is happier now. I can’t begin to tell you about the amount of timesI went into the GOT RP community, to maybe find her excellent writing amongstthe sea of other, new people – better role players and better friends. Tryingto find her amongst the Cerseis and Jeamies that would excite her more than Iever could. It still gnaws at my conscience that I seemingly wasn’t enough. Butwhether she’s happy in a new found fandom, or maybe just blissfully busy withonly her career which I know she loves so much – honestly, there’s not much moreI could ask of her.Even through all of my misery, I love to see my friends thrive and be happy.Hell, I’m someone who at 13 years old wrote a long ass letter to a girl who wasalso in love with my crush to go get him if she is what makes him truly happylmao. I’d choose my friend’s happiness over mine, anytime.I hope she isdoing well. That she’s happy and healthy wherever life’s road is taking her.Maybe a bit of a TMI answer. But I feltlike getting it off my chest. You deserve to know what went up with us, atleast vaguely. And she also deserves to know how I feel, if she ever stumblesonto this - what seems to have turned into an open letter of sorts.GG for reading through this pile of emotional crap if you managed to get thisfar lol.But most of all, thank you infinitely for caring. For being interested in what we did, and in whatI do here. I never thought anyone would really care for what we were cooking upwith our roleplay, and the fact that there’s people out there who care, andread, and appreciate humbles me so fucking much. I don’t give you nearlyenough credit or appreciation – perhaps because it’s so hard for me to imagineanyone would take a minute of their time to indulge in something I made. But know that when it hits me, it hits me hard. There is no better feeling than knowing someone loves and enjoys what you created.Much love, and in hopes I didn’t disappoint you all too terribly,Tina

[seyaryminamoto]

Seeing as you've already given your opinion on who are the most overrated characters of atla, who do you think are the most underrated?

Heh, well…

I wasn’t sure whether to feature Sokka as #1 or #2 but alas, I love him so he gets #1. He’s terribly underrated and it angers me. There was a time when my blog wasn’t an exclusively Sokkla blog with a few things on the side, I used to reblog general Avatar things (yes, that was A LONG time ago xD), and yet every single time I saw “Team Avatar” posts without Sokka I would literally scroll past them as if they didn’t exist. Because ffs, I don’t care if he’s not a bender, if the other four are the perfect symbolization of the four elements in harmony, HE’S PART OF TEAM AVATAR TOO!… so yes. Sokka. The guy who gets simplified, as I recently said, as “he was sexist and now he’s not” by posts of 100K notes, or even shrugged off by some people as “the funny one”, even gets hated by some people with terrible taste who think he’s useless just because he can’t bend. Yep, those who hate him because of this aren’t even worth talking to, in my experience. Clear as day they can’t see the true worth of anything even if it’s right in front of their eyes.Alas, Sokka, the boy who grew up into a man by putting other people’s needs ahead of his own, who stood his moral code even in the worst circumstances (such as shown in Jet), who opened his mind to new experiences and became a remarkable warrior because of this. He’s humble, but his heart is stronger than that of any other character in the franchise. He has seen so much tragedy and such darkness weighs inside him, but he doesn’t allow those tragedies to shape him. His strength is seriously admirable.… And I’d dare say half the fandom, if not more, just think he’s the funny guy. He’s the definition of an underrated character.

Ironically, I think Aang is very underrated. Yes, he’s not my favorite character either, but the strength this boy showed in the face of his many tragedies, and the evolution from fleeing from his problems to being able to face his responsibilities was pretty great. Also, Aang, unlike some other characters, usually faced consequences when he did something wrong.Perhaps the only exception I can think for that is his emo phase during Book 2, which is justified plenty, but the show doesn’t try to make you think he’s being nice. It’s shown that he’s very affected by the loss of his bison, but his treatment of his friends isn’t sweetened. The others show a lot of strength and understanding, knowing Aang can’t be his usual self when this is weighing on him. It was a bad time for everyone, yet I feel it was handled well enough as something that was hurting Aang really badly, one last straw for him after he had undergone so much pain already.Other than that specific part of the show, Aang often was forced to grow and change whenever he made mistakes, and had to face many uncomfortable truths about his past lives and the world he lived in. He showed a lot of integrity and human qualities and never degenerated into a tropey shonen anime protagonist, for instance. So while I’m not a huge Aang fan, I figured the rest of the fandom would appreciate him more. No doubt he has his fans, but a ton of the hate he gets is undeserved and often hypocritical, not to mention it’s mostly done to simplify his character when he was pretty great, as a character and hero, as he was.

Ahahahahaaa… Ozai! Yes, I don’t blame most people for underestimating and despising Ozai: let’s be fair, this man was supposed to be the final boss and he was built from the start to be the kind of villain people hated. He wasn’t meant to be relatable or nice or emotional or anything of the sort, even if a handful of people did grow to like him. But the show clearly wanted him to be a bad guy, THE bad guy, and he played his part well enough.But the thing that bugs me with Ozai is: for one thing, so many people underestimate his bending skills. No lie, we only saw him fighting in Sozin’s Comet, but even so, the kind of mad skills he showed there were off the charts. The legion of people claiming Iroh is stronger than Ozai and that he would’ve handed his ass to him is honestly laughable, considering that IROH HIMSELF SAYS HE DOESN’T KNOW THAT HE CAN GO UP AGAINST HIS BROTHER. Ozai is the strongest firebender in ATLA, PERIOD. He did things no other firebenders were shown doing. He was supposed to be that powerful BECAUSE he’s the final boss. Yes, the fight between him and Aang falls short compared to the Last Agni Kai because the emotional investment and conflict isn’t as strong here as it was over there, but for people to actually claim Ozai was weak at all? That he wasn’t that big a deal? Excuse you, but that’s just spite talking. I love Azula with all my heart, and even I can see she still wasn’t on the same power level scale as her father during the finale. And that’s fact. (I think she has the potential to surpass him, yes, but she hadn’t done it by the time of the finale).And then there’s the other reason why Ozai is underrated: yes, he wasn’t developed, he wasn’t explored, he fell flat many times. But honest to gods, it’s not that hard to draw the parallels between him and Zuko when you consider: 1. Ozai was designed to look like an older version of Zuko 2. Ozai is stated to have traveled looking for the Avatar, just like Zuko 3. Ozai gets passed over by his father and punished beyond proportion for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Seriously, can we not see these parallels, right there? And that’s without getting into the similarity of Zuko and Ozai’s personalities, because both of them seemed to feel entitled to the throne that, originally, wasn’t supposed to be theirs (as a reminder, if we go by what the Wikia says, Zuko is 11 when Lu Ten dies, which means he spent 11 years of his life without being a Crown Prince or expecting to take the throne because, by all logic, it should have been Lu Ten’s... yet he slides into the “that throne will be mine” mentality within a few years). Both of them are brash, hot-headed and impulsive. Both of them have bad tempers, both of them spent years trying to please fathers who could never be pleased at all.Point being? OZAI IS A MIRROR FOR ZUKO. OZAI IS “BAD ENDING ZUKO”. OZAI IS WHAT ZUKO COULD HAVE BEEN IF AANG NEVER SHOWED UP, IF IROH WASN’T AROUND TO GUIDE HIM. And that, my friends, adds a fuckton of complexity to Ozai that the majority of the fandom is happy to overlook. Hate him all you want, he’s supposed to be hated. But this guy is waaaaay more than what meets the eye if you only stop for ten minutes to ponder his character, his possible motivations and his relationships. It’s especially clear that he’s very much complex when you factor in the resemblance with Zuko.

And this time I guess I’ll cut it short at 3 because I can’t think of anyone else who’s underrated or even criticized relentlessly without much basis. While there’s some people who undermine characters like Suki, she also has a fairly big and solid group of fans who are very much devoted to bringing up her character and who will always begrudge Bryke for not revealing anything about her future, so she’s not THAT underrated...?

Welp, I feel the fandom is a little more balanced with the rest of the characters, there’s enough love and hate to go for everyone. So I guess I’ll keep it as a top 3 this time, if you don’t mind, Anon.