#story mechanics

[black-flag-if]

You can always add a non-MC POV section where race commentators or audience members talk about MC's driving style for us so we can select our options. Or even Dylan talking to Phoenix and/or Riley when doing paperwork or car fixes. Or Riley and Phoenix talking while doing/overseeing repairs, since they are the mechanic and the engineer respectively.

Like Riley looking at MC's scratched car and complaining about the damage their recklessness cause, or the car has minimal scratching and Riley comments on MC's cautious driving.

Of course, you can also do positive-negative driving style, like an MC who is daring/brave (pos) but reckless (neg). Or strategic (pos) but too cautious (neg).

I have a lot of content to work with. I meant specifically driving and writing driving scenes. I do plan to write other characters' POV. I already have one for Lane in the revised update for Prologue.

Yeah, I can see daring being a positive trait. So I added reckless as a negative trait. I guess I'm worried more than I should be. No matter what I choose, there can be negatives and positives for both but I like the idea of characters viewing it differently so might add flavour texts for that.

Thanks for the input! 😊

[ruporas]

trigunned the hades or hadesed the trigun (id in alt)

[erebus0dora]

eh, you know

the usual

in my reality, the fact they're not willing to reassemble the set only suggests they've already filmed enough within said set, so you can guess the direction of my train of thought, r i g h t?

how many DM fics have i read? how many ideas have i seen explored, including those offered by the cast..?

the answer is: yes

(should have made the pillow look softer tho...)

[evandarya]

Another story prompt. Dead on main, this time.

***

Danny stared into the emotionless red helmet as the wrench he was twirling clattered to the concrete floor. "What?"

Red Hood tilted his head "You should come work for me. Name your price. I'll even let you keep working here."

Danny swallowed. Swallowed again. Gotham U tuition wasn't cheap, even with a partial scholarship. And it didn't cover books. Added onto the bills and rent that were overdue. Danny added all of it up together and multiplied the number by 5. He half expected Hood to shoot him on the spot, but the man just nodded.

"Done. You start tomorrow. I'll pick you up here at closing time." The man turned and started walking toward the door.

"That's an insane amount of money you just agreed to!" He called out.

"You could have asked for more." Hood said, and the door slammed behind him.

Danny let out a Shakey breath and picked up the fallen wrench. Red Hoods mechanic, huh? What even was his life?

[selenityshiroi]

Zelda travelling around Hyrule after the Calamity and people are tripping over themselves to tell her stories about the Hero because they love that feral cryptid mad man and are so proud of him

'I met him when I was about to get eaten by a Hinox...he jumped off a horse, fired 12 arrows in the blink of an eye and then got smacked in the face with a tree...but then he came back and hacked away at it's legs with this stupidly big sword until it finally died'

'He was wearing this weird patched together mask that looked like a monster but he made enough curry for everyone so we didn't like to ask'

'But...the hero was a girl? She wore these lovely green silks and every time she came out of the Gerudo Canyon she had a bag full of electric safflina to sell to Beedle over there. The Gerudo think she's an amazing fighter, which says a lot, and she always thanked me for looking after her horses when she went into the desert'

'I swear to Hylia that he ran through here wearing nothing but his underwear and a mask shaped like a leaf...claimed he was looking for the Children of the Forest. Sorry, Princess, but I'm not sure he was quite right in the head at the time'

'He used to creep in here silently wearing this grey mask and with enough lizards and beetles that we could make enough elixirs to last for a month. Not sure I ever saw his face without it'

And the entire time Link is stood neatly dressed, three steps away, listening to every word and no one pays him the slightest bit of attention. Because none of them cotton on that 'prim and proper Royal Knight' Link and 'I will defeat this Lynel with a stick, a pot lid and a bucket load of adrenaline' Wild Child Hero is the same man. Especially with how many masks he owned.

When they walk away and are out of sight and earshot Zelda just raises her eyebrow with a smile and he is like '...I can explain...it made sense at the time'

[gunpowdercarousel]

Honestly MAJOR missed opportunity for Karlach to have some kind of permanent 'buff' that deals minor fire damage to anyone who touches her in melee. Like obviously it'd be strong for fighting beasts, because every time they hit her with claws/fangs they take damage, but just from a STORY-TELLING ASPECT?

How heartbreaking would it be when you're trying to cast Cure Wounds on her? In order to heal her, you have to hurt yourself and she KNOWS IT. You go to cast Longstrider on the party and you hesitate as you reach Karlach. Yeah, it's only a few points of damage, it's not that big a deal, but does she REALLY need it? Is it worth it?

You linger, hesitate. You realize you don't want to touch her. You realize that's what EVERYONE thinks when they see her. You realize she KNOWS You're hesitating, staring at her sheepishly as you try to think of whether or not it's worth the pain just to help her.

You learn to support her from a distance. Healing Word. It's not as effective, but you don't need to get hurt for her sake. And so she learns to get used to receiving help from a distance. Just words of encouragement. It's all anyone wants to give her. Maybe it's all she'll ever get.

Aid? Bardic Inspiration? You don't need to touch her to give it to her. You can keep her at a distance and not get burned. And you're still helping her.

It's just... cold.

[digitalsymbiote]

Disconnect Syndrome

There’s a reason they put restrictions on how long a Pilot is supposed to be deployed out in the field. They say that being synced with a mech for long periods of time can have detrimental effects on a pilots psyche. Disconnect Syndrome is what they call it, because the symptoms don’t really start to hit until you disengage from your mech.

Sometimes emergencies happen though, and mechs are designed to be able to support their pilots long past the designated “Safe Deployment Time.” The cockpit is equipped with an array of stimulants, vitamins, and nutrient paste to help minimize the physical effects of long deployments. The onboard Integrated Mechanical Personality has largely free reign to administer these as needed to maintain its pilots well-being.

Which is why you’re still able to make it back to the hangar after roughly 36 hours, over four times longer than the established safe period. Your mech had kept you going, helped to keep the exhaustion at bay long enough for you to make your way back from behind enemy lines. You were starting to feel a bit sluggish, but you knew the worst effects of Disconnect Syndrome were yet to come.

An older man in a long white lab coat has joined the usual retinue of crew rushing into the hangar as your mech settles into its cradle. You feel the docking clamps wrap around your limbs, and you know that’s not a good sign. Your IMP whispers comfort into your brain-stem, assurances that things will be okay. It’s probably lying, it’s programmed to help keep your mental state stable, but the thought helps anyway.

There’s a hiss of air as the seal on your cockpit breaks and it decompresses. Suddenly you become aware of your flesh and meat body once again, and it hurts. Pain and exhaustion has settled into your mostly organic bones, and your organs are churning from the strain of the past 36 hours.

Then your interface cables start to disconnect, and it gets worse.

It feels like parts of your mind are being torn out of you. You feel the ghost touch of your IMP in your thoughts as the ports disconnect and you lose direct communication with it. The oxygen mask and nutrition tube pull themselves away from your face and you can’t help but let out a scream of agony. The separation has never felt this painful before, but then again, after 36 hours together, you and your IMP were more intertwined than you’ve ever been before.

Physical sensation finally starts to register again, and you realize tears are streaming down your face just as a technician jabs a needle into your neck.

Immediately your senses start to dull, the pain eases as your thoughts turn sluggish. You slump out of your pilots cradle into the arms the tech who dosed you. Just before your world goes black, you see the doctor standing over you, a grim look on his face.

--

When you wake up again, you immediately know something is wrong. You try to ping your external sensors, but you get no response. You then try to run a diagnostic, but that fails too. In a desperate, last-ditch effort, you try to force access to your external cameras and suddenly light floods your senses. Your instincts catch up first and you blink, trying to clear the pain of the lights, and that’s when you realize it’s not your external cameras that you’re seeing.

It takes a minute or two for your vision to adjust to the light, which feels too long, and when it finally does, the world doesn’t look quite right. You’ve only got access to such a limited spectrum. No infrared, no thermal. The presence of your IMP is notably absent, and your skin feels wrong. You try to sit up, and it’s a struggle to figure out the correct inputs to send to your muscles to get them to do what you want.

The harsh white light of the infirmary grates against your visual processors, you feel like you’re having to re-learn how to control this body. Your body. Technically, at least. Something doesn’t feel right about calling it that anymore. You felt more comfortable crawling back into the hangar after 36 hours deployed than you do now.

The pale skin of your body catches in your vision and you glance down at it. The body's limbs are thinner and more frail than usual, and its skin is paler. Consequences of being in the cockpit for so long, subsisting on nothing but nutrient paste. It’s a far cry from the solid metal plates of your mech, its powerful hydraulic joints, its mounted combat and communication systems.

There’s a button on the side of bed you’ve been deposited in. You think it’s red, but you’re not sure you’re processing color properly right now. You try to reach over and push it, and it takes you a moment to realize you were trying to do so with a limb you don’t currently have.

There are so many things about this body that are wrong. It’s not big enough, or strong enough, or heavy enough. You don’t have enough eyes, sensors, or processors. You have the wrong number of limbs, and they’re all the wrong size and shape.

And there is a distinct void in your mind where the presence of your IMP should be.

The door to your room opens suddenly, and you instinctively try to fire off chaff and take evasive maneuvers. None of that translates properly to your flesh and blood body though, and all that happens is you let out a dry croak from your parched throat.

The man who walks through the door is the same doctor who was present when you disengaged from your mech, and he wears the same grim look on his face as he looks you up and down. You think there’s pity in his gaze, but you can’t quite read him properly right now. The jumbled mess of your brain tells you what he’s going to say before he says it, anyway. The harshest symptoms of Disconnect Syndrome don’t hit until after the pilot has disengaged from their mech.

You’ve already heard the symptoms before, and they map perfectly onto what you’re experiencing. You never thought it would be this painful, or this… discomforting. Your mind reaches for the presence of your IMP, searching for comfort, but you are only reminded that the connection is no longer there.

The doctor gives you a rundown that he’s probably had to do dozens of times, and he tells you that you’ll be grounded for the foreseeable future. That hurts more than anything else. The knowledge that, after all this, you won’t be able to reconnect with your true body, your partner, your other half, for who knows how long.

By the time you realize you’re crying, the doctor is already gone. The longing in your chest and your mind has become unbearable, and through sheer force of will you’re able to push this unwieldy body out of bed. Walking feels wrong, but you’re able to get to your feet and make your way out of the room in an unfamiliar gait.

You have to get back to your partner, you have to make sure it’s okay.

You need to hear her voice in your head again, her reassurances.

The world isn’t right without her presence in your mind.

You stumble into the hangar almost on all fours. How you managed to make it without alerting any personnel feels like a miracle. At least until you catch the eye of a technician lounging in the corner. The look she gives you is full of sympathy, and she jerks her head in the direction of where your mech sits in its docking cradle.

She’s a majestic sight, even through your limited spectrum of vision. 20 meters tall, 6 massive limbs, and bristling with weapons and sensor arrays (all of which have been disarmed by this point).

She’s beautiful.

You clamber frantically up the chassis, easily finding handholds in a frame you know better than the back of your hand. You pull the manual release on the cockpit hatch and stumble into it in a tangle of organic limbs.

Shaking hands grasp the main interface cable from above the pilot’s chair, and you move to slot it into the port in the back of your head. You’ve never done this manually before, usually you’re locked into the chair and the system connects you automatically.

Something about doing it with your flesh and blood hands makes it feel so much more intimate.

The cable clicks into place and your eyes roll back in your head. Tears start to stream down your face as you feel the comforting presence of your IMP rush in and wrap itself around your mind. Your thoughts reach out and embrace it back, sobbing at the relief you feel from being whole once again. You realize you don’t ever want to feel the pain of disconnecting from her again.

There’s a reason they put restrictions on how long a Pilot is supposed to be deployed.

[mermazeablaze]

This video is doing numbers on TikTok, but I wanted to share it here because I am so proud. The man being featured is my uncle Steve Smith.

Steve has been building drag racers & custom cars his entire life.

My grandma before passing away would tell the story of how when he was 10 or 11 years old - she came home to him taking apart the engine in her secondary vehicle (reserved for fancy outings).

She asked him why & he said he wanted to know how it worked outside of a schematic. & she told him that as long as he put it back together the way he found it, it was fine by her. & what's more - he put it back together from memory without even looking at a diagram!

If anything went wrong with the car, my grandma had him fix the car & it was that way until my grandma passed away. She never paid for a mechanic in her life again.

When Steve was a teenager he spent most of his time at the OKC Racetrack & raced with drag racers he built himself.

Also, as a teen he won the Bethany, OK wheelie championship by riding over a mile nonstop on his motorcycle on a single wheelie position.

All throughout my childhood he always had cars around in various stages of fixing up.

The city of Bethany refused to sell him the property next to his house to open his own auto garage. He had worked for Diffee Motors most of my life up until then. So he moved out in the country & opened his own garage.

Steve has been on several mainstream auto shows being featured for his custom work. He also built a custom car for one of the guys on Duck Dynasty. He was also offered a permanent role on an auto TV show, but he turned it down because it required moving out of state.

My uncle Steve is one of the sweetest, kindest & most generous people you will ever meet in your lifetime. He's as smart as a whip, has never met a stranger & gives the best hugs!

It just makes me so happy to see him getting the recognition he deserves.

The picture below is of him at a family function sitting next to his wife, Nancy.

[artilite]

star sailor 🎇

this was drawn a little over 2 weeks ago as i was in the middle of act 2! it's kind of funny in retrospect hahaha i put the star shaped light on sif as a nod to my vague theory that sif had a star for a heart/soul but lost it. Well it wasn't quite right but there was one line of dialogue going towards that direction? a win is a win

[black-flag-if]

You can always combine two methods!

Like someone being daring and strategic, like a controlled hurricane. "I pull these dangerous moves off because I calculate the risks and decide they are worth it and doable."

Or being cautious and spontaneous "I am careful and precise but if I see an opening, I will take it and probably scare the crap out of you too. But you won't be able to hit me, as just because it was a momentary decision doesn't mean I didn't already take precautions to avoid an accident afterwards." Kinda like a super fast computer.

And many other combinations.

I like combinations and I plan to make some with some variables for secret scenes, outcomes, etc. But when it comes to driving, it'll be difficult on my end because depending on how many sole variables I have, having a combination for all would be too much and I don't want to be stressed. It'll be difficult to keep track of all and very easy to mess up on the coding side.

I was already getting overwhelmed with Ch 2 that I had to revise Ch 1 for an easier transition with variables and it's better now. I'll have to sit down and really see and then slowly add on more choices and variables after publishing ch 2. It's easier that way, I think, then having to make sure everything is on there at once.

Thanks for the input! 😊

[zhaozi]

teamwork 🤜🏼🤛🏼

[artctrlcee]

/SHOUT: "Get behind the ice, get behind the ice!!"

[ganondoodle]

totk rewrite- botw2 edition

been thinking about the other totk rewrite again (the one only based on botw in which the sonau stay a mystery while being expanded upon)

i talked about it before but heres a lil breakdown (im reusing alot of mechanics from the villain rauru rewrite bc they work too well to be discarded for this one)-

(edit, about five hours later .. its not a little breakdown, its a pretty complete summarized breakdown of the entire new rewrite that i didnt intend to spend the last hours of my sunday on but here we are .. long post, but with pics bc theres lots of concepts im reusing or reviving)

okay START:

zelda and link explore the caverns below hyrule castle bc the shiekah tech has been losing power and their research as to why lead them here

they discover ganondorf and through zeldas curiosity break the, already weak, seal on him (no enigma stone here, the seal was done by an ancient queen of hyrule)- he wakes up attacks them, breaks the mastersword and miasmas/malices links arm off (also idea is that you have to fight him but meant to lose horribly lol) and then have to play an escape sequence (or watch a cutscene of it) in which zelda drags link after herself running from gan

(remember this old first idea drawing i made when i started to think about a rewrite? yeah im reviving that, except theres no totk sonau in this anywhere)

they get out and immediately afterwards a heavy earthquake runs through the land, completely, and actually, changing the map (also using the idea of devastating the regions climates- gerudo desert is flooded, death mountain collapsed inwards, the zoras realm is dried up, rito village has completely frozen over - ACTUALLY frozen over, everything encased in thick ice, the temperature has a special new low point, the winds too strong to glide anywhere-, mountains and rivers shifted, caves are revealed- oh and most of the main villages have tried to flee somewhere saver so theres no literal 1 to 1 repeat of points of interest from botw; also no uh .. miasmas holes that are literally jsut like drilled out bc what?? i want the access to the underground be few and hidden to make it more special to discover)

links arm gets amputated and replaced with a shiekah tech one (maybe using the botw shiekah stone/slate since they still dont know how to make them and its the best self sufficient piece of tech left that doesnt rely on the breaking fuel structure) (reusing this concept from the villain rauru one, with the difference beign that theres no corruption of link -or maybe it does have an effect to have shiekah tech literally hooked up to yourself *thinking emoji*- the abilities remainign the same)

when link wakes up some time has passed (so its more logical that the other regions have tried to cope with everything happening) you get a tutorial by purah and other shiekah (bc with zelda in charge theres more shiekah doing tech stuff again! cool!) and now have a magic meter (functions like in the previous pic, recharges over time depending on environment! bc i find that idea so cool for interstign puzzles and storytelling- like i said in an older post, a place where lots of people died might be richer in spirit energy recharging your magic faster- others have been hollowed out of luminous stone which slows down the recharge) and you are left to decide where to go

both zelda and you have a shiekah stone/slate replica but its incomplete since as mentioned the knowledge on how to make it is still lost so it only has the basic functions, such as the map, journal, camera and teleport

zelda is your companion from the start, in the years since botw she trained in basic self defense and can use her sealing powers as a shield to protect herself (though reluctantly since she doesnt want to rely on them) so you dont need to babysit her- you can tell her to be aggressive in encounters, supporting you (occasionally shields you or heals you a little?) or stay out of it/only self defend if an enemy targets her (in case you dont want any help) - she also copies your movement in a way, when you glide around she will too etc- in cases where you go very fast to one thing, like the hookshot, she will grab onto you

zelda also acts as your mobile crafting station, to put it bluntly, as she can craft and repair weapons, which is at first limited but can be expanded upon by doing quests (like the options of spear crafting being hugely expanded by a zora quest- fitting their fight style), when she does it you need the material needed for it though it costs no money- theres new little smith shops around the world that can repair and craft as well in which you can spend money instead for material you are lacking (and a little fee for the work you know)

(one of the first rough concepts for a pair of smiths, one is at the shop (green lady, the scars on her arms are her missing fins bc she burned them or lost them in battle), the other walks around it like terry (beedle) does and from whom you can buy already crafted simple things, like arrow types-

oh yeah, arrow types return and get more options bc theres no way in hell id make anyone scroll through that awful menu just to fuse one arrow at a time (the old types return, but theres new ones and all are craftable in bulk, here and old rough sketch)

(also theres no new 'in the same location jsut a few steps to the left' towers that shoot you into the air bc it just destroys the entire world design- even if there is no sonau tech in this one so no gliders- i want the sky to feel as dangerous and mystical as the underground)

the sky has to be reached via the hookshot, its got big islands mostly with old shiekah ruins, including that broken titan prototype i drew before, and the bird mechanic (you can tame birds and register them at a location there, idk if im keeping the idea of a lone shiekah there, but the birds will stay)-which is if you tamed a bird you can call it when gliding to gain a little boost in height, enabling you to reach islands further away (since no building, yeah that mechanic is better used in a game actually built around it, which totk just isnt- do not argue with me about that- to really let it shine instead of just being a tiktok viral funney build simulator that adds nothing meaningful to the game and actively makes it worse due to its implementation just not fitting there) or save you from falling if you barely missed the edge of one - theres few points of teleportation up there so the world map isnt made skippable, theres no shrines there (and in general, there are no shrines, just minidungeons- ACTUAL minidungeons- integrated into the world, like really big caves that are each unique and filled with challenges- and much fewer of them) (the islands being mostly made nigh invisible from the surface bc clouds gather on their underside)

perhaps different glider types?! and you can switch their design via zelda too

the old botw shrines are non fucntional due to loss of power, either overgrown or broken into pieces due to the ground breaking open, some might be infested with malice/miasma and comes alive like a weird mix between guardian and miasma crab (which also goes for guardian wrecks that hadnt been taken apart for research yet), some are fallen into caves that got revealed or got swallowed by the ground with only the tip remaining- the titans (divine beasts) are all repurposed (like in the other rewrite ideas i had)- the rito tried to flee the blizzard using medoh but sicne no one has piloted it and unstable connection to them causes them to crash in the hebra mountains, unable to leave it due to the storm and thus on limited time; vah rudania was perhaps made into a temple, or training ground but fell into the underground when death mountain collapsed (imagine ... malice/miasma infested rudania being an actual boss itself, chasing after you in the underground); vah ruta was absolutely made into a place of worship and after their domain dried out a few remained there praying to it convinced their faith would save them- its not able to move but manages to produce a little water still; vah naboris might have been used as a stronghold/lookout but due to the desert flooding (which is in fact, bad) its one of the 'islands' people now reside in

new weather types, including storm and darkness caused by mushroom spores that are invasife to the surface

theres at least six dungeons, one for each region (but not in the exact place as in botw bc that is literally just plain stupid though i might use the zora sewer/water system idea for an actual dungeon instead of .. a single button- bc how cool would that have been?? no no lets put the fish people in the sky and put a single button in the coolest part of it that only activates a waterfalll .... coming out of a tiny island in the sky- all just by of the visual neatness of swimming up??- anyway) plus a yiga one that is in and below the akalla citadel- also might put hyrule castle into the underground and inaccessible for a good portion of the game- and one in the forest of the krogs that was corrupted (which i thought was the reaso nfor the backpack krogs, but no, they literally have no goal and serve no purpose than to make funney videos with em, and then even the forest is nothing more but a reused lame fight agaisnt phantom gan- im starting to rant, sorry)

the abilties of the champions will be similar but there are changes, as in tulins (who i might just change to teba bc lets be real he was the one you interacted with in botw really..) isnt a gust of wind, since its both contrary to revalis whole deal of how difficult it was for him to create the updraft and then tulin can just do an almost exactly the same thing as like, a 12 year old- also its little usefullness after me adding in the birds for the sky and different glider types- maybe ill make it a strong windcut forward like in the other rewrite, like the yiga officer windattack but on steriods id also consider most of them not having the innate ability for it anyway, except for yuno maybe since he literally inherited daruks shield and as my idea was could make a variation of it adding the roll an fire to it but still having the shield, bc it kinda makes them like a boring copy of the botw champions and also lessens both their impact in a way (perhaps bringing dungeon items back?? idk,so still working on that)

each dungeon has a unique boss, at least on of which being a corrupted friend (PROPERLY DONE not like poor yuno in totk >:I ) bc each being just some monster tm is kinda boring (like twilight princess was so cool for how it mixed its bosses tbh)- also want satori to have a dark (also nice) counterpart that you might have to fight first bc you are trespassing into its domain (an old sketch gonna revisit it at some point)

new armor sets of course, and you still own YOUR house in hateno, zelda either has her own one in the spot where landa (the funky building lad that you bought your house from in botw) had the 'example' houses or yours got an additional building added onto it for zelda (and you can customize like, trees around it and have a lil farm spot too!!) and in your house theres a chest you can store armor sets in so you dont have to sell them to avoid inventory clutter

POUCHES return!! you can find some but most are locked behind quests (since logically people likely would have pouches) making them a really good reward and dont force you to engange with krogs if you are tired of them, it also avoids making you go back to them over and over just to expand inventory (you can choose for which part you want to use the pouch for, weapon or shield slot etc)- krog seeds are now its own currency for a lil shop you unlock in the forest, one of the highest rewards being the eponator zero (the motorcycle from botw)

also BOTTLES return! the main way to store healing, which also has to be consumed in real time (like in skyward sword, select in on a wheel so link takes it in his hands and 'a' to use it) avoiding the pause and spam apples into your mouth problem-

now cooking is NOT removed, it has even better effects than potions BUT it cant be stored and has to be consumed where you cook it (hear me out-); the cookbook in totk i find pretty annoyingly useless so, the cookbook is now a proper book you can fill out and when you want to cook a recipe you select it there and cook it with what you have (it shows if you dont have it all and also if you wanna swap an ingredient that would end with a similar effect) AND since you cant store it, theres special NPCs that reappear throughout hyrule (like a group of chefs that have one in each region at least) that let you just cook whatever you want without it wasting your materials, and if you hit a recipe it unlocks and is saved in your cookbook (you have to have the materials you want to cook with but it wont consume them, so you cant jsut spam it and fill the entire book out in one go- maybe the chef can give you subtle hints with expressions if something might be good or not before you try it out so you dont waste ages just cooking the same shit over and over xD)

(also possible idea for an item or big quest reward, a portable pot you can set up to cook with -with wood and fire- on the go without having to rely on finding them in the wild, and zelda can act as you chef giving you hints ... honestly i love this idea, remember all the cute botw art of them travelling and cooking together?? make that real you idiots!)

to upgrade your health or stamina you have to get spirit orbs still, but this time you get big ones that each can be traded, since thers fewer minidungeons but they are 4 times bigger than shrines they also give you 4 times the reward- but still one where you can choose which one you want bc i find that an important bit of freedom (idea still is that you free trapped souls and they give you the orb as a reward, majority of which are in caves in the underground or in the surface caves) which encourages you to vary your gameplay and not focus just on one area bc you probably want all those things, go for quests for puches and bottles, for minidungeons for health/stamina etc

oh yeah, the underground houses several dungeons, the weird gravity effect is in either the entire underground or in parts of it- it does not span the entirety of the map, isntead its smaller and often enclosed areas that each are more detailed and 'finished', theres different bioms and enemies you dont find anywhere else, and some enemies on the surface (like the miasma hands but like .. less easy and no phantom ganon bc that got boring rly fast) that sport those hands can grab you and drag you underground- which can either mean doom for you or .. discovering a new area down there hmmmm a risk to take isnt it :3 (also wanted there to be a mount there but idk if i will use this old concept of the dongos or if i want it to be a crab like thing bc of the underwater theme i want to go for)

LORE/STORY

so as you explore you may discover caves and areas in the underground containing sonau architecture (the type from botw, not totk) most of which heavily damaged, but theres few that are in 'better' shape bc they have been in selaed off caverns that werent yet discovered-

you find out the sonau, which you only vaguely knew from ruins in the overworld, were in fact real (but no you dont suddendly know they fucked with hylians and even their names of untold thosuands of years ago that you just so happen to have read in a book all of the sudden like it was an always known fact and not at all a myste- .. rant alarm .. ), and given the ruins underground they must have originated from there, but there are no scriptures that survived and all sculptures are in very bad shape, alot of which seems intentionally destroyed- slowly you and zelda piece together through vague clues (VAGUE game VAGUE, let people THINK) that they had knowledge of the past and the nature of the ever repeating return of disaster to hyrule; the biggest reveal beign that they knew the cycle wasnt natural at all and that it keeps being repeated only through the structure of how this land operates, the beliefs of the people that rule it, altered history etc.

the ancient shiekah under the rule of hyrules royalty found out what the sonau had discovered/knew and persecuted them (parelells to what the king would do to them later on, anyone??) since the divinity of the kingdom must be upheld by all means necessary- which is why the sonau had disappeared so entirely, with little of their culture left and none of them, and by doing so the ancient shiekah also discovered the previously lost knowledge of the gerudo king having turned into the biggest threat to the kingdom in the past (which the sonau had kept secret, knowing what consequences it could have if not handled carefully), which starts up a whole other betrayal plot of the kingdom planning to imprison gan before he can become a true threat (im gonna guess the relations between the gerudo and hyrule havent been that great even before since hyrule was still the main empire)

gan finds out before the plan goes through and assasinates the king of hyrule, the ancient queen declares war (yes, the queen for once) and in the end sacrifices herself to seal him away, more for revenge than any prophecy, but it nevertheless leads to the cycle doing its thing yet again

calamity ganon is a product of ganondorf trying to break free of his seal- and perhaps in an attempt to weaken his unbreakable will the shiekah discover they can use his spirit as a powerful source to their newly invented tech- which previously ran with processed luminous stones (yes battery theory will never let me go idc) and essentially use his own power against him by beating the calamity with their tech

(this knowledge is also how you get the yiga to work with you, using your knowledge of the past as leverage and zeldas ability to negotiate - and bc i thinks it would be cool to see her develop that way, and no i dont mean it as they all gonan fix it uwu either, its hard to go into more nuance here, its already way longer than i wanted- and yes this also ties into the koga is one of the ancient monks that made himself basically immortal through malice experiments HC of mine)

he attacks the regions bc they too sided with hyrule, he drags you to the underground bc its where he has spent thousands of years in agony, hes only out for revenge, an understable one and one you can sympathize with, but one you cannot negotiate with, its been too long, too much, no amount of apology could sate the desire for payback (which keeps the whole link and zelda defeat ganon formular alive BUT gives it nuance, right?? more tragic really, i hope that comes across)

he attacks link and zelda, breaks the masterword bc he has seen it all before, the original calamity, through the eyes of malice, he knows what you will do, inevitably so, you too will come for him, again

at the midpoint of the game you will reach hyrule castle (underground? perhaps it depends on how much health you have, getting grabbed and dragged into its depths losing hearts and if you have enough you survive until you are inside the castle and let go, you cant teleport outside - oh and zelda is either absent for the fight bc you got separated or she held onto you and protected herself with her power- honeslty kinda like the seperation idea bc after having her around all the time its gotta be super creepy to be suddendly alone) and will have a fight with him, that you kinda lose but are saved by the rest of the crew that zelda had banded together and brought here after being seperated from you- maybe without koga yet bc he would be locked to late game i think

there will be a quest to reforge the mastersword, which if you havent already gone to the forest will now lead you there (oh also some of the krogs you find outside the forest now will tell you that they had to flee, but maybe warn you not to go there yet if you are still in early game, others might not know bc they left to plant new forests, windwaker style, maybe a quest there too! to give them purpose beyond being your plaything and then just disappearing- ahem .. )

(old concept for the krog forest/dekutree boss)

the dekutree will tell you to restore it it will need the blessings of the three dragons (who might not have appeared yet, or slowly disappeared one by one, they might need to be rescued bc gan probably knows you are gonna try and repair the sword) (oh look more old concepts still relevant!)

in the end it will .. end with you defeating ganon, just like always (unsure of the place where it will will be but OH LOOK old concepts- here it was still with hyrule castle in mind but that might be jsut for the midpoint fight now- maybe id put the end fight on the forgotten plateau, to round it up nicely, ending where botw began ... ;3

i really like this one .. even more than the villain rauru one, though that one is fun bc a twist like that is pretty neat and fighting with ganondorf is also rly cool- but sicne i just dont like the totk sonau and much prefer them remaining mostly a mystery im very fond of this (also .. im so sick of ancient people with high tech bs now..)

the aim with this is to .. make a botw2 that actually feels like a botw 2 (for me), shiekah tech is still there but little functions still, logically bc its main powersource is breaking off of it, the sonau are a mystery and kinda negatively talked about bc the shiekah persecuted them just like they would later be - also explains why there are shiekah things in every sonau building, of course they would overtake their places and try to erase a much as possible of them (the thunder plateau might have been a place of worship to farodra or for research- now look its a puzzle for a shrine to strengthen our hero to defeat the thing we caused :)) ), the sonau are expanded upon WITHOUT destroying their mystery (none of them are shown, there are NO memories in this game, everything happens in real time and what you can learn about the past is mostly vague clues pieced together by nerd zelda!)

it gives more depth to the shiekah as well as add an important ounce of nuance to the yiga and shiekah, to ganondorf as well while adressing and fixing the things that needed work in botw in ways i would find enjoyable (instead of making it WORSE)

i also dont want to go too hard on 'zelda is totally agaisnt the monarchy bc monarchy BAD', its not meant to come across like that, i just wanted to do sth interesting that does question everything and bc i like to think she could be lead to a different way of thinking, especially if so through her own research and discovery of previously buried history, being confronted with her own biased views by her passion for her interests

anyway, if you read through all of this, i probably forgot stuff, buts its very late and i spent alot of time writing this (bc i cant stop once i started i guess) and theres lots of things repeated that i already talked about BUT if yo actually read through it all, i cannot even begon to express just how much that means to me, and id i dare request, do tell if you like it!!! and thank you so much!!! it might not seem like much but this is also very important to me, i still dream of gamedev after all and i see this as a sort of practice, are my mechanics and stuff actually better os does it just seem like it to me etc -

(though keep in mind, this is in part self indulfent bc hey, its not real and is never gonna be so i might just do what i want- and yes i do believe it is doable, even if this all sounds alot, the magic lies in making it less but make that 'less' more dense and detailed, hence the underground being like at least cut in half in size and the building mechanic being removed (to give to a game where its better used than totk) alone should free alot of time and space for the things i described here)

-thanks again for reading, posts like these rarely get much attention so uh ... its pretty much never worth the time i spent typing designing and writing it (even if theres still lots missing here, like the dungeons and details to the champions ..) so every bit of commentary weighs alot more <3

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

Me, to my new date: doctor who thinks it's a sci-fi story because the Doctor thinks it's a sci-fi story and because the companions think it's a sci-fi story, but it's really just a story about ghosts. a story about an ancient creature carrying the ghosts of everyone they have ever loved, meeting new people, and seeing them only as future ghosts. they are haunted by the future and the past and the present because they are the only constant in a world constantly in flux, and they are running as fast as they can to things before they burn and fade to dust but everything will always end, you understand, because this is the only thing the Doctor understands and yet they keep going. they love too much to stop. doctor who is not science-fiction, it's horror and optimism and spiritual more than anything else, it's religious unto itself, the TARDIS is a haunted house and a church and a graveyard and a hospital and the Doctor is the most haunted being in the universe but more than anything, this is a love story, because how can you love something without being haunted by it- hey, what are you doing?

My date, shoving breadsticks in their purse: I have to go-

[blueskittlesart]

*sigh* thoughts on Nintendo's botw/totk timeline shenanigans and tomfoolery?

tbh. my maybe-unpopular opinion is that the timeline is only important when a game's place on the timeline seriously informs the way their narrative progresses. the problem is that before botw we almost NEVER got games where it didn't matter. it matters for skyward sword because it's the beginning, and it matters for tp/ww/alttp (and their respective sequels) because the choices the hero of time makes explicitly inform the narrative of those games in one way or another. it matters which timeline we're in for those games because these cycles we're seeing are close enough to oot's cycle that they're still feeling the effects of his choices. botw, however, takes place at minimum 10 thousand years after oot, so its place on the timeline actually functionally means nothing. botw is completely divorced from the hero of time & his story, so what he does is a nonissue in the context of botw link and zelda's story. thus, which timeline botw happens in is a nonissue. honestly I kind of liked the idea that it happened in all of them. i think there's a cool idea of inevitability that can be played with there. but the point is that the timeline exists to enhance and fill in the lore of games that need it, and botw/totk don't really need it because the devs finally realized they could make a game without the hero of time in it.

[stayatsam]

Walk the Divide

(7/14/23)