#the quality of this image is terrible but bear with me it was a screenshot of a twitter video lmao

[majoramasks]

it's undertale's 8th anniversary!

[nctsjaemin]

Your Taeyong facecams set is amazing! ♡ post/674385189826330624/nct-127-taeyong-facecams. You seem to have the perfect balance of cool tones and warm in that set. Do you mind me asking how you get such vibrant, lustrous coloring without sacrificing quality, and without making faces unnaturally/overly red/orange? In other words, do you have any tips on how to get vibrant coloring and crisp gifs? Your help would be greatly appreciated! Happy New Year~ ♡

okk first things first! i’m so so sorry this answer is super late. i had this saved in my drafts for ages but i completely forgot to post this (that’s why it still say happy new year down below 😭😭). everything below this paragraph is what i meant to post earlier. again, i’m so sorry for how late this is. i’m such an idiot i should have checked if i had posted this yet, i thought i did but obviously not.

firstly, i just wanted to say thank you so much for your kind comments 🥺💕 it really means a lot and i'm glad you like my gifs. also happy lunar new year! i hope you had a great day if you celebrated ~

anywayyy onto colouring and ps help! tbh it really depends on the video you are giffing from. i find the number of adjustment layers required varies between videos. despite this, there are a few things that i always do to try to restore skin but it can get a bit complicated so i've tried to explain things more clearly below the cut!

(before i get started, i just wanted to put it out there that i am by no means a professional, nonetheless, i hope i can be of some help!)

tip #1: start off with a curves adjustment layer (note! this isn’t always necessary unless the lighting is really bad. if the lighting is ok, then you can skip this step and have selective colouring as your first adjustment layer. or go ahead and colour as you normally do.)

curves is a lifesaver when it comes to fixing dodgy lighting. this tool comes in handy especially when you're giffing live stages or comeback/fanmeeting vlives. i use the black colour dropper tool (shown below) and select a point on my image that should be the darkest colour (this could be somewhere on their mic/ headset, their hair, or something in the background). this should hopefully sort out the lighting to some extent and make your gif easier to colour after. in the taeyeon gif screenshot below, i think i selected the darkest colour to be a point on her glasses or her mic. (i can’t remember exactly because i made the gif last summer 😅).

(left: no psd, right: curves adjustment layer) i’m using screenshots from a taeyeon vlive gif as an example because vlives are notorious for having terrible lighting and weird filters. as you can see, the image on the left is the original vlive. the lighting for this video is really bad and the colours are really washed out. whereas on the right, after adding a single curves adjustment layer the colours are slightly more vibrant and there’s a greater contrast. 

tip #2: after using curves, i tend to use 2 layers of selective colour. the first layer i use is almost like a baseline for my colouring. i find it's easier to make small adjustments and slowly work my way to the final product. sometimes i might include an additional selective colour layer later on, but this really depends on the video i’m giffing from as some videos will require more/less changes. 

in terms of restoring skin, you should focus on changing the % levels of the colours: red, yellow, white and sometimes magentas and neutrals (underlined in image below.) 

in general, i find increasing the magenta and yellow % of these colours restore the skin (ex in image below.) you can also increase the black % levels to make the red/yellow colours darker. but if you find the skin is looking unnatural and too red/orange then don't be afraid to slightly decrease their levels and increase the % levels of cyan. i've come across a few skin restoration tutorials that talk about increasing only the red or yellow colour levels, but bear in mind skin tones involve all the primary colours, so adjusting the cyan or blue % levels of the reds/yellows can help the skin look more natural. reducing the black % levels for the reds can also help when your colouring is too strong or you’re giffing from a performance/mv with red lighting.

tip #3: use channel mixer, colour balance and hue/saturation

channel mixer, colour balance and hue/saturation are very similar to selective colour. they're just different ways of adjusting the hue levels of each colour in your image. if you have more questions about these settings then feel free to ask! (this tutorial will be too long if i explain here 😭)

tip #4: remove colours you don't want

you can do this via selective colour or hue/saturation. if there's a colour you don't want/need in your image then just remove it by putting the colour value as 0 or -100%. this helps to increase the quality of your gifs if there are less colours as this will reduce the file size, preventing tumblr from compressing your gif if it is too large.

tip #5: another curves layer

i add another curves layer at the end. but this time instead of using the colour-dropper tools, i adjust the RGB, red, green, and blue settings. (click on the drop-down list and then adjust by moving the curve at the centre point.) 

RGB - moving the curve upwards (towards the left, in the north-west direction) makes the image brighter; in the opposite direction it makes the image darker.

Red, Green, Blue - moving the curve upwards makes the image more red/green/blue and vice versa in the opposite direction. 

in the image below - i used the red setting as an example. if you move the curve by dragging it from the middle, in the direction of the black arrow, then the image will become have darker red tones. if you move it in the direction of the blue arrow the image will have less red tones.

tip #6: high-quality videos, vapour-synth, under 3mb

it sounds obvious, but the original quality of your video really matters. if you want hq gifs then gif from hq videos 👌 preferably 1080p (and higher) or ts files. with that being said, some 4k facecams' quality are terrible, so you'll notice in my facecam sets i've only giffed recent performances because their quality is better than the older ones.

i use vapour-synth to trim and sharpen my gifs. i wouldn't say this program is necessary but it does help! however, i know of many gif makers who don't use vapour-synth and only use ps, and their gifs are still really hq and sharp. a good alternative is using the smart-sharpen tool in ps and you can also add a gaussian blur layer over your image to make the sharpening look less harsh (just be sure to adjust the opacity% of your gaussian blur layer.)

keep your gifs under 3mb! otherwise, tumblr will compress them and make them look more grainy. 

tip #7: refer to your other gifs

to match the colouring in a set, i usually have my other gifs open in ps so that i can refer to them and check if the colours are similar. but honestly, i've found over time it's best not to be too pedantic over having matching, cohesive colouring. you don't need to stress over getting every gif to have similar colouring because it's not worth it. giffing on tumblr should be fun, so don't sweat it and just enjoy creating!

at the end of the day, i hope you can always enjoy creating content and have fun making gifs/gfx 😊 but once again, thank you so much for liking my gifs and i hope this tutorial made sense and was of some help to you 💕

final comparison (left: original no psd; right: final colouring) image below: screenshot of all my adjustment layers

[femme-malewife]

Mister Darling Honeyworks Novel Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I’m not a professional translator. Also, I would like I make the note that this chapter, as well as the next one, DOES have an image on it. However, they are both literally just uncolored screenshots from the Mister Darling MV, and they don’t even take up half of the page. As such, I’ll be grabbing the exact same screenshot from the MV for full quality.

Thank you.

Masterlist here

After leaving the train station, Ayako hurried to the meeting place. She checked the time on her cell phone as she ran, and saw it was 15 minutes after 1pm. She rushed towards Yusuke, who was waiting in front of the usual shop.

“I’m sorry! Did you wait long? You did!”

“I haven’t been waiting long. Were you with someone?”

“W-what?” She had been in a rush to meet with him, but...

“You’re later than usual.” Yusuke glanced at her and rephrased. “Or maybe...you were having an affair?” He asked with a serious face.

Ayako stared at him with a pokan expression.

Cheating? Who did he think she was?

“Sorry, that was a joke.” Yusuke laughed.

Realizing she was just being made fun of, Ayako puffed her cheeks out in a pout.

“It’s terrible to doubt your partner!” She only wanted to be with Yusuke, she couldn’t imagine being with anyone else. She grabbed his arm.

“I was just curious. You’re not usually late.”

“Sorry...some business took longer than expected.”

She wasn’t a child...but this was a secret.

“Business?”

“Ah, there’ a crepes shop place! I want to eat crepes! Let’s go eat some now!” Ayako pointed at the park where there was a cute wagon car selling crepes parked. Several customers waited in line.

“Didn’t you say you wanted to eat omurice today?”

“I want to eat omurice and crepes!”

“I guess it’s fine...as long as you won’t be too full.” Yusuke started walking towards the park.

She couldn’t show him what she was doing.

Right?

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” Ayako hugged Yusuke’s arm very tightly.

When the two of them starting dating and living together, she thought they would move fast. But living with him felt normal.

And before they knew it, calling out each other’s first names became second nature. They had some time, so they went on dates at times.

They were really boyfriend and girlfriend.

She sat next to Yusuke on the park bench, and she brought her strawberry crepe to her mouth.

Yusuke had a custard and banana crepe. It looked delicious, especially since it was covered in chocolate. Though Yusuke didn’t like sweets that much. Whenever she saw him eating a crepe, he always tried to keep her company, but he always seemed to have too much.

In another two months, it would be their first anniversary of dating.

“It’s early, huh...”

“What?”

“I didn’t think it’d get cold so soon.” Yusuke bit into his crepe.

“We should buy Yusuke a jacket next time.”

“It’s fine, I have a hoodie.”

(Are you planning on wearing that brown bear hoodie you wore last year again this year?!)

“We can definitely buy a jacket!” She had ideas what cool jackets would suit Yusuke, and she could probably find them on sale! This was her new mission.

“I only need one outfit.”

“Eh, but a jacket would suit Yusuke better!”

The brown bear hoodie wasn’t bad, though. She just wanted him to be fashionable once in a while! He was too indifferent about his clothes!

As a fashion designer, she wanted to coordinate amazing outfits for him.

It would be a waste.

"Ayako, is there anything you want?”

“Eh, me?” She blinked and made a list of things she wanted in her head.

A new kitchen knife? The knife she had now was not sharp enough. There was one thing. She also wanted a nice frying pan that wouldn’t burn, and some cute tableware.

“I want a cute mug!”

She saw a cute cat mug at the general store and thought about buying it and decided she’d get it next time, but forgot.

“Um...I didn’t mean like that.”

“Eh? What do you mean, then?” Ayako looked up at him in confusion. Yusuke stuttered and turned away.

“Nevermind.”

“Ehh, I’m curious though! You have to say it now, Yusuke! Are you cheating on me? Say it!”

“Didn’t you cheat on me earlier too?”

That’s right-

Ayako pouted.

“I’ll tell you next time.” Yusuke laughed and gently rested his hand on her head. He had a sly smile.

She couldn’t easily forgive him!

When he first started working part-time at the pub, he didn’t smile at all. When he practiced his greetings, it was awkward to hear him say any cheerful greetings.

But ever since they started dating, he was smiling more often and his facial expressions were softer than before.

While it made Ayako happy, it also made her worried.

She leaned against Yusuke’s shoulder. “...Don’t flirt with others.”

Yusuke’s ice cream dropped onto his knees and he stared at her with a weird face. “What?”

“Don’t do it!”

“Are you jealous~?” He joked.

She lightly glared at him. “I’ll get mad.”

“Sorry.”

She stuck her tongue out at him.

She couldn’t tell Yusuke yet, but recently, she started taking cooking classes. She wanted to surprise him and make him happy with a delicious bento. She wasn’t that good yet, so it was a secret.

She always took care of her skin and makeup more carefully and the two went out on dates a lot.

She wanted this to work out.

Please...

(I’m in love with you!)

She wanted to be pretty, and do her best.

* * *

Standing in the kitchen of their apartment, Ayako shook the frying pan with both hands. She was cooking a beautiful looking omelet, and it made her grin.

It had been almost a month since she started attending cooking class. She’d made a beef stew in class the other day that was also delicious.

She was better than before!

She looked back into the living room. Yusuke was watching a science fiction movie while lying on the sofa.

Ayako slipped the omelet on a plate.

“Yusuke~!” She called. “Let’s go on a date on Sunday. I want to buy a jacket.”

“...Oh. I have something to do that day.”

“An errand?”

“I’ll be meeting with some people for a bit.”

“With who?” She hadn’t heard of this. Last week, he was saying how he was free on Sunday.

“Just an acquaintance.” Yusuke replied, still laying on the sofa.

She moved to the living room with the frying pan in her hands.

“Then, when can we do it?”

“At the end of next month...maybe.” Yusuke finally got up.

“So far ahead?!”

It’d been two weeks since their last date where they ate crepes. Until now, no matter how busy he was, he always made time for a date. But recently, Yusuke had been going out alone.

“I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you next time.”

“That’s not it!” She wasn’t a child. She knew he was keeping secrets.

Ayako puffed her cheeks and gripped the frying pan tightly. There would be no time to show off the bento she was working so hard on.

October was already over. Next month, it was going to get cold, and they won’t feel like having a picnic.

“Yusuke, you’ve been really secretive lately...are you hiding something from me?” Ayako stared at him. Yusuke looked away.

So he was hiding something.

So that was how it was.

“I’ll talk...next time.” Yusuke raised his hands in surrender.

“Okay. If Yusuke wants to leave me alone, he can.” Ayako turned back to the kitchen. The second omelet she was making was ruined and crumbled.

Now it was just scrambled eggs.

“Oh, now I’ve done it...”

Her teacher would have pointed it out to her. “Fujita-san is uneven. You have to cook them calmly one by one.” 

That’s what she was told.

Yusuke came into the kitchen, seeming a bit worried. He sighed as she served a plate.

“I’ll...eat, then.” Yusuke said.

Ah-

She wanted him to eat the delicious one.

_

When Ayako got out of the bath, the dishes and frying pans that she’d left in the sink were already washed and tidied up. Yusuke was laying on the sofa in the living room, fast asleep.

She crouched in front of him, hugging a cushion. While watching him sleep, she puffed her cheeks.

Even if they fought, she still wanted to sleep next to him!

They promised that.

She carefully removed his glasses from his face, making sure not to wake him up. After picking up the magazine he’d been reading, she pulled a blanket and futon from her bedroom.

She put the blanket on Yusuke and wrapped herself up next to the sofa.

“I love you. Goodnight.”

_

The next morning, Ayako woke up to the aroma of coffee. Yusuke had woken up first and was in the kitchen. The blanket he’d used was folded on the sofa.

Ayako sleepily stood up.

“Good morning.” Yusuke came into the living room with a plate of toast and a mug. The cat designed mug was full of coffee with milk.

Ayako blew on it to let it cool down. She took a sip. It was sweet and delicious.

Maybe she was a little unreasonable yesterday, she thought vaguely about it and grabbed a piece of toast. It had a lot of butter on it.

Yusuke had his own circumstances, and sometimes communicating was hard.

They still couldn’t fully talk it out.

After all, she could make him lunch any time. Even if she had to wait until spring.

“On Sunday...do you want to go out together?”

“But Yusuke, don’t you have something to do? You don’t have to overdo it. We can wait on the jacket.” Ayako answered, biting into her toast.

“I had my business done the other day.” Yusuke flipped through a guitar magazine and sat with her with a matching mug. He brought it to his mouth.

“But it’s important, isn’t it?”

“It’s fine.”

“Is it because of me and what I said?” Ayako felt guilty for bothering him. “I’m sorry!” she clasped her hands together and apologized.

“So do you want to go out?”

Ayako couldn’t bring herself to lie and say she didn’t, so she nodded slowly. “...Yeah. But is it really okay?”

“Yeah. I...also wanted to go out with Ayako.”

Ayako brightened at his words and hugged his arm tightly. The mug in Yusuke’s hands shook as he struggled not to spill.

* * *

Over the holidays, Ayako pulled Yusuke to a men’s shop that she’d been interested in for a long time. Today was the last day for the sale.

Yusuke seemed a little disheartened by the atmosphere of the shop, as he didn’t normally come by it.

Ayako pushed Yusuke into the dressing room with a jacket of her choice. She waited in front of the fitting rooms.

“How does it look?”

Ayako moved and opened the curtain a little, peeking inside. Yusuke had just put on the jacket.

“It’s perfect!” Ayako was satisfied with his appearance and smiled.

“Is that so..?” Yusuke blinked, shaking his head a little.

“It’s a simple jacket, so it suits Yusuke!” The color was nice, and the collar design was fashionable, and it looked neat. “And, above all else, it’s on sale!”

“Then...I’ll get it.” Yusuke said after looking at himself in the mirror.

_

“Would you like to wear it?” The male clerk asked at the counter.

“Yes, I will.” Yusuke paid the bill and left the store. As he left with it, he seemed to be in a better mood than usual. He seemed to like it more than Ayako expected.

“Maybe it’s not that bad...”

“It’s really cool!”

It was cool. But his price tag was sticking out, wasn’t it? They forgot to have the clerk cut it off.

Sometimes, she really was careless.

She hid the price tag in his collar so it wouldn’t be noticed.

“..?”

Ayako hugged Yusuke’s arm tightly with a big smile on her face.

“Let’s go out on another date! ♡”

She was going to fall in love with him over and over again, no matter how many times they went out.

_

The two went on a hill in the park where cherry blossoms were planted, and spread a blanket out on the ground.

The wind was a little strong, and the blanket was going to go flying, so she quickly put her stuff on it.

It was a little too cold to have a picnic since October was ending, but Ayako still sat down and took out the lunch boxes from her bag.

“When did you make lunch?”

“When Yusuke was still sleeping this morning!” Ayako confidently opened the lunch box lid.

“...Ayako really made this?” Yusuke looked at her, astonished.

“Of course! It was hard work!”

She had made mechi katsu and potato salad, classic sweet omelets, and marinated carrots with cheese. All of these were Yusuke’s favorite things.

“Actually...I went to a cooking class. I kept that a secret from Yusuke.”

That’s why she was late on dates sometimes!

She clasped her hands together. “I’m sorry! Did you notice..?”

“I didn’t realize that’s what you were doing...but I did notice your cooking was improving.”

“You did?!”

“I thought someone at our old part-time job was helping you, but I didn’t think that was enough to be a secret.”

“I wanted to surprise you.”

It would be boring if she just told him, right?

Yusuke glanced at her. “Well...I never told Ayako this either...”

“What is it?”

“Do you remember my acquaintance?”

“E-Eh?”

Yusuke had a serious face, so Ayako paid close attention nervously.

“He runs an IT company, and I've been helping him for a while, but he's expanding his business and invited me to come with him.”

“IT...company?” Ayako couldn’t keep up with the sudden story, staring at him with a pokan expression.

Yusuke worked a lot for a long time, so she never knew all the details. He’d even quit his part-time job at the pub last year because he was busy with the work he was helping with.

“Yusuke, did you decide to take the job?”

Did it mean if he didn’t go, he wouldn’t be an employee?

“I thought I’d talk about it once I made a decision, because I didn’t want to worry Ayako...”

So that’s why he’d been going out alone lately.

It was all good.

Ayako slumped over in relief.

She believed in Yusuke, but she had been pretty worried.

“If Yusuke wants to do it, I won’t oppose it.” Ayako finally answered with a smile. “Oh, but then is it really okay you have today off? Since you had important work to do.”

“It’s fine. I was just supposed to clean up the office.” Yusuke looked relieved and muttered. “I’m glad, I...”

“Let’s not keep anymore secrets between us!” Ayako poked him with her finger. She knew he couldn’t tell her everything, but she was still worried.

She wanted him to know he could talk to her about anything, and she also wanted to properly talk about things with him.

“Answer me!”

“Yes!” Yusuke jumped up in a strange tone.

Ayako laughed.

* * *

“I want to introduce you to someone.” Yusuke had said, and the two of them went to an old coffee shop. They were the only customers.

The coffee Yusuke ordered and the hot coca she ordered were brought to the table.

A man who looked big enough to tear his own jacket sat near them.

Ayako couldn’t make eye contact with the intimidating person, so she just stared down at her cocoa.

Since she and the guy were quiet, Yusuke cleared his throat. “Um..this is Oki-san, my acquaintance who runs an IT company earlier..?”

“Oh! It’s nice to meet you!” Ayako squeaked out. “Um, I’m Fujita!” She lowered her head, but raised her eyes.

In front of Oki-san was a cream soda with a cherry on top. Was he really the president of an IT company?

“He was my junior in high school.” Yusuke explained, but Ayako felt more confused.

He said Oki-san was his junior, but he seemed older than him.

"I’ve been indebted to the president for a long time.”

There was a sudden bang, and the cups bounced on the table.

Oki-san made a sound and bent over as if in pain.

“That’s not..?!”

Yusuke lifted the cup to his lips with a smile.

“I’m sorry.”

“What did you mean, president?”

Ayako glanced at Yusuke’s face.

“Well...it’s actually more like a student council president.”

“That’s right. Narumi-san was actually the president of the student council and was in the best shape ever.”

There was another bang under the table, and Oki-san leaned over.

“Weren’t you?”

Yusuke, still smiling, lowered his voice.

“Well, it’s thanks to Oki-san I managed to graduate high school, even though I repeated it five times.” While he spoke, Oki-san suddenly started crying, covering his mouth with his hand.

“Sorry, I’m just getting a bit emotional.”

Yusuke gave Oki-san a tissue, as he had a messy face with tears and a runny nose.

“Thank you.” Oku-san accepted the tissue and wiped at his face.

“He's not a good salesman, so clients often run away from him... so I was asked to help him out.” Yusuke explained.

“Sorry, sorry.” Oki-san muttered.

He seemed a little scary...but he also seemed like a good person?

He was polite and obviously Yusuke respected him.

"Thank you for taking care of Yusuke.” Ayako bowed her head.

Oki-san panicked a little and bowed back with a quick “It’s been my pleasure!”

_

After they left the store, Yusuke walked in silence for a bit. He finally spoke up. “Were you surprised?”

“That Yusuke is actually the president of a whole school?” Ayako teased, crossing her arms.

"It’s a bit different from that...” Yusuke held his mouth with one hand and looked up at the sky.

The sky was cloudy and the wind was stronger than earlier. Leaves fell from the trees and landed on the concrete below.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“It’s fine. There’s some things I can’t say to Yusuke.”

When Ayako was a high school student, she was more quiet than she was now, and she wasn’t conspicuous about it.

She was fashionable and wanted to change, and she wanted everyone’s attention.

It was the start of her third year of high school that she decided to change.

She stopped wearing glasses, changed her hairstyle, and did her makeup. She also threw away all of her clothes and bought fashionable clothes.

She decided to go into the fashion industry because she wanted to fulfill people’s wishes of wanting to be cute.

“After all, if you saw me from high school, you would laugh.”

“...I want to see it.”

“Can Yusuke also show me his pictures?”

“I give up...”

“Well, I want to see your high school photos too? Back when you were practically the president...” 

Yusuke quickly put his hand over her mouth.

“They called me that on their own...” Yusuke released his hand and spoke quietly.

She was sure everyone loved him.

Within half a year of working part-time at the pub, everyone had become dependent on Yusuke, and the manager had even asked him if he wanted to be a candidate for manager.

But as soon as they started dating, Yusuke got busy and ended up quitting.

“Also...I don’t have a photo of myself from high school.” Such words came from Yusuke’s mouth. He turned away and looked down.

Not even one? She wanted to ask, but kept her mouth shut.

Everyone had some of their past that they wanted to erase.

Even when Ayako looked at pictures of herself before she changed, she felt like running away. It wasn't until after she graduated that she was able to accept that "this is just me.”

She couldn’t even imagine how Yusuke was in high school.

Even though he had regrets and things he couldn’t swallow, couldn’t he still talk to anyone? She didn’t ask.

It was more important to keep Yusuke happy and smiling now.

[sally-mun]

(Sorry anon, Tumblr screwed up my draft of your ask, so you’re a screenshot now.)

I hope you realize what you’ve done, because this is going to be a VERY long story. Get a drink and strap in.

Before I can get into this too deeply, we first need to talk about Ocarina of Time. There are a lot of issues I had with OoT that I was VERY excited to see were later addressed by Twilight Princess, whether it was an intentional link or not. There are a handful of things involved here, but for me the biggest one by far is the Temple of Time.

Waaaaay back in the late 90′s/early 2000′s, the internet was still relatively young and, in a way, more simple and innocent. The standard for using it largely boiled down to, “I like [x], so I’ll search for [x]” and just seeing what mess of crap you ended up with. I did this mostly with Sonic and anime stuff, but every now and then I’d do it for things like LoZ as well. One of the sites this brought me to was called The Odyssey of Hyrule, which at the time utterly blew my mind with its content. It was a hotbed of Zelda oddities, glitches (some of which I now see often in speed runs), hoax debunks, and most importantly for this discussion, screenshots from early builds of the game.

We can probably trace the origin of my fixation back to this screenshot:

Those of you that know Ocarina of Time well can probably tell right of the bat that this is not an area that appears in the final game. The website posited that this was perhaps an area behind the Temple of Time, since the setting elements all look the same and the camera appears to be in a fixed location. After all, when you look at the building from the front, there’s a clearly visible path running along the side, and it does appear that the fence has a “gate,” although we can never open it.

See it there, behind the second gossip stone from the left? There’s a gap on either side of that bit of fence, right where the path happens to be. The rest of the fence on the right side doesn’t have gaps like that, suggesting that this bit of fence wasn’t originally there and the path was once traversable; my personal hunch is that the “gate” is actually a copied instance of the smaller bit of fencing on the left to save themselves the headache of redoing the fence entirely. The gossip stones, if they were originally there at all, were probably supposed to start from the far right wall instead of the left, which would also open up access to the path.

The longer this stewed around in my brain, the more it drove me absolutely crazy, because I realized that this could possibly explain a lot of seemingly disparate elements. For example, there’s a peculiarity in the Temple of Time that’s easy to miss if you’re not taking your time and paying close attention. After you remove the Door of Time to gain access to the sword chamber, the initial view of said chamber is actually much smaller. It’s especially easy to see when you switch to first-person, because you can more easily see how close the walls are on the left and right.

(My apologies for the shitty quality of these pictures, I took them back before we had decent digital cameras. I’ll get better ones when I post this as an actual article on my other blog.)

As you run into the chamber, the tight walls abruptly disappear and give way to the massive chamber we’re all familiar with. In fact, if you take your time and walk forward through this hallway, you can easily see the moment when the room changes from small to large before your eyes.

When comparing this oddity with the beta screenshot and the website’s suggestion that the path may have allowed you to go behind the temple, I became convinced that something else was supposed to happen back there, but was cut from the game for one reason or another. My guess is that the sword chamber really was originally very small as it first appears, and the larger chamber was a separate area behind it, which was used for... well, what? It obviously wasn’t something small and simple, like a chest with a heart piece; not for a room that grand. It was clearly for something big, something important, because it had to have a large enough scale of work that the designers looked at it and realized they couldn’t finish in time. After a LOT of mulling it over, I became convinced that it was most likely the entrance to the Light Temple.

You see, something else that always struck me as odd was the fact that you’re just given the Light Medallion as soon as you become an adult. You do absolutely nothing to earn it; it’s all part of the same cut scene that plays after you remove the sword for the first time. You meet Rauru, the Light Sage, pretty abruptly as he infodumps about what’s going on, and then he just forks over the Light Medallion without hesitation.

From a narrative perspective, it sticks out to me because Rauru is the only person you do not interact with at any point in the game. You don’t meet him at all as a child, and as an adult you only see him within the Sacred Realm. All of the other sages are people you have both a child and adult connection with in some way, and it’s up to you to awaken them to their powers by ridding their respective temples of evil. Why would they just skip that process with Rauru?

Perhaps they never meant to; maybe you were supposed to go through that same process, but the Light Temple got cut. When you’re designing a video game, there’s a practice that’s recommended before you start actually building it where you make a list of all the elements you want included, then you organize it by importance, and then you cut it in half. The top half is the one you focus on first, because it’s stuff you absolutely positively have to have in the game in order for it to work. The bottom half is stuff you get to include if you have enough time, and it’s added in the order you listed it because top items are more critical. It could very well be that the Light Temple was either on that second half of the list, or it was never on the second half at all but development time simply ran out and it got bumped.

Either way, at some point in the process I think they realized they weren’t going to be able to complete the Light Temple, so they blocked off the side path and expanded the sword chamber to eat up the extra space. After all, you can see how long the building is from the outside, so it wouldn’t make much sense for it to be a reverse Tardis and be smaller on the inside. Once the back path was removed, I imagine they reworked Rauru to reduce his role; my head canon has always been that he was some kind of high priest who oversaw the Temple of Time, since it IS essentially a church. I mean, just look at that garb. He certainly appears to be some kind of holy man.

Having him as a priest at the Temple of Time that you could actually meet and talk to as a kid would’ve finally made his presence make sense. It would explain who and what he is at all, since he just kind of appears out of nowhere as the game currently stands, and it would’ve aligned with the other sages insofar as meeting them when they don’t realize their powers, then saving them as an adult and awakening them as a sage. In fact, Rauru disappearing from the Temple of Time would’ve been the game’s first big red flag that something has gone terribly wrong in the last seven years, versus having to go outside to see all the decay and the dark energy around Death Mountain. Furthermore, each sage is someone that the game explicitly positions as a person that makes sense TO be each temple’s respective sage, and to me, a priest from the Temple of Time is the obvious choice for the Light Sage when you consider that the Light Temple is probably part of the same building.

Speaking of the Temple of Time, it has a lot of clues of its own that it may have once doubled as the Light Temple. For one thing, consider the songs that warp you around the game: The Minuet of Forest takes you to the Forest Temple, the Bolero of Fire takes you to the Fire Temple, the Serenade of Water takes you to the Water Temple... but what song takes you to the Temple of Time? It’s not a song with time in the name anywhere, it’s the Prelude of Light. This would make perfect sense if the Light Temple was supposed to share space with the Temple of Time, right?

Another clue is the warp points themselves. Each time you warp to one of the temples, you land on a large pedestal bearing the Triforce. However, there’s another image overlayed on them too: That temple’s medallion. If you play the Prelude of Light to warp to the Temple of Time, the pedestal you land on features the the Light Medallion, as though this is where you were supposed to have earned it.

I later discovered that this is even more prominent in another old beta screenshot, which is much more heavy-handed with the symbol on the pedestal.

Something else to consider is the fact that the Temple of Time is actually where you acquire the Light Arrows, the final item that you need before you take on Ganon at the end. Like the medallion before it, the Light Arrows are again just given to you without requiring any work. The other temples all have a critically important item inside that you must obtain to not only finish the temple itself, but that is then needed in other areas in the game. Doesn’t it seem like you’d have to complete the Light Temple to get the Light Arrows, and they’d follow the same pattern of being used to finish the temple and then go on for further use elsewhere (namely, Ganon’s Castle)?

Getting the Light Arrows last also lends credence toward the idea that the Light Temple was in fact lower on the development list, because it would’ve necessarily been the last temple you visited in terms of game progression. They’re not going to give you the ultimate holy weapon early on in the game; they have to save that for the end so you don’t blow through the rest of the temples without a sweat! Additionally, the Light Temple being last would only increase the tension of wondering where Rauru went, since each time you warped between the past and the future you’d have to pass through the Temple of Time and note once again that Rauru is missing.

If it were me making the priority list, the temples would be listed in the same order that you play them in-game, because obviously you need to go through [dungeon 1] before you can go through [dungeon 2] or [dungeon 3].* In this particular instance, chronological order and order of importance happen to be the same thing, and if the development team used the same reasoning, then yes, the Light Temple would be much lower on the list than the others. It’s entirely within reason to think that they had planned for it, but realized they weren’t going to have time to fully implement it, and instead blocked it off and handed over the items you would’ve obtained there so they could focus on getting other, more critical things done.

It’s also worth noting just how much infodumping happens at the Temple  of Time. As the game currently stands, there’s very little to actually do at the ToT, but there are many long conversations that take place there. You talk to Zelda, both as herself and as Sheik, you talk to Rauru (as that technically happens while you’re at the ToT), and even Ganon monologues a bit there at the end. You end up spending a LOT of time spent standing around while other characters pelt you with information in this particular location. I’m not saying that there shouldn’t have been any big conversations here, but rather that I feel like there are more than there probably should’ve been. Some (possibly most) of that information could’ve been obtained more gradually and actively if the Light Temple had managed to be a thing.

And look, I’m not saying that what we ultimately got in the game doesn’t work; there’s nothing specifically wrong with the way Ocarina of Time handles the Temple of Time. I agree that getting the Light Medallion and Light Arrows in the ToT isn’t completely out of nowhere since the ToT is connected to the Sacred Realm. I’m only saying it doesn’t come across as the original  design to me; as far as I’m concerned, it clearly, obviously screams that what we got was a back-up plan. It works just enough to make sense, but it would work so much better if they did it this other way. Everything just clicks together a little more snugly when you consider that there may have been a sixth temple. It’s not that what we got doesn’t make sense, it’s just that I believe these ideas make more sense.

This topic is something I used to go on and on about back in the day, to pretty much anyone who would listen to me. I was met with about as many different kinds of feedback as you can imagine; some people agreed that I was on to something and had maybe solved a mystery, whereas others thought I was reading way too much into details that just don’t have that deep of a meaning. Unfortunately, it’s obviously not something I could take that far in an argument because there was no way to prove my hypothesis. It’s all just a guess, and even though I think there’s some pretty strong evidence to back it up, in the end I have no way to actually verify it. Sure I could contact Nintendo, but I highly doubt they’d tell me anything one way or the other.

SO NEEDLESS TO SAY when Twilight Princess eventually came along and had a Temple of Time that was a for-realsies playable dungeon with monsters and puzzles and items to collect, I went through the fucking roof.

At the EXACT moment that I realized that this is what the game was giving me, I literally screamed and shouted and cheered because I felt so... vindicated, in a way? It felt very strongly like a soft confirmation of what I’d been saying for all these years -- ESPECIALLY since the Twilight!ToT ALSO makes heavy use of the Light Medallion symbol. I feel like that’s about as clear of a connection as you can get.

Like, I know the Temple of Time being playable in Twilight Princess doesn’t absolutely confirm that it was supposed to be that way in Ocarina of Time, but it gives me that vibe because it feels like Twilight makes a point to ‘right’ a lot of ‘wrongs’ present in Ocarina. It gives me the sense that they were making up for some of the things they didn’t (or couldn’t) do the first time around. The fact that they were willing to delay the release of Twilight Princess just to make sure everything was just right also gives me that vibe. They could’ve just cut things again, but this time, they wanted to make sure everything was there, and that it was good.

One other thing I’d like to mention before completely moving on from this topic is something that I admittedly can’t confirm, but it’s another point that’s been on my mind: Back when I was playing Twilight Princess for the first time and I was screaming about the Temple of Time, a guy I knew back then mentioned to me that the ToT that we see in Twilight is, canonically, the same ToT that we see in Ocarina. He said that he’d heard somewhere that the Ocarina world map actually fit perfectly when overlayed against the Twilight world map, and the major world features/locations from Ocarina of Time lined up exactly with landmarks and ruins in the Twilight Princess world. I did attempt to look this up for myself before writing this post, but most of what I found was a big mess; I may attempt to line the maps up myself sometime if just to be able to better wrap my brain around what might (or might not) work here. What I can definitely say, though, is that the idea is at least supported by the theme of the series in general, given that it’s based around the notion of history repeating itself. Zelda games reference other Zelda games all the time, so it’s far from unheard of.

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier the Light Temple isn’t the only thing that makes me feel like Twilight Princess is trying to make amends for things that were missed in Ocarina of Time; it just happens to be the one I was most prominently fixated on. Another big thing that Twilight Princess appears to be rectifying is the City in the Sky. Going back again to my old stomping ground The Odyssey of Hyrule, there was another beta screenshot that got a LOT of attention back in the day, because it 1) was an animated gif, 2) involves the Triforce, and 3) appears to be some kind of ‘Sky Temple,’ as it was known.

(Once upon a time that gif was reasonably sized, but since computers have roided the fuck out since the days of Windows 95, I realize it’s not the biggest or clearest thing in the world and I apologize.)

As I recall there were a couple of other screenshots that appeared to also be from this alleged Sky Temple, but sadly I don’t seem to have any of them myself, and although The Odyssey of Hyrule technically still exists, it looks like its images are all broken. In any case, the question of whether or not Ocarina of Time was supposed to have a sky temple was a HUUUUGE hot topic among Zelda sites for years. So many people spent enormous amounts of time and energy trying to find the so-called Sky Temple, largely because there was a sizable sect of the fanbase convinced that the Triforce HAD to be hidden somewhere in the game. Amazingly enough someone did eventually find the Triforce obscenely hidden in the game files (I wish I still had the pics of that, the amount of glitching needed to get to it was insane), but nothing was ever ultimately discovered about the Sky Temple. It just became one of those bits of gaming folklore that got passed around from person to person over time.

Which, of course, is why the inclusion of the City in the Sky in Twilight Princess, much like the expansion of the Temple of Time, feels a lot like Nintendo is making up for something they may have intended to do but were unable to complete.

Not gonna lie, when I played this area for the first time I couldn’t help thinking that the small glimpse in the gif above feels like it could feasibly fit in here, and it was just the coolest feeling of, “I knew it!”

Another thing that really bugged me about Ocarina of Time (and in fact still does to this day) is the fact that, even after you beat the Water Temple, Zora’s Domain remains frozen. I never understood how this could be, since every other area reverts back to its original, beautiful form after you defeat the evil in the associated temple. Not Zora’s Domain, though! It’s thoroughly unsatisfying to have gone through what is arguably the most hated temple in the game and not have a full reward for your efforts.

This, again, is something it seems Twilight apologizes for; not only does it actually replicate the original problem of the Zoras getting frozen, but IN THIS ONE YOU ACTUALLY THAW THEM OUT!! And not only that, you thaw them BEFORE you even do the temple! That alone feels like Nintendo practically coming out and saying, “Yeah, we messed up, our bad. Here, have the restored Zoras right away as our apology.” It was such a huge mental release to see that ice melt and the Zoras come back to life! My brain was finally able to let go of a frustration I’d had for years!

My last one isn’t so much something that I felt was supposed to be in Ocarina of Time, but rather something I just plain wanted to be there. I was always sad that, even though you do technically get to enter Hyrule Castle, you don’t really get to go in there. You get an extremely limited and very linear track to follow, and at best you just get glimpses of some of the other areas that probably would’ve been really cool to explore had the game been designed that way.

I always felt like the fact that you didn’t get any real exploration of Hyrule Castle upset some of the balance in the game, considering that you do have to fully traverse Ganon’s Castle as a solvable dungeon. Being able to get a thorough sense of what Hyrule Castle was originally like before evil fell would help reinforce just how much things had changed in the seven years that Link was in the Sacred Realm, especially since that contrast is such a strong theme everywhere else in the game.

So, much like my reaction when I realized I was actually entering the Temple of Time as a level, I had a very similar reaction when I realized I was getting Hyrule Castle in the same way.

I may not have freaked out quite as much, but DAMN if that wasn’t another enormous payoff for me! Getting to really look around inside of Hyrule Castle, and furthermore in a version that’s really able to convey the scale and grandness OF a castle, was an absolutely magical moment of overdue gratification.

What’s even better is that Twilight Princess almost gives you a sort of a fake-out in this regard, since at the very beginning you kind of go through Hyrule Castle but, like Ocarina of Time, it’s extremely limited and linear, so it seems at first like they’re going to do the same thing.

I remember playing this for the first time and thinking, “Well, at least I’ve gotten a little closer to seeing inside of Hyrule Castle, but I really wish they’d just friggin’ let us ACTUALLY go in.” IMAGINE MY CHAGRIN when later on that’s exactly what I ended up doing~ I’m sitting there fan-screaming and the game is going “AH HA I GOTCHA!!”

Soooooo yeah... This ended up being an extremely long post and probably way more than you were ever interested in knowing, but, yeah, I think that’s why Twilight Princess felt like such a bookend for me. Even though I did technically have the original LoZ as a child, my life as a Zelda fan really began with Ocarina of Time, and that game left me longing for several very specific things that Twilight Princess later fulfilled. I’ve never had so many large unresolved issues with any other game, and the fact that Ocarina of Time was the Zelda game that I ‘imprinted’ on, those issues left a very deep impression on me. Having Twilight Princess essentially go back and ‘fix’ those things was incredibly psychologically calming for me, and I think it’s a major reason why I haven’t particularly sought out other Zelda games in the last 12 years. Twilight Princess gave me the things I’d been looking for since 1998 -- a decade of hemming and hawing finally resolved.

I honestly feel like playing Zelda games may be different for me in some way now as I move forward, because I won’t have a part of my brain mentally searching for a way to fill those little voids in the back of my head. I have both Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild, which as I said in that other post I’ve actually never tried out, so I guess we’ll find out how I relate to them whenever I finally decide to take that leap!

If you actually made it to the end of this post, THANK YOU SO MUCH and I hope you enjoyed it~

*Fun fact, this isn’t necessarily true when it comes to the Fire and Water Temples. The game wants you to do Fire first, but it’s completely possible to do the Water Temple if you want to!