i have so many sworn nemeses in this game (bugs, bug nets, nighttime remlits, stamina... ghirahim isnt even close to making it on the list)

Linktober Day 31 ~ 💚 Skyview Temple & Spring of Power 🩵

I love that so many traces of Skyward Sword are in BotW and TotK, my favorite games!

Skyview temple

This is the background for my ghirahim drawing I promised a week ago. This background took at least 12 hours so it might as well be its own post

Finally finished this one for an art trade - got sick and was quite intimidated by the whole thing, so this one took a while. I do love the colours in this area, and I love Fi's design, so all things considered I still had a good time. Though it turned out quite wonky in a few spots, whew.

Slightly blurry photo to show off the shimmer:

the spiders in SS have no right to be so scary

All i can think about now is the boys in a dungeon in Sky's world and Sky sees a door with an eye above it and he draws his sword, prepared to dizzy it and open the door, and an arrow just wizzes by his ear and embeds itself in the eye

This bitch

From kung fu panda 2

Is Ghirahim coded

40+ hours on totk and i have one (1) sage and nearly 200 apples

I go play skyward sword and am humbled incredibly quick when it comes to dungeons

I think it's absolutely hilarious how... everything I am about Skyward Sword but I've only actually played through the end once

*pointing*

GHIRAHIM SPOTTED! 🫵

So. Groose and Zelda are friends in this au since Groose didn't have Link to bully. Groose becomes a knight and when that tornado knocked Zelda out of the sky, Groose immediately chased her down. They meet Link, local surface expert. Impa tells Link to guide Zelda to the Skyview Temple.

the first page was lined and colored by the lovely @cannibalgremlin

we couldn't initially agree on what Groose's uniform color should be, but since the color for that year was green, his tunic shall now be Green onward.

Writing request, maybe Sky finding out reader has a crush on him, and responds with the full ten yards of gentleman-y flirting: kissing y/n’s hand, cheesy pickup lines, whatever he can think of to make y/n blush up a storm. It’s very effective

I feel like this is targeted…

Sky is a hopeless romantic at heart so he is already slightly flirty when he falls for someone. Can you imagine how he would be when he knows? He is a peacock. He is going to show off. This mans is just so happy to know that you like him back that he just… wants to shower you in affection.

He will serenade you. Sky has a harp he is going to use it against you. A poet at heart so I hope you're good at analyzing them because he is going to make it clear that he likes you through those.

I don't think he would be the type to flirt with you in front of the chain. If he thinks you will react badly to it then he will back off and only do it in private which... is kind of worse since he can go flitter off.

"Yes, I am completely serious" Sky said being as serious as you have ever seen him. You honestly didn't know how this happened. You were just exploring Skyloft as it was a playground for someone like you. Being that you could only see it through Sky's point of view. What you weren't expecting was Sky to show you to the surface and lead you deep in Faron Woods by your suggestion. There was a few monsters around the Skyview temple still. From your perspective Sky breeze through them not even breaking a sweat. Which was different to see Sky be cool for once. "Should any one bother you, my dear, let me deal with them."

His words brought you back to the current situation. You apologizing for putting the both of you in danger and him pulling that line out of no where. "That-" you had to stop talking for a second as it hit that he called you dear. "Sky. No. That's not the point." You sighed and looked at the old temple. You wanted to explore it. It was the temple that grabbed hold of your braincell for the longest time with how cool it look. "I don't want you to feel like you're responsible for me." You start on your small lecture as you ignore the slight blush on your face. "I get it I can't fight but-"

With a gentle tug on your chin Sky tilt's your head up his other hand resting on your hip. "I don't feel like that though." He gives you a soft smile. "I want to protect you, (y/n). You're precious to me." The hero puts his forehead against yours before giving it a small kiss. The one action lighting your face with red. You pull away slightly your hand on your forehead. Sky laughs.

He freaking laughs at your struggle! "Sweetheart, I didn't think I'd ever see you in such an adorable state."

This man was going to kill you.

So my friend sent me this link to a youtube video about why the TotK lore isn't interesting. I couldn't get through it without a ten-screen discord rant (on my PC monitor, not my phone) so I thought I would put some thoughts here.

I don't delve too deep into TotK story but there are def some spoilery statements below, consume at your own risk.

The initial assumptions here seem to be that (1) BotW was more respectful of "The Lore" than TotK, and that (2) TotK made some unforgiveable sins that BotW absolutely avoided.

Both of these are completely false. And I am NOT saying that neither BotW nor TotK shat upon accepted lore. They did. There is no recovering the Hyrule Historia timeline, objectively. Instead I contend that the truth is the precise opposite: Nintendo has NEVER actually cared to try to make LoZ games have ANY amount of continuity.

Take the slide at the 5 minute mark of the video linked, above, in which we see the Master Sword was created specifically to be used against Ganon, and then the 7 sages set out to find somebody valiant enough to wield it (this is from the user manual of A Link to the Past, from the SNES, which also was about The Imprisoning War). Which, if you're playing the home game, you know got ret'conned TWELVE YEARS AGO by Skyward Sword. He's using the slide to explain why it was ridiculous that Ganondorf was able to shatter the Master Sword in the prologue to TotK, which tells me they didn't pay much attention to the mechanic in BotW in which the Master Sword "runs out of power" if you use it too much. If Ganon is an aspect of Demise (again from Skyward Sword, far more recent lore than the slide being used in the vid) then the secret stone he's wielding is amplifying DEMISE (WAY stronger than just some dude), which is why he's able to shatter the blade - but still isn't enough to destroy the sword. His entire complaint about the Sword being broken suggests to me he either didn't play Skyward Sword or has forgotten it existed, and has DEFINITELY forgotten the 'weapons breaking' mechanic started in BotW.

He makes another complaint later about there not being an explanation for the disappearance of the Divine Beasts. Which, sure. I wondered what happened, and figured the 5ish years since then made it old news nobody was talking about it anymore. I get why that might have been a breaking point for somebody else. But it's not just a TotK problem; BotW didn't address it, either. We see the Divine Beasts being dug up by the Sheikah in Rhoam's flashback - how did they get buried? The towers shoot out of the ground, how did THEY get buried, after the last calamity? Who put the guardians underground? How? HOW, if nobody is allowed into the tunnels under Hyrule Castle? It didn't get explained for BotW, so why is that an unforgivable sin in TotK? They give more than a passing suggestion that Purah has repurposed the guardians - just LOOK at the Skyview Towers. The jumpscare for BotW players when you get grabbed in the Lookout Landing tower TELLS YOU where the guardians went.

There is a significant section in which video creator is quoting an interview I haven't seen (and don't give two shits about), and I think it needs to be said: what is in the game is canon. What is in the interviews from other people is, by definition, not game canon. If it was meant to be game canon it would be in the game. Neil Gaiman talks about this when people ask him for clarification of his stories, go check his FAQ if you want a really good delineation of canon from somebody with way more clout than me.

So let's just look at the lore he's defending from BotW. The map is wrong. Straight up wrong, from all the earlier Zelda games. Nintendo cannot decide where the Lost Woods should be, much less Spectacle Rock. The Temple of Time, which again is mentioned early on as a clear homage to the lore, is in the wrong damn spot. If this is the new Hyrule formed post-WindWaker (as indicated by the existance of Rito), the Temple of Time should have been destroyed. And why do the Rito and the Zora both exist? According to WindWaker, the Rito evolved from the Zora, who couldn't live in the salt of the sea. Which is a pretty big jump from the original game that had Zora in the ocean, and the two games following THAT in which they were straight-up monsters. I don't want to get into ALL the ways BotW breaks from the established lore, but there's a LOT. They don't mention the fucking Triforce ONCE, ffs, that's sort of a big damn deal.

I get there was a canon timeline published in Hyrule Historia. I bought that book for that exact reason. And, as someone who has loved this franchise since I got that first golden cartridge in 1987, I looked at that timeline once, laughed at it, and moved on with my life. BotW de-canonized that timeline already, in a LOT of ways.

So saying that TotK is evidence that Nintendo no longer cares about continuity or lore, and by NOT villifying BotW (or TP or SS) for the exact same problem is disingenuous at best. Saying that TotK is just nostalgia-baiting is ignoring the BotW map (Lake Saria, anyone? Ranch Ruins, anyone?) in general, as well as all the game-specific loot that had NO other reason to be there but straight-up nostalgia. The only reason for Zelda to mention the other heroes in the blessing we hear in the first memory is to (1) destroy the established timeline (skyward bound, adrift in time, or something about twilight, all in a world where Rito exist), or (2) prey on our nostalgia. TotK isn't any worse for putting the WW shirt and the Awakening armor into the game, in terms of wrecking the timeline or trying to feast on our nostalgia.

I'm not going to try to hypothesize what this person (or all his commenters) didn't like about the game, or why they're so willing to overlook all these problems in BotW to villify TotK. And everybody is welcome to like to dislike a game for whatever reason they want, IDGAF, you do you. What I AM saying is that for someone who's upset about the lore, he really doesn't seem to actually be aware of how inconsistent it's ALWAYS been. If TotK is the game that taught you that Nintendo isn't trying to follow their own lore, then I don't think you have been paying attention to the lore for a good long time.

tl;dr this is still my favorite series and if you hate that it breaks its own continuity then you've been asleep for the last 12 years of lore drops my good dude.

Okay so I know that totk turned one year old a couple of days ago but I was away for the weekend and didn’t get a chance to post something about it. Now I’m home again, I think I wanna just put some thoughts down

Firstly, I still love totk. It was a really fun game and had just as much fun playing through it complete blind as I did playing botw with only a loose knowledge of the game. In fact, I enjoyed it more than botw. Maybe it was because I knew more about Zelda than what I did back in September 2022 when I first played botw, or maybe it was because I could see the improvements they made when it came to dungeons and overall exploration. For at least six months totk was my favourite zelda game. Now, a year on, it isn’t.

I think on reflection totk is a very flawed game. While it is technically genius, story-wise it’s incredibly weak, possibly the weakest in the entire franchise. Here are a few points worth mentioning:

Why bother bringing back Ganondorf if he isn’t going to have any real motive? Is there a reason why he’s fighting with Rauru and seeking his own secret stone, or is he just doing it for funsies? Part of the reason why Wind Waker Ganondorf is so good is because he has a strong and clear motive. Without any motive, totk Ganondorf just feels like an enemy rather than a main antagonist

The main thing that drives forward a story is a theme to take away from it. Breath of the Wild’s theme was exploration and lost memories, Skyward Sword’s theme was loyalty and/or devotion, but it’s hard to tell what totk’s theme is. Sacrifice could be the outstanding one, seeing as both Zelda and Rauru make crucial sacrifices for the sake of Hyrule, but where else is it seen in the story? Totk just tries too many things, and having a clear theme would just help to solidify things

For a game that was supposed to solve the mystery of who the Zonai were it sure did a poor job at doing so. I absolutely adore the Zonai and in my opinion Rauru and Mineru’s designs as some of the coolest in the entire franchise but my god. Their lore is so underdeveloped it hurts. We know the bare minimum about their civilisation and culture. We still don’t know why they died off, why they built the labyrinths (and by extension who the Lord of dragons/owls/boars are), why they have secret stones in the first place, why is the Temple of Time in the sky when it was originally on the ground and most importantly why is draconification a forbidden act. If you’re gonna imply that the three dragons introduced in botw were once people then tell us!! Totk deserved a dlc that could explain all of this and not leave us in the unknown

Saying that the Sheikah technology just “disappeared” is an absolutely awful way of saying “uh yeah we never thought about that”. That’s some god awful world-building and planning on the developers behalf. Even if they just said that after the Calamity it lost its magic and then parts of it were repurposed for new technology, like the Skyview towers, it would be so much more believable. The Divine Beasts should have at least been in the game somewhere, perhaps in the depths. The lack of Sheikah tech makes the game feel so disjointed from botw, and makes totk feel as though it’s only a sequel because it has the same characters in it

The ending of the game just doesn’t sit right with me. Why bother having Mineru beg Zelda not to swallow her secret stone if in the end she would be able to turn back into a human. I understand the developers want a happy ending but at least let there be consequences. Let Zelda’s memory be a bit hazy or give her dragon features like many artists have done and let Link permanently be an amputee

Also the Ancient Hero angers me. I’ve got no problems with him not being a hylian because honestly it makes it wayy more interesting knowing that not every hero was hylian, but just explain why. If he’s some sort of Zonai, why doesn’t he look like Rauru and Mineru? Is he some sort of hybrid or a different breed of Zonai? And why does the tapestry depict him as a hylian if he’s not? Seems like an oversight more than anything

I think I should stop there because this post is getting long but uh TL;DR totk could have been a phenomenal game if they spent more time planning out the storyline and fleshing out lore. I get it, the game was originally botw dlc, but after so many delays we at least deserved a better story.

I do still love this game though Tears of the Dragon goes HARD