Plateau Village by Rhein Noc

a little analysis of the small characterizations that are in just this cutscene. they make me ill

One of the things I've always pointed out to people that I love about botw and totk are the "micro movements" of the characters. The little twitches and shifts you hardly notice exist that make their movements and presence feel so much more natural, despite the cartoon style.

It's a thing a lot of motion capture games miss/feel stuff about imo, but Zelda motion capture and animation team bock it out of the park.

Tequila Sunset

White & Red Dragon by Romain MAZEVET

seems real artist is likely https://www.instagram.com/mr.gromain?igsh=MXN4M3ZlbXprZ2p2cw== (via spacerockband in the comments)

if nothing else they’re listed as zelda fan art of light dragon and dinraal on the insta so seems more legit than “fire dragon” and “white dragon” when its obviously dinraal and the light dragon

The Garden Doesn’t Know She’s Gone Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Fanfic by MythboundCal

Zelda’s garden doesn’t know she’s gone.

It still blooms like she’ll be back any second—like the sunflowers haven’t noticed she stopped humming to them, like the lavender didn’t watch her vanish into light.

Link stands at the gate. The wood is soft with age, half-swallowed by ivy. The watering can rests exactly where she left it in Hateno. Rusting. Waiting.

He doesn’t touch it.

Not out of neglect.

Just… fear.

That if he waters the garden, it might forget her—that its roots will stop searching for her footsteps, its blossoms will stop blooming in her colors.

So he lets it grow wild.

The basil climbs the wrong wall. The squash vines curl over the porch. The chimes still sing when the wind hits just right, a song no one ever wrote down.

And her gloves still hang on a bent nail by the shed. One turned inside out. He doesn’t fix it.

Somewhere beneath the soil are seeds she never named. He won’t dig for them. If they bloom, they bloom. If they don’t… he’ll wait with them.

Today, he sits. The Master Sword leans nearby, but he doesn’t reach for it.

The porch creaks under his weight. He watches the marigolds twitch in the breeze, reaching for hands that never come.

The villagers don’t ask anymore. He’s glad.

Because how do you explain a wound that grows flowers?

Even now, he hears her voice on the air—light, scolding, fond. “Don’t overwater the rosemary, Link. It hates being fussed over.”

He doesn’t answer.

Just lets the wind rustle the leaves. Lets the garden carry the silence.

And when a white lily opens—out of season, out of place—he doesn’t wonder how.

The garden remembers.

So he doesn’t have to.

Thinking about how Link was just 12 when he found the Master Sword…

I think the worst part is that he just had to wait? It wasn't like he was already on a journey and finding the sword was just another task to complete, he just had to sit with the (literal) sword of damacles hanging over his head for years. Imagine the permanent stress from knowing that at any moment, you might be called upon to save everyone you know. You'd never be able to fully relax and you'd be in a constant state of tension and readiness. No wonder he stopped speaking when he had the eyes of the kingdom and the threat of a world ending apocalypse happening at some unknown point in time. Could be today, could be tomorrow, could be 10 years from now. Don't ever let your guard down.

Grabbing a sacred sword when your world is already turned upside down and you're on an adventure to save the world is one thing, but when everything else is otherwise fairly normal except for you, the harbinger of bad vibes, then your life is so very different. Being the Hero isn't an adventure that falls into your lap, it's all you are and have ever been.

Into battle

"I don't want to read this" is totally valid.

"This is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't want to read this because it is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.

"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.

Bro, blocking someone and then using their tag like this is, all offence, weak as fuck. Like all you had to say was, na bro I don't promote pedo protags on this here blog, because I wholly agree with the premise of your argument given contexts (i.e., writing abusive relationships to show the evils, great; writing abusive relationships to show the romance, yikes).

This response is so, so comically shitty within the context of that tag, oh my god.

"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.

"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.

and

are both authoritarian viewpoints to hold and express, even if you don't have the power to enact them.

If you hold these viewpoints you are holding authoritarian viewpoints.

DUDE IT’S PEDO FICS EVERYBODY THINKS THEY’RE NASTY

Let me explain this to you in simple terms.

Something being nasty is not a good reason to ban fiction about it.

If we accept that "something being nasty is a good reason to bad fiction about it" then we give a foot in the door for all the people who truly, genuinely believe that queer people are nasty to ban all queer literature.

This is not about defending bad people this is about defending the freedom of good people from tyranny, you moron.

I think if you take it to its logical extreme. Say, banning people from writing stories of sexual abuse. That could then be said "well ANY talk about sexual abuse is bad."

And from that, you could ban books that talk about it irl. Or books like how to recover after being abuse. If its not something to be discussed AT ALL.

The fact that I’ve seen this post in some form on my dash like 100x and each time there’s new idiots who do not get that you can’t have *some* censorship.

Either you’re for it or you aren’t.

The moment you agree that something should never, ever exist in fiction is the moment that anything can be banned.

Remember a while back how Tumblr banned a bunch of tags, including many popular innocuous ones that even people who are for censorship used and were upset about?

When censorship happens, stuff YOU like can and will be banned. That’s how it works.

Remember how a bunch of people had their accounts terminated here only last year for writing about their own sexual abuse?

When you ban “pedo” topics, say, any talk of child sexual abuse in any form, that means people can no longer write about their own experiences. It means people cannot educate others so they can learn how to protect themselves or get help from these situations.

Censorship is authoritarian. Full stop.

Even if “everyone” agrees something is “gross” and “shouldn’t exist,” that does not fucking matter.

Do you know who generally believes queer people are gross and shouldn’t exist??

The same people who are banning books left and right solely because they have queer characters or relationships.

The same people who attack and kill queer folk for simply exisiting.

This is not just some fandom matter or a case of being chronically online.

Protecting freedom of expression is essential, and if you do not get that, I don’t know what to say to you.

And the people who keep bringing up child sex abuse as a reason for censorship are doing it very specifically because everyone feels like then they HAVE to agree with the person in favor of censorship.

It’s not that there isn’t widespread societal agreement on this. It’s that they want you backed into a rhetorical corner where you feel compelled to agree with them.

Also, like, we KNOW how this shit shakes out in fandom because it's happened before.

In 2007, Livejournal capitulated to the "pedophilia and sex crimes!" cries of (hate group) Warriors 4 Innocence, and you know what communities got shut down? Slashfic communities. Sexual assault survivor support communities. Authors who'd written non-smut m/m fic even got caught up in it. It was DEVASTATING to fandom spaces. I think pretty much everyone knew at least one person whose account was literally DELETED, or were a member of a community that was wiped off the map because they were considerate enough to include topics like "sexual assault" or "BDSM" in the profiles under the badly-named category of "interests" to indicate that posts on said blogs or communities may include discussion of things like that. Even if it was for a SUPPORT group. And it was because a group of religious bigots came to LJ and said essentially "EVERYONE thinks it's gross and that it's promoting CSA, we should ban it."

Like, strikethrough and boldthrough were a large part of what propelled AO3 out of a more unfocused conversation on one person's blog about hosting a site INTENDED for fandom content, into being an actual archive and nonprofit. And it's a large part of why you won't find AO3 banning topics that you find "gross".

Censorship is authoritarian and it will ALWAYS have more collateral damage than you can imagine.

Going to add that fiction which had sexual abuse and communities which played around with it as a writing topic are the very things that protected me from irl sexual abuse when I was a teenager. I was in a dicey situation, and realized that while my situation did not match up to any of the superficial or textbook cases mentioned in passing (if at all) through school, it matched up a LOT to what I'd learned about irl sexual abuse through works of fiction and the rhetoric of my communities. I got out of that situation and dodged what was, in retrospect, one hell of a nasty bullet. If it hadn't been for that "nasty" fiction and those "nasty" communities, I would very likely have been abused, and subject to further violence spiraling out from that abuse.

you can’t have *some* censorship.

Yup! It really is, in fact, pretty much that simple:

"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.

Ao3 authors will literally post under any fucking circumstances

Having a smoke(d ham sandwich) with Kim

This.

I don’t know about others but the only reason I put both is so that whichever someone clicks on, they will find my fic. So if there is supposed to be rules, I guarantee you that no writer knows these ones. We can barely get people to comment, you think we’re going to specifically choose & or / ? Hell no.

I’ve been in fandom for twenty years, and “/” means romance and “&” means no romance was literally one of the first things I learned. It dates back to Star Trek fanfiction of the 70s. I’m boggled by the fact that anyone who’s been reading fic on AO3 for more than like five minutes wouldn’t know that, and I’m curious as to what fanfic community you come out of.

I don’t think that tagging with both is actually going to get your fic in front of more readers. People looking for romance often exclude the “&” tag if there are too many gen fics tagged with both. People looking for gen often exclude the “/” tag if there are too many fics with both. So rather than putting your fic in front of twice the people, you are in fact more likely to get your target audience ignoring your fic because it has a tag they don’t want.

Also, by overtagging you are more likely to annoy potential readers away from your fic than entice them. A fic tagged both & and / better have both romance and a ton of platonic interaction between the two characters, like a slow burn romance friends-to-lovers arc. If it isn’t, I’m going to be very unhappy because the author lied to me with the tags to try and trick me into reading a fic with deceptive advertising.

When I’m in a fandom and see tagging where some of the tags don’t really apply and are just there to get it in front of more eyes, I’m going to assume one of two things. Either the author is a newb who doesn’t know anything, or the author is purposefully spamming the tags because they don’t care about lying to their potential audience and think that “spray and pray” is an effective tactic. In the first case, their writing probably will not be very good, so why bother reading their fic. In the second case, the fact that I can’t trust the tags to be accurate means I’m not going to read it to see if it’s interesting even if it has a tag I like. Chances are, that tag isn’t actually in the fic anyway, and even if it is, by spam-tagging the author is making the archive harder to use for everybody. Why would I reward bad behavior with attention? No. Far better to mute the author and move on.

More to the point--and no, I will never stop harping on this, because we have GOT to stop leaving our strongest points in the drawer--it doesn't matter if you heard of this convention before joining AO3 or not, because it's in AO3's tagging FAQ.

[id: the "How do I tag a romantic or platonic relationship?" section of the tagging FAQ here.]

"But Jo," you may argue, because you're wrong. "There's no way to find that without digging through site FAQ menus, and that's really inaccessible!"

sure

except

that when you go to post a new fic, and you go to put in those relationship tags, you see this

[id: the Relationships field]

and that tooltip, the one THERE TO EXPLAIN HOW THE FIELD WORKS, links to the Relationships segment of the tag FAQ, which explicitly lays this shit out.

I don't care if you don't know fandom history. I don't care if you've never heard a goddamn word about the spirk shippers. I don't care if you've never been exposed to fandom culture in your life. It is, frankly, not fair to expect those things of everyone.

What is entirely fair to expect is that you will READ THE INSTRUCTIONS PRINTED NEXT TO THE FUCKING BOX, actually. Forget fandom conventions. It genuinely doesn't matter whether you agree with or respect fandom conventions. This is a site policy. This is explicitly how tagging on AO3, specifically, works.

Also, idk if it's just me, but whenever I see an overtagged fic with a bunch of "/"s and "&"s thrown in seemingly at random I'm going to scroll past it. I'm going to assume it's a plotless, half-baked attention grab. Because it most likely is, 9 times out of 10 it is.

A few tags relating to what's in the fic? Great, amazing I can clearly see the author's intentions, I know I can trust them with what they're doing, I can kinda infer what's the fic gonna be about just from the tags alone and see if I vibe with that or not, the description is gonna help entice me and pull me in.

A giant wall of all concievable tags on the site? Welp, looks like the fic is trying to be everything at once, I have no idea what the fic's gonna be about, the author went unhinged with tagging and I'm uncomfortable, cuz it's either really going to be everything at once and yet nothing of substance at the same time (and most times in a form of a chatfic) or it's literally going to be the most normal fic out there that could've been summed up in 3 tags or less and the author is a liar.

You're not getting your fic to 2 audiences at once, girliepop, you're just putting your lack of effort and respect for potential readers out there to scare them away. Just pls learn how to properly tag shit. It's not hard to tag fics correctly.

Use the fucking "&" properly, pls, I'm begging you, I'm starving for my platonic relationships content in this barren AO3 land and the morsels of "&" I stumble upon all turn out to be FUCKING PORN! THIS IS A CRY FOR HELP PLEASE

getting older and looking at ur own ocs like okay i know i said you were like 16-19 when i made you at 13 but no fucking way. youre 25 now

this feels like dragging around a mummified corpse thats dressed as a clown

Hey. Minors following me. Internet safety is key!! NEVER include these in your bio/byf:

In general: stay safe. If you're not comfortable with every stranger out there having access to this information, you shouldn't post it on the internet.

Play devil's advocate and ask yourself about what would happen if someone searched for your information with intent to hurt you. You do NOT owe anyone an explanation!

adding on to this post, i agree w all of OPs points, but i also highly advise against super young teens posting their face on the internet, its so easy to take peoples selfies + name and find stuff out like your school and then figure out the rough area in which you live. same with your phone number. be super careful about what you put out there. once you post it, it really is here forever.

OP already said this so I’m just reiterating to emphasize:

The golden rule of information sharing on the internet is: What would happen if someone saw this who wanted to hurt me?

If the answer is that it would make it easier to harass you, identify you, contact you, or god forbid find you, don’t put it online. You can’t fully control who does and does not see that information--not even with privacy settings.

All of that, yes.

And also: Why tell people you are a minor? It will not keep you safer. It makes you a target for predators - you've now told them that you do NOT have experience identifying them, and you probably don't have friends who know how to spot the red flags in a "friendly" DM.

Years ago, chatrooms were full of creeps whose first question in private chat was always "A/S/L" - age/sex/location.

Now you guys post that stuff in your twitter profiles so they don't have to ask before deciding if you're a good target.