Category: fantasy

Giraffe and Annika

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

Giraffe and Annika is an extremely chill 3D adventure story game with anime-style character designs and panel-by-panel manga cutscenes. The game takes about four hours to finish, and I suppose that whether it’s worth $30 depends on how much you value this type of experience. I played Giraffe and Annika in short stretches during the day to get a bit of emotional sunshine, and it was lovely.

You play as Annika, a ten-year-old catgirl who mysteriously finds herself on a beautiful forested island. There’s a bit of an Alice in Wonderland flavor to the scenario, as Annika doesn’t worry too much about where she is or how she got there, and she begins the story as something of a blank slate. After investigating an empty house belonging to someone named Lisa, Annika goes back outside to find a blue-haired catboy named Giraffe waiting for her. Giraffe tells Annika that she has special powers, and he asks her to visit three dungeons on the island in order to restore starlight to a magical pendant.

The dungeons are themed open-air environments inhabited by roaming ghosts that will drain Annika’s health meter if they get too close. Thankfully, the dungeons are also filled with numerous health-restoring crystals. At the end of each dungeon is a boss battle that takes the form of a simple rhythm game. It’s possible to die from ghost attacks and other environmental hazards in the dungeons; and, in fact, I died a lot. Thankfully, save points and respawn points are so frequent that this isn’t an issue. There is zero stress in this game.

By clearing the dungeons, Annika will unlock exploration abilities such as a floaty space jump and the ability to swim underwater. She’ll also perform small fetch-quest tasks for NPCs who will help her bypass other obstacles. There are various objects that Annika can interact with across the island, but the optional collectibles are just for fun. Objectives are clearly marked, and you’ll never be in danger of getting lost or going off-track from the main quest.

The island is very lush and green and beautiful, and there’s a short day-night cycle that adds a touch of visual flair. I also appreciate the cuteness of the designs of the game’s sizeable cast of NPCs. In order to access the second dungeon, for example, you need to feed carrots to a sea turtle; and, to get the carrots, you have to round up a family of rabbits. The rabbits look like a Studio Ghibli adaptation of Beatrix Potter, and they’re adorable. Meanwhile, the sea turtle is completely photorealistic, which is a good illustration of the game’s gentle sense of humor.

It’s always a pleasure to encounter and interact with new characters, and I really enjoyed the manga-style cutscenes, which play out panel by panel. The character art is comically expressive, and the bright pastel colors are lovely.

It’s difficult to critique Giraffe and Annika, as it’s very sweet and competently constructed. Still, the main 3D playspace of the game can feel a bit textureless, and I also felt that the game wears out its welcome when it starts trying to challenge the player at the very end. I actually appreciate the occasionally amateurish design, as it fills me with a sense of nostalgia for the early 3D adventure games of the PlayStation era. Even though Giraffe and Annika sometimes looks as though it was built with out-of-the-box 3D graphic assets, it’s clear that the creators put a lot of effort into creating unique environments with a distinct sense of character.

Giraffe and Annika probably won’t appeal to someone looking for a deep story or challenging gameplay, but I can imagine that it would be a perfect starter game for its target audience of younger players. As for me, it provided a pleasant and much-needed mood boost during a dismal week in February. Giraffe and Annika is a bright and simple fantasy adventure with cute characters and no unnecessary cooking or crafting elements, and sometimes that’s exactly what you need in your life.

The Memory of Stone

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

I wrote “The Memory of Stone” back in 2020, when the announcement of a sequel to Breath of the Wild encouraged many Legend of Zelda fans to speculate that the game would feature Princess Zelda as a playable character. I returned to this story after finishing my second playthrough of Tears of the Kingdom, which reduces Zelda to a voiceless source of crafting materials. It was a disappointment, to say the least.

One might argue that there are other games with female protagonists, so why insist on playing as Zelda? I would counter this argument with another question: why not play as Zelda? The concept of Zelda as a playable character makes perfect sense within the context of the games’ stories. Link’s journey almost always runs parallel to a journey that Zelda undertakes on her own, after all, and being able to explore Hyrule with a different set of skills (and from a different narrative perspective) would be a lot of fun.

“The Memory of Stone” follows Zelda through each of the temples in Ocarina of Time, and it’s a small attempt to imagine what the eponymous “legend of Zelda” might look like through the eyes of Zelda herself.

You can read the story on AO3 here:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/25230271

The illustration of Sheik included in the story preview graphic was drawn by the revolutionary Nolvini, a fan of shōjo anime who creates magical character illustrations filled with personality and flare. You can check out her work on Twitter (here), on Instagram (here), and on Tumblr (here), and she also has a shop on Etsy (here).

Love in the Time of Gloom Spawn

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

After years spent investigating the mysterious shrines of East Necula, Dr. Calip has joined the Zonai Survey Team’s efforts to study the Ring Ruins of Kakariko Village. The ancient structures are fascinating, but what has captured Calip’s attention is the chasm in the forest on the hill. While Calip has been gazing into the abyss, however, the leader of the Zonai Survey Team has been gazing at him.

As I grow more impatient with grand narratives of nation-building and heroic destiny, I’ve become more interested in how epic fantasy universes appear to normal people. Hyrule is especially fascinating as a case study, as the privileges enjoyed by Link clearly aren’t applicable to everyone else. This is especially true of the knowledge Link accumulates over his journey, during which the secrets of prior eras are revealed to him alone.

In the present postapocalyptic era of Breath of the Wild, it seems the only person trying to study and understand Hyrule is a scholar named Calip, who lives in an isolated cabin as he attempts to stage an archaeological investigation into the site of one of the ancient Sheikah shrines. As an academic, Calip is a pompous asshole. Regardless of “Dr.” Calip’s self-serving motives, I admire him as a character who investigates the world and tries to understand it instead of simply killing things and accumulating treasure.  

Perhaps because of the popularity of the fandom’s speculation and study of Hyrule, Tears of the Kingdom leans into the ethos of archaeological inquiry with the establishment of a large and diverse set of NPCs forming the Zonai Survey Team. This Sheikah-funded research organization is led by a brick house of a character named Tauro. Tauro has set himself up in Kakariko Village, which has been beset by ruins falling from sky islands and a giant pit opening in the forest on the eastern hill.

Given their interests, it’s only natural that Calip and Tauro would interact. When you read the diaries that Calip has left at his former cabin and at his desk in his office in Kakariko, you learn that Calip is undeniably attracted to Tauro, who apparently went out of his way to invite Calip to work with him. Late in the game, the two men abandon their duties to run off and do research together. I think is a sweet lowkey love story – and even Kotaku agrees, apparently!

The emphasis on archaeological excavation in Tears of the Kingdom is somewhat problematic. In essence, the kingdom of Hyrule had a state-building myth that justified its sovereignty over the surrounding regions, and the result of the archaeological study performed by state-sponsored Zonai Survey Team is the demonstration that these myths were true in the most literal sense. Yes, there are evil outsiders who will kill everyone if they get the chance; and yes, only the royal family and its servants can protect everyone; and yes, the royal family is literally descended from gods/dragons. It’s all kind of gross.

What I therefore appreciate about the implied love story between Calip and Tauro is that they turn their backs on the politics of ancient texts and leave Kakariko so that they can go out into the woods and look at ruins together. For them, curiosity about the world has nothing to do with national mythologies and everything to do with the connection they feel to the people who lived on the land before them – and the connection they have with each other.

Because I am apparently incapable of creating anything that doesn’t have monsters, however, the story I wrote about Calip and Tauro ended up being a horror story as much as it is a love story. It has a happy ending, but it also has a healthy dose of eldritch horrorterrors. Phantom Ganon also makes an appearance, because of course he does.

The story is complete at 4,000 words, and you can read it on AO3 here:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/51328888

The illustration is by the marvelously talented Martina Belli, whose magical artwork helped me bring these two characters and their story to life. Marty paints dynamic portraits of fantasy characters and dramatic science fiction scenes, and she excels at creating compositions that draw the viewer into the world of her art. It was a lot of fun to work with her, and I highly recommend following her creations on Twitter (here).

They Only Come Out at Night

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

Grog has noticed a number of peculiarities in Kakariko Village. Eerie lights flicker in the mountain valley after dark. Murky black water fills the old stone well that no one uses. Golden spiders spin their webs under the eaves of abandoned buildings. Little does Grog know that the legendary Sheikah of Kakariko still live, and that they are watching.

I’m one of the many children of the 1990s who read Stephen King way too young. I think I must have been ten years old when I first encountered the IT, and I read the novel like it was Harry Potter. I was too young to understand a lot of what was going on, but what I took away from the story was a lifelong fascination with haunted towns.

This is one of the many reasons why I love Kakariko Village in Ocarina of Time. Like Derry, Kakariko seems pleasant and idyllic in the daytime, but all manner of horrors creep through its sewers. Over the course of his journey through Hyrule, Link learns that Kakariko is a Disneyland-style stage setting that covers an underground labyrinth of corpse-choked dungeons. Impa opened the depopulated village to the refugees from the civil war that left Link an orphan, which means many of the people living in Kakariko have no idea what their homes are standing on top of.

I’m curious about the perspective of normal people who live in fantastic worlds, and I’m particularly interested in Grog, the odd young man who greets Link at the entrance to Kakariko after dark. His dialog is iconic: “People are disgusting. My own father and mother are disgusting. You must be disgusting, too!”

When Link returns to Kakariko after seven years, Grog is nowhere in sight. No longer a surly teenager who resents his parents, Grog has gotten himself caught up in some truly strange business. It was only when I played Ocarina of Time as an adult that I was able to put together all the pieces of Grog’s story, which ends with his death (or perhaps suicide) in the Lost Woods.

I think Grog’s unfortunate fate is representative of what happens to people in Hyrule who see too much or ask too many questions. He’s therefore a fun character to use to look at Kakariko from an outsider’s perspective while speculating on what may have happened to the Sheikah. “They Only Come Out at Night” uses some of my favorite Stephen King tropes to tell a story about a deeply haunted village, and I really enjoyed writing it.

If you’re interested in peering into the shadows, the story is on AO3 here:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/51149224

I wrote this piece for The Eyes of Hyrule, a Legend of Zelda fanzine about the mysterious Sheikah clan. The zine will hold leftover sales on Etsy (here) during November, and you can check out more of the work appearing in the zine on Twitter (here) and on Tumblr (here).

For the story illustration, I was fortunate to be able to join forces with Frankiesbugs, a true master of cute and creepy art. You can follow their work on Instagram (here) and on Tumblr (here). I also recommend checking out their current video game project in development, which is on Steam (here) and on Instagram (here).

The Kumo Diary

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

A professor’s assistant at Tokyo Imperial University uncovers a curious manuscript whose author weaves an elegant tale of the twilight years of the Heian court. As she reads between the gossamer lines of the narrator’s account of a moonlit assignation, the quiet and unassuming scholar reflects on what happens in the shadows cast by civilization and enlightenment.

This story is a play on The Tale of Genji that I contributed to Carpe Noctem: Vampires Through the Ages, an anthology of historical fantasy fiction, illustrations, and comics about vampires in historically specific settings.

I wouldn’t say I’m a “fan” of The Tale of Genji in the same way that I’m a fan of the Legend of Zelda series, but I’ve read multiple translations of the book and enjoyed them all. When you engage with a story so deeply, it’s difficult not to come up with fun theories. I certainly wouldn’t be the first person in Japanese literary history to make this suggestion, but please consider: Why are the characters in The Tale of Genji always described as being so pale, and why are many of them only active between dusk and dawn?

“The Kumo Diary” is set in the Meiji period (1868-1912), Japan’s industrial era of “civilization and enlightenment.” As Japan attempted to establish itself as a nation that could compete with Western powers, its intelligentsia were motivated to create a unified “Japanese culture.” The Tale of Genji occupied an interesting place in this movement. On one hand, it could easily be regarded as the quintessential work of classical Japanese literature. On the other hand, its plot is largely concerned with the love affairs of a rotating cast of beautiful but neurotic women. Japanese scholars were therefore tasked with making The Tale of Genji a respectable classic to be held in esteem by a modern nation.

Scholars had been compiling and revising the chapters of The Tale of Genji for centuries, so it was necessary to create a “definitive” version of the text. While I was studying the history of The Tale of Genji, I couldn’t help but wonder about all the apocryphal chapters that never made it into the canonical text.

It took me ten years, but finally I wrote one of these apocryphal chapters myself. I embedded the so-called “Kumo Diary” into a frame story about a woman who finds the manuscript and decides not to share it with the stodgy male professor who employs her. It’s interesting to imagine there being a secret history of The Tale of Genji, and I really enjoyed writing the ending of my story. After all, who’s to say there aren’t demonic women pulling the strings from the shadows? If they do their work correctly, we’d never know they were there at all.

I’ve posted the story on AO3, and you can read it here:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/50802628

The illustration is by the darkly brilliant Paristandard, whose creepy and creative illustrations can be found (on Twitter), (on Tumblr), and (on Instagram). It was an amazing experience to work with them, and I can’t recommend them enough for character designs, book covers, short comics, and other illustration projects. For this project in particular, the historical specificity of their costume design was uncanny, and I am in awe.

A Worthy Successor

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

In an eerie castle submerged under cursed waters, Ganondorf tells Tetra about the world that once was. Ganondorf’s story is at its end, but his words inspire Tetra to dream of the world to come.

I recently started playing The Wind Waker in order to do research for a short essay about Koroks. The Wind Waker is a fresh and lovely game, at least at the beginning, and I always forget the emotional impact of the end. The pathos of Ganondorf’s longing for the Hyrule of the past always gets me right in the heart.

I think it’s interesting that, after The Wind Waker, Tetra goes on to establish New Hyrule, the setting of Spirit Tracks. She thereby achieves Ganondorf’s goal of restoring an ancient kingdom blessed by gentle winds. This begs the question – how would Tetra know about Hyrule? Given how much time Tetra spent with Ganondorf under the Great Sea, I think it’s safe to assume that they must have talked to one another.

This story is my attempt to envision what these conversations might have been. I wrote this story a few years ago, but I’m returning to it now because it still resonates with me. The older I get, the more I sympathize with Ganondorf, and the more willing I become to let decaying empires fall to ruin in favor of embracing the winds of change.

You can read the story here:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/35251798

The comic adaptation is by the magical Lightsintheskye, who is:
(on Twitter) + (on Tumblr) + (on Etsy)

Hyrule Fashion Anthology Preorders

~ Kathryn

Hyrule Fashion Anthology is open for preorders (here)!

Hyrule Fashion Anthology is a fanzine celebrating the complex evolution of fashion history through the characters and setting of the Legend of Zelda series. I contributed an essay titled “A Wind-Grieved Ghost” about the influence of medieval Japanese Noh theater on Ganondorf’s costume and character in The Wind Waker. I put a lot of love and research into this piece, and I may have even made myself cry.

The zine is filled with gorgeous fashion illustrations that illuminate the historical and cultural influences of the character designs in the series, as well as brilliant renditions of fan-favorite characters in a diversity of times and places. In addition to the artwork, the zine also includes articles about weaving, metalworking, and the beauty of style in all its forms.

Preorders are open until September 19!
If you’re interested, you can check out the zine through these links…

✨ Carrd: https://hyrulefashionanthology.carrd.co
✨ Twitter: https://twitter.com/HyruleFashion
✨ Bigcartel: https://hyrulefashionanthology.bigcartel.com

Terrible People

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

Terrible People collects six short and eerie tales of dark fantasy, unfortunate encounters, and horrible life choices. The writing is accessible to teenagers and adults alike, and there’s a diversity of death, poison, and murder for everyone to enjoy.

Terrible People is my fifth zine of original short fiction, and it’s the first that feels like a real short story collection. Each of the stories in this zine was accepted for publication elsewhere; but unfortunately, every single one of these publications was cursed. To give an example, one online magazine closed their website and deleted their social media accounts less than a month after they accepted one of these stories. To give another example, a small press that published an anthology with another of the stories burned down, meaning that almost all copies of the book were destroyed.  

Perhaps I’m tempting fate by printing these stories on my own. Who can say?

If you’d like to order a (totally not cursed) copy of the zine, it’s on Etsy here:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1556837985/terrible-people-horror-fiction-zine

At 52 pages, the zine is relatively lengthy, which means I was able to give it a spine. This necessitated extra formatting work, and I feel like I’m slowly starting to understand the art of book design. What I’m thinking of doing in the near future is making a short chapbook from a single story and experimenting with the formatting until it looks more like an actual book. Terrible People is probably the last zine I’m going to make that has the style of formatting I’m using now, which I actually quite like.

I’ve been thinking that perhaps it might be nice to set up a micropress one day. For the time being, however, I’m content simply to continue writing these strange little stories while hoping that the curse haunting my attempts to publish them eventually dissipates.    

Divine Beast

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

Zelda returns to her original form after the defeat of the Demon King. But, after so many years, is the being that comes back to Link entirely human? Zelda has appetites better suited to claws and fangs, but Link resolves to care for her, no matter the cost. This is a story about Zelda attacking and eating frogs, and cuccos, and horses… and possibly something with even sweeter flesh.

I’ve been enjoying Tears of the Kingdom, but I’m frustrated by its story. I love all the characters, and I think the game’s broad narrative arc is an interesting reimagining of Ocarina of Time. Still, there are many elements of Tears of the Kingdom that I find unsatisfying, especially its ending. I understand the plot mechanics of what happens, which are nicely explained in (this post) on Tumblr, but Zelda’s complete reversion to her human form doesn’t sit easy in my mind. Is it really possible for a transformation of such magnitude to have no lasting effects? Did the sacrifice Zelda made really have such little weight?

Tears of the Kingdom fails to attach meaning to its worldbuilding in a way that very few Legend of Zelda games have in the past. It’s understandable to dismiss these games as childish heroic fantasies. Still, at some point, the true darkness of each game’s story expresses itself. The player may have seen the plot through the limited viewpoint of Link, the teenage “chosen one,” but the crumbling kingdom of Hyrule looks substantially different through the eyes of other characters. Link will emerge triumphant and ride off into the sunset, but everyone else has to live in the ruins, and it’s only very late in his quest that Link realizes this. With this realization, the player can begin to put together the missing pieces of a much larger story.

Despite having an incredible potential to expand on the many mysteries of Hyrule, Tears of the Kingdom does its best to simplify its story to a single one-dimensional layer: Ganon is bad. By defeating Ganon, Link gets rid of everything that’s wrong with the world, meaning that everything in Hyrule is now good again. This is all that matters. What happened in Breath of the Wild doesn’t matter. What happened in the ancient era doesn’t matter. What happened to the Zonai doesn’t matter. None of Hyrule’s past matters, nor does its future. In the endless present of the game, Zelda only exists as a vessel for “good,” and the only important thing is that Link saves her.

As much as I love Zelda, I resent that she only exists as a plot device and a reward for the player. While superficially turning Zelda into a superhero, Tears of the Kingdom robs her of agency. I generally like happy endings, but I hate the conclusion of Tears of the Kingdom. Simply put: it’s happy, but it’s boring. What I therefore wanted to do with “Divine Beast” was to make Zelda’s decision more interesting by ensuring that it has consequences. I also wanted to give the worldbuilding of Tears of the Kingdom a bit of the weight and depth it deserves.

And, more than anything, I want Link and Zelda to be free.

“Divine Beast” is complete at 2,000 words, and you can read it on AO3 here:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/49296496

I drew the illustration myself. You can follow my art on Tumblr (here) or on Instagram (here).

The Flower Thief

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

“The Flower Thief” is a story about how Ganondorf visits Hyrule as a child and falls in love with the green and beautiful land, even as he is warned away by the queen who will become Zelda’s mother.

What fascinates me about Ganondorf (at least prior to Tears of the Kingdom) is that he’s a villain whose actions seem far more evil than his character. Given that he’s not necessarily an evil person, what would drive him to such extremes?

In my own experience, evil is boring and mundane. “Evil” is someone who sends hateful messages on social media because they know they can get away with it, or someone who pretends not to see when a colleague is being harassed at work. People who are born into privilege can often be evil without even thinking about it, as the rules that govern the actions of other people don’t apply to them. People in positions of authority are often evil simply because it’s the path of least resistance. So, in most cases, evil is passive; it’s a matter of not challenging the baser impulses of human nature, or not bothering to fix a system that’s become twisted and broken.  

It’s therefore intriguing to me that, when Ganondorf wants “power,” what he’s seeking is the ability to upset the established order. Even if it’s for his own selfish reasons, he aims to transform the world, whether by undoing the mistakes of the past or creating an ideal future. He fails – and he fails miserably – but at least he tries.

I grew up with shōnen adventure manga, and I’m interested in seeing a similar coming-of-age story about someone like Ganondorf, who is talented and works hard but still ends up as the villain. “The Flower Thief” was my attempt to write a story like this for myself, and I think I managed to do a decent job of creating a nice parallel to Link’s first journey to Hyrule Castle in Ocarina of Time.

You can read “The Flower Thief” on AO3 here:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/32033518

This story was written for Ties of Time, an Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask fanzine. Ties of Time was published back in 2021, but you can still see the zine’s artwork on Twitter (here), and the zine’s stories have been collected on AO3 (here). The character illustration of teenage Ganondorf is by the bold and daring Taxkha, who shares their art on Tumblr (here) and on Twitter (here).