Elizabeth Drakes's Site

Fantasy Romance

Legend of Zelda

Socks!

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A strange thing to talk about, especially as most of my life I have worn plain black socks. Well, after I was allowed to wear pant suits instead of skirt suits. *shudders*

First were these awful things called trouser socks for women. Imagine nylons, but in sock form.

*shudders again*

They were what I wore for a long time under suits then, as dress codes relaxed further, under dress trousers.

SkyrimSocks
My Skyrim socks would definitely not have been permitted.

Then Gold Toe started making socks for women. I traded all of those ridiculous trouser socks for Gold Toe. I thought it would make laundry easier as all of the socks were supposed to be exactly the same.

Except they weren’t.

Same socks from different packages were different. It made laundry worse.

Then my company went full-on casual just over a year ago. That means jeans every day. It’s odd to think I started my career in suits every day, and now we can wear jeans. Not only can we, it’s expected. If you wear dressier clothes, people start to raise brows and wonder if you’re interviewing or going to a funeral.

At the same time I was being forced to replace my socks. My older ones were starting to sag as the elastic pulled, but so were my newer ones. As with so many things, they just don’t make them like they used to.

Several sales people where I work, even before the dress code change, wear fun socks. The louder the better.

On a whim, I bought a pair of Zelda socks.

ZeldaSocks
These. You have to really be looking to notice, but I know.

I love them! Yes, they’re men’s socks. They are warmer than any women’s socks I have ever owned. And they stay up. And they are fun.

So, I bought several more pairs.

I now have enough of these fun yet practical socks to wear every day of the week. I am quite happy with this little splurge.

BowserSocks
Socks for long meetings where you wish you could fireball the presenter.

I may never go back to “normal” socks again, and I know I am never buying women’s socks again.

Characters: Link’s Awakening – Legend of Zelda

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We’ve been playing Link’s Awakening.

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Legend of Zelda – Link’s Awakening

I want to give it glowing reviews, but it’s really just okay.

Maybe it’s because I’m coming down off the high of a truly amazing game.

Or maybe it’s because I was expecting something more like Twilight Princess or Breath of the Wild.

Twilight Princess was a cross between an RPG and a puzzle game. We loved it in our house! Breath of the Wild felt a lot like Zelda crossed with Skyrim. Again, we loved it. There was more than enough story to keep us going even if we would have liked more. The DLC was disappointing to us, but the core game itself was excellent.

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Legend of Zelda – Breath of the Wild

I never played the original Link’s Awakening, so I can’t say how true this is to the original. Although I played the original Legend of Zelda, I stopped playing video games at a certain point in my life and didn’t pick them up again until my husband guided me back to them after we met. So, yeah, there were a lot of years I missed.

Still, Link’s Awakening felt more like playing Link in Mario Brothers game. It even had a lot of the same mobs.

Maybe it will get better, but I think we’re close to halfway through the game now.

My daughters love to watch, and I think my oldest could actually play it with little help. She’s working her way through Twilight Princess on the old Wii, and I think that is more difficult.

Still, I am disappointed. I have always been intrigued by the Legend of Zelda series. It reminds me of this William Shakespeare quote:

“Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.”

― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

 

Ganondorf born king of the Gerudo with a burning desire to rule the world.

Zelda born the princess of Hyrule.

Link whose story changes but is ever entwined with Ganondorf and Zelda.

My daughter once asked me who my favorite character in the series was. The writer in me answered Ganondorf.

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I’m not normally a fan of the villain, but this is an exception.

The game may be called Zelda, and we may follow the adventures of Link, but the story is Ganondorf’s. Zelda is wisdom. Her course is set. Link is bravery. His course is determined in reaction to Ganondorf.

Ganondorf is power.

He could be an elemental force of destruction. Raw power like a volcano. Like he was in Breath of the Wild.

But in other retellings, he isn’t. He’s born a man that has free will. That makes choices.

And we do not know that all of his incarnations are evil.

If he chooses the light, perhaps the triforce resonates in perfect harmony and ushers in an era of peace and prosperity. When he chooses the dark side, well, there’s a reason Hyrule is destroyed in the opening scenes of Breath of the Wild.

But the choice is always his. Link and Zelda are simply responding with wisdom and bravery to his choices. Makes for an interesting character.

 

Why Romance Writers Shouldn’t Be Gamers

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As you may or may not know, in addition to writing, I enjoy playing video games.

We played World of Warcraft back when it was vanilla. I remember when Burning Crusades was released…yeah, I just aged myself. We decided online games were not for us. We explored other games, and fell in love with many fan favorites: Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed etc.

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Not even going to confess how many hours we spent on this game.

My disappointment that many of these games abandoned decent writing in a desperate attempt to create a MMO (looking at you Mass Effect) aside, you will note that many of these are open worlds. Giant sandboxes to play in with little or no plot. Why? Because as Assassin’s Creed taught me when they killed the main protagonist (Desmond Miles, not Ezio or the various other past lives you jump into), the concept of story is not something most gaming companies do well.

So give me Fallout where I roam the wastes to find my father and basically get to explore, find cool stuff, and the like. Which, incidentally, is another game where their story-telling was SO bad they had to patch the ending. The game is so old I won’t consider this a spoiler, but literally most of your companions could complete the ending quest of walking into the radioactive room without being harmed (robots) or actually being healed (super mutant – which yes, I was such a goody-two-shoes I had one as my companion), but nope, you had to do it and die…for reasons… Yeah, they had to patch that. Not even their core gamer population was swallowing that.

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And you know I have every one of these.

 

Fallout is not kid friendly. Especially not the way we play with the one shot, one kill mentality. Yes, we like to play snipers in our house. As we play through Skyrim and find ourselves already able to sneak without penalty in our full daedric armor before ever find the Nightingale quest line…

But we have not yet figured out a way to turn off the graphic violence of a head shot in these games, and the heads on pikes in Fallout are not for children. So kids has meant we turned to many old favorites that are family friendly, like the Legend of Zelda and Mario Kart.

As part of this, we bought Super Smash Brothers mostly to get a chance to play the characters from a whole slew of different games.

Because my daughter desperately wanted to play Zelda.

Sad that Zelda was not even a favorite in the game…But there was this whole slew of characters I had never seen before that intrigued me. So, I started checking into their games, figuring they would be more games I could share with my kids as they were all Nintendo…

 

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Fire Emblem Fates

Ummm, yeah. I got sucked into the Fire Emblem series in 2019 through Super Smash Brothers as so many got sucked into it over two decades ago when Smash Brother came out on the Nintendo 64. The only reason Nintendo even brought Fire Emblem to the US was how many people wanted it after playing Smash Brothers back then.

Fire Emblem. A strategy game, with crazy characters that I build relationships with so I can marry them off then recruit their kids to my team?!? This exists? And no one told me?

I discovered my ultimate gamer catnip.

CatNip

Or so I thought.

Then I learned the hard way. The Fire Emblem series doesn’t believe in happily ever after.

 

Lean In?

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I have never denied how busy I am or how many more hours I would like in a day.

Spouse, children, day job, writing, family…I never feel like I have enough time for everything.

When time management books tell me to cut back on my television time…I can’t tell you the last thing I watched for me. Yes, I have watched Nailed It with the kids, and I have seen waaay more than my fair share of Octonauts. But other than that, I have not watched TV or movies for myself in ages.

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Only 47?!?

And now I consider whether or not I should take a more active role in my girls’ love of dance. I will never be a “dance mom”, and I will never see dance as more than an enjoyable way for them to move their bodies and get some exercise. We live in a really cold state. It’s an indoor sport. Seems like a good fit.

And they love it.

My youngest daughter was running around the house pretending to be Link from Legend of Zelda wielding her sword and shield and taking on “bad guys”.

Why, yes, she does have gamer parents. Why do you ask?

When it was time to go to her dance recital, she was singing the theme song to Dino Trucks as we got her dressed in her beautiful purple sparkly dance dress kind of like this one.

I love the variety little girls have to choose from today!

Dinotrux
Daughter’s favorite show ever.

She was so excited to be going to her dance recital, and she couldn’t wait to show us “her moves”. My little one, who is normally not a fan of the spotlight, got up on stage in front of a sold-out theater and did her best.

My oldest daughter overcame stage fright so she could dance.

Not sure I am allowed to admit this, but I am amazed how graceful and coordinated she is on stage! If you saw her off stage…

We are also blessed that we found a dance studio that truly is inclusive. The girls range in size from almost six feet tall to barely five feet. Some are thin some are not and some are very heavy. But all move together beautifully, and I love seeing the diversity on stage. I love seeing girls, of any size or shape, dancing and enjoying the freedom of movement.

Of course, now my oldest daughter wants to do “everything”.

Dance is expensive. Then, you have to drive them to class and wait for them. And she has a sister who will want to do “everything” with her.

As we’re trying to figure out transportation, which classes we can actually do, how many is “too many”, etc, I am also asking myself if I should be more involved.

Should I volunteer for things? If this is really going to be important to my daughters, how much should I get involved?

Do I want to?

Well, no.

dancemoms

Do I want to doing something with my girls that’s important to them?

Of course.

I am just not sure how all of this works. What the right path is.

It’s all new territory to me. And the parenting books forgot to mention this back when we were trying to learn all about the joys and pitfalls of children.

 

 

Home Renovation – Take 2

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We bought an older home and had been doing a lot to update it. Then the Great Recession hit. When that ended, we started having a family.

GreatRecessionPowerRanger
Wasn’t quite this bad, but it felt like it some days.

When we bought our home, we’d planned to be in five to seven years then buy a larger home and start a family. But the Great Recession happened, and I took a 40% pay cut just to keep my job. I’m the primary income in our home, so it was an especially rough time.

Shortly after the Great Recession, we started our family. Those of you with children are not surprised home improvement projects were all but completely ignored during this time.

 But the girls are getting older. We’ve considered moving, but things with my husband’s career are in flux, so we thought it best to limit the amount of chaos if at all possible. That means staying in our current home.

I am not good at interior design. Color and how it works eludes me. I’ve tried hiring some interior designers, but none want to work with a limited budget. So, I’m trying to tackle it myself.

RetiredToile
Whatever toile is.

To make the projects easier and more doable, I’m starting with my oldest daughter’s room. She’s at the cusp age where she’s no longer a preschooler, but she’s not a teen, either. She wants a Zelda room, because of course she does. Couldn’t be anything easy like Frozen or something.

 Neither my husband or I are very handy, so we’re going to be hiring contractors as needed to try to avoid the worst mishaps.

OneJob
I could see me totally doing this.

But after ten years, the house needs to be updated. We’re going to start in one room and go from there.

 Wish me luck! I’m going to need it!

 Have you ever tackled this kind of project? If so, *please* share any tips and pointers!

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

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Game: Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild

Rated: E for Everyone

Status: Worth Playing

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You can see more about it here.

Overview

Zelda’s been around since I was a kid, so it was fun to share it with my almost-kindergartner. She loves the game.

I’ve heard it called Skyrim for Zelda, and that’s not an inaccurate description.

 

Pros

  • It’s E for everyone, so the violence is cartoon in nature (think Road Runner or Bugs Bunny).

 

  • Bad Guys – Anything Link kills looks like a monster. These monsters come back alive at the next Blood Moon, so they don’t truly stay dead.

 

  • Not Scary – My daughter can be scared by My Little Pony. There was nothing in this game that truly scared her until we got to Gannon at the end. She would occasionally get frustrated with the puzzles in the game, but that’s okay.

 

  • Puzzles – The puzzles are challenging and thoughtful. Not something DD1 could solve on her own, but it challenged her to come up with ideas as even DH and I weren’t able to solve all of them easily.

 

  • Memories – We all enjoyed collecting “memories” (Link has lost his) and seeing what happened that led up to the post-apocalyptic world you start in. It let us get to see the way Zelda and Link went from an adversarial relationship, to friends, to something much deeper.

 

  • Environment – Environment becomes a factor to consider rather than just a backdrop: skeleton monsters come out of the ground at night, rain makes climbing more difficult, the sun rises and sets, the moon rises and sets, there are phases of the moon, etc. Many of these things actually feature in the gameplay, such as being properly equipped for the freezing mountain temperatures.

 

  • Load Screens– The load screens reasonable in length. Bethesda could learn a few things about this.

 

  • Armor Sets – DD1 loved the fact that Link could change his clothes, and she was very mindful that he didn’t overheat or freeze. These outfits were all upgradable, and really needed to be upgraded as you faced tougher monsters.

 

  • Rewards Worth the Challenge – Some things were always a challenge. Lynells and guardians, for example, are never a cake walk even at end game. You are rewarded for the effort with amazing weapons.

 

Cons

  • Gender Roles – It reinforces traditional gender roles. Zelda is the one who can’t master her power. Zelda is the one who falls crying to the ground. Zelda is the one yelled at by her father. Link is the one that has to save her. Blah. I almost didn’t buy the game because of this. Little girls get enough of this garbage without stuff like this reinforcing it. The game was originally going to feature the ability to choose whether you played Zelda or Link as the hero. I hope they release DLC that allows this. It wouldn’t be that difficult of a change. Not really. And it would let little girls see a girl kicking Bokoblin butt. I’ve tried to convince DD1 to think of Link as a girl, but she’s having none of it. Already. This is why not giving girls the option to play a girl is so awful.

 

  • Graphics – Enough said.
Link20122014
Frankly, the graphics from 2006 Twilight Princess were better.
  • Ending – I won’t spoil the ending, but we were disappointed. Not with the game play, per se, but I wanted the traditional cathartic release you expect at the end of a game. Especially a game this long. I didn’t get it, and I didn’t get to keep playing to finish up all those armor upgrades. Once you defeat Gannon, the whole thing is over even if you haven’t finished exploring. Hoping for a DLC on this where you can have Zelda as a companion and keep investigating the world. Seems wrong to leave the princess in the tower holding Gannon at bay while I explore the expansive world.

 

  • Controls – Unlike Mario Kart that my almost-kindergartener can not only play by herself, but give her father a run for first place, the controls for BOTW (Breath of the Wild) are complex. Even my husband had some issues at times. This was not a game DD1 could play on her own.

 

  • Tedious Upgrades – Some of the clothing upgrades grew tedious. How many times do I really need to camp the dragons to shoot some part of them?

 

  • No Real Story – There main story is pretty sparse, though the memories help. It’s really just: defeat Big Bad or else he will unleash total devastation. No explanation as to why, no character development, not even for Link or Zelda. And there’s clearly a huge opportunity with this with all Zelda has to do to unlock her power. Not even any really good side stories for Link to get involved in as he tries to regain enough strength to defeat Gannon. I suppose this is par for video games, which is really sad. They have the opportunity to do so much more.

 

All in, if you aren’t worried about the gender stereotypes, it’s well worth a play through.