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Rewriting Romance in Les Légendaires

Disclaimer: This is all in good fun, and is merely a way for me to get this all out of my head before Brain stops Braining.

I once said that Patrick Sobral can't write a romantic subplot to save his life, and that I really wished he'd stop trying to shoehorn them where they're not needed. A bit of pondering has led me to the conclusion that there is, in fact, potential for good romances among Sobral's six leads; the combinations he chose to put them in just kind of suck. Of course, these are romantic subplots featured in a story that is not first and foremost a romance, so of course you don't get a whole lot of reason for why these people are attracted to each other, but one can only suspend one's disbelief for so long when taking a look at the character dynamics. The canon pairings are as follows:

Danaël/Jadina: Classic Knight/Princess setup, he rescued her when she was kidnapped during an escort mission and they ran away together and founded the Legendaries. You don't watch these two fall in love, you are given the understanding that they already are in love, but despite their being adults who have known each other for a long time, Danaël and Jadina suffer from a case of what Tv Tropes refers to as Twice Shy. There is demonstrably nothing actually standing in the way of their being together, not even Jadina's royal title given that her parents banished her, and definitely not her erstwhile fiancé prince Halan, in whom Jadina makes it pretty clear that she has approximately zero interest. Not offensive, but relatively cliché and all in all pretty bland and predictable.

Razzia/Tenebris: Former co-Dragons to the villain, he dumped her when he realized they were actually the baddies and joined the Legendaries. This is a complete wish fulfillment fantasy; A not conventionally attractive dude has no indication of a love interest until it turns out that he has a beautiful, murderously devoted ex-girlfriend who even after all these years is still very much in love with him? Again, there is no buildup to them falling in love because they somehow already are, to the point where Tenebris's entire reason for deciding that she wants to be on the "good" side is that she is still in love with "Korbo" (Razzia's villain name), who on his end hasn't actually done anything to inspire this decision, would much rather she didn't join the team and tells her to fuck off every time she calls him Korbo. Their romance doesn't do it for me because she's in love with who he used to be, and isn't given nearly enough time to get to know this new version of him before they get back together, while he on his part associates her with lies, betrayal and the trauma of losing his family to her father's forces. Knowing this, how could they ever pick up where they left off?

Gryf/Shimy: Snarky beastman with a Past meets proud elf who can merge with the four elements. Is meant to be your run-of-the-mill bickering old married couple, is in fact an absolute dumpster fire that never should have happened. Gryf and Shimy don't appear to respect one another at all, and consequently treat each other like absolute crap, to the point where neither of them comes out of it looking better than the other. Gryf appears to be utterly allergic to communicating with Shimy to the point where he keeps her in the dark about a lot of things and generally treats her like she's unworthy of his trust, or like she's fragile, and winds up cheating on her with another girl who he also treats like crap despite the fact that said girl is, ironically, way more fragile than he believes Shimy to be (#ShunDayDeservedBetter). Shimy on her part assumes the worst of Gryf on principle and reacts to any perceived or legitimate slight by physically abusing him, and we the audience are meant to find this funny because Shimy is a woman and Gryf is a man. This isn't made any better by the fact that there is a significant power imbalance between the two: what can Gryf's claws do when Shimy can literally bend the elements to her will, and why would anyone want to be someone who puts the fear of God in them? Gryf is frequently referred to as "the bravest of the Legendaries" and yet somehow, dealing with Shimy is the one area where this does not apply. There just came a point where I really wished these two would break up for good and try their hand at being friends again.

Now. Before anyone makes any assumptions, I should mention that I am an aroace lesbian who does not actually ship any ships from Les Légendaires. Teenage me was an avid fan and used to think this was quality writing, and having grown up and drawn my own conclusions on Sobral since then, I think it highly unlikely that he would have made any of his main pairings anything other than heterosexual, given that Sobral has already been known to use les yay as a joke and the only same-sex pairing seen in his works is a side couple, two women at that, who get lecherously spied on by Gryf because Sobral apparently couldn't just Not Make It Weird.

Knowing this, here are the combinations that I propose: Gryf/Jadina, Razzia/Shimy and Danaël/Tenebris.

Gryf/Jadina: Power couple as fuck. Gryf and Jadina respect and support each other so goddamn much that no disagreement could ever make their bond any less strong, they are the Best Friends to ever Best Friend (no shade to Gryf's canon best friend, Danaël). Their upbringings are diametrically opposed, she a princess and he a gladiator, and they should by all rights have nothing in common, but they share a common experience of being denied their very freedom because of (granted, very, very different) circumstances beyond their control. Jadina will rightfully call Gryf out on his nonsense but never in a way that is meant to make him feel like an idiot, and she trusts him so much that he was initially the only other Legendary she apparently confided in about her banishment; Gryf not only doesn't treat Jadina like she's made of glass (which is how he treats Shimy) but listens to her, and has proven again and again that he will follow her to hell and back - remember his heartbroken rage when he thought Jadina had been killed and replaced by an impostor? These two also have a not-insignificant recurring Beauty and the Beast motif which I love, and which Gryf himself lampshades when he rescues Jadina from her execution in book 14. As a bonus, I personally headcanon Gryf as bi, and in my head his type is smart, kind-hearted and ludicrously powerful mages with dark hair, olive skin and light-colored eyes (Jadina and Elysio have more than a few similarities; I see you, Gryf). Also, they're both royals; potential for a political alliance meant to get the Jaguarians out of the shadows? Maybe that's too convoluted.

Razzia/Shimy: Fun fact, these two were originally going to be a canon pairing before Sobral realized that Gryf/Shimy was more popular with the fans (arguably a horrible reason to make a ship sail). Shimy has a more easy rapport with Razzia and shows him more genuine care than to any of the others, though she also enjoys teasing him in earlier books and generally seems to find him quite endearing. Razzia conversely thinks the world of Shimy and always lends her an ear if she needs to talk while also respecting her boundaries, and goodness knows what a calming influence he has on her. It bears noting that the pair of them are the muscle component of the Legendaries, he in the literal sense while she can magically enhance herself with rocks, I can totally picture them working out together. Also, the fact that the two of them have more personal beef with Darkhell than any of their comrades means that they get each other in a way that the others might not - yes, Jadina was a frequent target of Darkhell's, but the Eagle Staff is what he actually wanted; Shimy was full-on tortured, and that's not even getting into what went down with Anathos. All of that is still pretty fresh and even once Anathos is gone, Shimy understandably still has a lot of residual anger. This is probably partly the reason why she lashes out at Gryf so often and so violently, but he isn't really in any position to truly be there for her given that he's currently going through his own shit. Razzia, on the other hand? He's no stranger to how Shimy feels, but his emotional wounds are not as fresh, in fact they've pretty much scarred at this point.

Danaël/Tenebris: Such a missed opportunity. Give me more Enemies to Lovers that is actually Enemies to Lovers and where the girl is the "evil" one. I'm thinking that one scene from Princess Mononoke, you know the one: "I'll cut your throat! That'll shut you up/You're beautiful". Danaël and Tenebris are shown to respect each other but are also fundamentally opposed in their philosophies. They challenge and question one another in a relatively professional and level-headed manner, and I could see a mutual intrigue blooming into admiration as each attempts to work the other out. Danaël's unrelenting idealism would give Tenebris the push she needs to actually question her view of the world, which would give her a real, believable redemption arc that wouldn't come out of nowhere - she was a one-off henchwoman who got dealt with pretty quickly, honestly what was there to redeem - or indeed be boiled down to Doing It For Love. Danaël on the other hand could come to realize the more he interacts with Tenebris that it's not all black and white, that no one is born evil and that Tenebris was just as much shaped by her environment as he was by his own. Speaking of which, they actually have more in common than they think since they both grew up motherless, have a shared military past that each ended up defecting from (she ranked higher than he did though) and they also have been known to go to extremes for the sake of the Greater Good - like for instance Danaël deciding to have Shimy killed to keep Anathos from coming back, or Tenebris justifying the sacking of Barabath as a necessary sacrifice for the unifying of Alysia in one of Razzia's flashbacks. As a nice final touch, together they make up the blade component of the team. Sparring date, anyone?

One last disclaimer: My reshuffling of the pairings does not, in my mind, erase the original pairings, because it's common knowledge that you can love more than one person in your lifetime. It also always bugged me that Sobral's heroes were allowed to move on to different partners and even express attraction to other women while his heroines stayed stuck on the same person book after book for no apparent reason. I can see Danaël and Jadina having a small adrenaline-fueled attraction when they meet that later becomes a real friendship as they get to know each other better, Gryf and Shimy letting the sexual tension fizzle out once they realize their personalities just don't mesh well (preferably without dragging poor Shun-Day into it, honestly Gryf could not have picked a worse person to needlessly jerk around), and Razzia and Tenebris getting closure and moving on from their past.

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Notes on a BOTW/TOTK Atlantis: The Lost Empire au

Milo Thatch - Zelda -> it just makes more sense for her personality to make her the passionate scholar rather than the warrior princess.

Kida Nedakh - Link -> less an actual prince and more of an out-of-time wild child who was taken in by the king and queen.

Preston Whitmore - Impa

Commander Lyle Rourke - Ganondorf

Lieutenant Helga Sinclair - Riju -> much less overtly villainous than Helga, and in fact turns against Ganondorf pretty quickly once he lays a hand on the royal family. She's also not the one who recruits Zelda; Paya is the one who takes Helga's role in that particular instance.

Dr. Joshua Sweet - Sidon -> the Zora have healing powers and he is one gigantic sweetheart.

Audrey Rocio Ramirez - Tulin -> young airship mechanic. Teba was part of the expedition that found the Journal/Tablet.

Vincenzo "Vinny" Santorini - Yunobo -> because of the whole explosions thing, though the personality is drastically different.

Gaëtan "Mole" Molière - Josha -> up the child prodigy aspect rather than Mole's overwhelming weirdness (given that Josha is the head of the Depths investigation team this just makes sense to me).

Wilhemina Packard - Purah

Jebidiah "Cookie" Farnsworth - Robbie -> these two are undercover as the communications officer and cook respectively and were in fact tasked by Impa to keep an eye on Ganondorf (all those moments where Packard is gossiping with her friend Marge instead of watching comms? That's Purah reporting directly to Impa through code); they take over the expedition after Ganondorf betrays everyone.

Kakeshim Nedakh - Rauru -> create a role for Mineru - makes more sense for her to become queen after Rauru's death than for Link to become king.

The Queen - Sonia

The Leviathan is either the Colgera or a giant Flux Construct. Maybe even a literal Divine Beast.

I am open to better ideas.

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What would a "Legend of Zelda" space opera au look like?

Would Hyrule be one planet with a varied biosphere or would every region become its own planet part of a solar system? If so, would Korok forest be its own planet or would it be a part of the Hylian planet? Would the dragons be floating around in space ? Personally I love the idea of floating space dragons. Also love the idea of spaceships built using Sheikah and later repurposed Zonai technology. I mean, the Divine Beasts from BOTW and the various Constructs from TOTK are basically warships and robots so it could be done.

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I don't know what it is about the Ember armor set and the idea of wearing it that makes me feel happy and serene.

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"Last Night in Soho" is what happens when you take Dario Argento's "Suspiria", "Perfect Blue" and "When Marnie Was There" and you just stick'em in a blender. Thoughts?