#(i love that he becomes something of a wanderer in botw.)

[windsofcourage]

||. 2am link thoughts bc there's something in the idea of a hero whose duty goes unfulfilled . the restlessness of that . the way it sits there , hot and heavy as an undeniable burden . it's how link kept himself silent because he didn't want to burden anyone else with the idea of a hero who had troubles of his own . it's how he bottled it all up and dealt with it all alone and kept his chin held high and let things pass through or around him because faltering isn't an option . it's about how that wasn't enough .

it's about how he's never really lost a battle in all of his incarnations ( save a singular branch of OoT anyways and even then //gestures at training TP!link. ) . it's about how the most ancient parts of link simply can't comprehend that . refuses to accept it . WILL NOT . it's about how he has to anyways . it's about losing . it's about the vengeance of it , at a point . the storming the front gates of the castle because SCREW YOU . it's about the ghosts he constantly interacts with in the king , the champions , the gravesites , the malice , the eventual poes and gloom .

it's about how he fell to the guardians anyways by no fault of his own , or really ANYONE'S fault besides calamity ganon himself , but how link won't ever really see it that way . maybe he will logically . but emotionally ? that's a harder sell .

it's about how they were blindsided and he wasn't ready . it's about the 100 years lost . it's about all of the lives lost . it's about the time zelda spends bridling the calamity in the castle by herself when link knows damn well he's been quite literally born to be at her side during this exact battle . it's about how it goes past that , though . it's personal . that's his best friend and confidante . that's his princess too . it's about how he's lost too much and he's most certainly not losing her . not again . not ever . certainly not after losing everybody else too .

it's about fear holding back instinct and stifling courage when that fear is left unreleased and yet , despite that , fear is exactly the fire to light beneath one's feet to be courageous enough to not repeat the past . it's about how courage isn't being fearless it's about what you do to rise about the fear . it's about how link is oh-so human . he's a teenage boy . it's about the terror and grief and guilt . it's about the courage and love and ( eventual ) acceptance .

[radiance1]

Eastern Dragon Danny, but he ends up in BotW/TotK timeline and chills there thinking Aragon would never look for Danny in a medieval fantasy setting

I know naught much of Botw/Totk lore since all I have read are fanfics but I shall try my best I guess?

Botw-

Danny just, doesn't involve himself with anything regarding this new land, like, at all. He mostly keeps to himself and just tries to enjoy life now,

Mostly just discreetly (as much as a dragon can) flying around and doing whatever he wants.

Perhaps he also meets Dinraal, Farosh and Naydra pre-calamity and become somewhat friends? Like, he visits them a bit from time to time and maybe they act a bit parental because Danny just, gives off the feel of a baby dragon.

Probably because he is a baby dragon, but I digress.

When the calamity happens, he's just blindsided because, holy shit what in the ever-loving FUCK just happened? When he went to where he thinks it came from, he saw the castle that he usually pass by whenever he wanders around (out of sight of course) and found it in ruins.

He didn't even have time to properly look at it, because soon enough he was dodging multiple goddamn laser beams, like, he didn't even know they had these here!

Oh, hey there's a pretty light :D

And then there was some Misty black, purple whatever colored dragonlike(?) being appeared and- hoLY SHIT.

The damn thing gunned for him, like, he dodged it but still what in the ever-loving fuck. He was just mining his own business, doing dragon stuff and checking out what was happening over here, what, did he like kill this guy's family in a past life or something.

Gosh he hopes not.

So, he dodges and weaves, accidentally distracting it from the people down below while also sending off some blasts of ectoplasm and ice.

Which didn't do much.

Great.

He was considering just, leaving, because this honestly was not as much as it was worth. Then some girl who looked literally like, 2 years older than him came running up to the castle and then the thing attacking him just straight ignored him and gunned for the girl.

.

Goddamn it.

He flew forward to intercept the thing, chomping down on it and hoping the girl would get the hint to just run. Only for his teeth to just, not catch on anything and instead for him to get overrun.

Pure, unbridled hatred flooded his mind and malice pumped through his veins.

And then he just, didn't remember what happened next all that clearly.

He remembers a light, then the girl disappearing, then him flying away with basically no destination in mind, only knowing that he tried to keep a hatred and malice not his own and finding some secluded place to keep himself away and everyone else away.

Then he literally froze himself and whatever area was around him, and fell into a struggle.

(Idk how to include Totk so uh, just have this I guess.)

[hestusjamsession]

I’ve been depressed so I decided to do what normal people do when they’re depressed and make a list of my favorite Legend of Zelda fanfics thus far. I think I’ll make a Linked Universe one next.

Almost all of these fics are finished and most are multi chapter. Some are quite long too. I also tried to include a variety of ships and stuff. I’m a multi-opportunity shipper, what can I say?

I know a few of the authors are here on Tumblr but I can’t for the life of me find them. So if anyone knows the usernames of the authors so I can tag them I’d appreciate it.

Anyway…

*cracks knuckles*

1. Make a Wish, Make it Count by LiliansMalice

Three very different people get forced to work together to find a powerful relic that can grant them wishes and solve their (admittedly pretty bad) problems.

It’s got angst, it’s got humor, it’s got found family vibes. And demons. Lots and lots of demons. Such a good read y’all need to check it out. Also, if anyone knows of any more fics like this let me know!

2. Honor Among Thieves by DawnTheRithmatist

The Master Sword has been stolen and as things start to go missing around the castle Zelda decides to do some digging which ends up with her becoming pen pals with a wanted thief.

Zelink fic which Link goes full rogue and koroks are eager accomplices.

3. Beating Around the Bush by Umbreonix

Revali retires from the air force and becomes a remote bush pilot. His life is all well and good (if boring) until a slightly feral researcher from the University of Central Hyrule derails his entire life.

This fic is genuinely hilarious and also heartwarming. Umbreonix writes Revali so well. Revlink fic with a modern spin. (Side note, the fic “Finding Link” by the same author is also really good)

4. Displaced by Socksock

What do you do once you’ve saved the day? Yeah, Link and Zelda don’t know either. But Link has monsters to kill and cool new outfits to find and Zelda has massive bridges to rebuild and loyal knights to smooch so they’ll be ok.

This was one of the first fics I read after beating BOTW. Novel length Zelink goodness with lots of humor and healing and Link dressing up like Tingle because he’s like that.

5. K.K. Love Song by Socksock

Anything by Socksock is gonna be great but this fic literally kept me sane while I was working on site during the Pandemic. Oklahoma be like that.

Modern Zelink fic where the hot new Shiekah Slate game Animal Crossing brings a Princess and a cook closer together. Link apparently does a good KK impression.

6. Nothing More, Nothing Less by Farbsturz

Ravio, Bearer of the Triforce of Wisdom, must head to Hyrule to help it’s Hero defeat the Calamity. Ravio, Bearer of the Triforce of Wisdom, is not sure about this.

Ravio plays Breath of the Wild. Or- the Ravlink fic you didn’t know you wanted.

7. The Queen’s Tournament by AshleysWrittenWords

In order to become Queen, Princess Zelda must marry. Zelda’s plan? Part 1: Host a tournament were the winner gets her hand in marriage. Part 2: Enter said tournament in disguise so she can, to quote Merida from Brave “shoot for her own hand”. And it all goes according to plan until Link decides to enter the tourney as well.

I THINK I might have read this, or something very similar, once upon a time on Fanfiction.net. Twilight Princess-ish Zelink.

8. Branded by Embyrinitalics

In a land haunted by war, two lonely people find solace within each other.

This one’s got a somber vibe to it, but it’s beautifully written and it hits me in the shipper feels so yeah.

9. The Wolf of Farore by Wayward_Chronicler

The Legend of Zelda meets The Witcher in a fic that is technically not finished but has 71 chapters and more character cameos than you can swing a sword at.

Long fic fam this one’s for you. 😘

10. Interim by Starkraving

Link and Zelda have just defeated the Calamity and are wandering Hyrule when they meet a strangely familiar Gerudo who wants to buy Link’s giant horse and has no idea what he’s about to get roped into.

The Link/Zelda/Gan fic filled with angst, humor and lots of Gerudo grammar lessons.

This was the other fic I read right after beating BOTW. Fair warning- its rated E so it’s got spicy parts to it. But if you don’t mind that it’s a fantastic read.

11. Re-Domestication by AnthemXIX

The description says it best: “A semi-feral amnesiac and his wolf guardian try to get along with the locals.”

A really good BOTW Link and Wolf Link fic that isn’t Linked Universe related (Though the author has written several really good LU fics as well). It’s part of a series and they’re all really good.

12. Secrets of the Shadows by @skyloftian-nutcase

When Link goes missing, Rusl finds a wolf instead of his adopted son and ends up making a terrible mistake. Hopefully he can make it to Kakariko in time to rectify it.

Papa Rusl angst because it’s good for the soul.

[amiharana]

Lmao what’s the lore of csmp

me personally i think it would be based off canon botw events with slight changes here and there, and i kinda like the idea of them using something similar to the origins mod from the originsmp? that way it honors their original races in the game, e.g. revali's character would be avian or elytrian, daruk could be blazeborn or shulker maybe, etc

the CSMP server is created when the champions decide to collab after love or host and play minecraft together with the intention of surpassing the dsmp LMFAODKJFHD zelda starts the server and invites everyone and it takes daruk 30 minutes to figure out how to add the server ip to his game and log in LOL. at this time, revali and link are already bickering and have already killed each other twice without weapons and only their fists, urbosa is trying to mediate, mipha has wandered off collecting flowers, and zelda starts building a house that will eventually come to be known as "hyrule castle" >:]

after daruk is able to get in the game, they eventually all deviate from each other building their own houses in different parts of the map that they designate as their own lands, e.g. urbosa finds a desert terrain and calls it the "gerudo desert", mipha lives on the beach near a vast ocean in the "zora's domain", daruk finds a mountain with multiple lava pockets that he calls "mountain of death" because he fell into the lava pockets multiple times, and revali, being the overachiever he is, terraforms an entire lake and adds multiple rock spires because he thinks it looks sick and calls it "rito rock" at first. he eventually adds his own village and brings villagers to it and then it becomes "rito village". link makes a house but he rarely ever comes home because he's already underground finding stacks of diamonds or is in the nether raiding bastions lol

the ender dragon is regarded as the calamity ganon and by default the wither=dark beast ganon? HAHAHAHA and zelda actually is super into making lore for the server (because she plays DND i just know it in her nerdy little heart), and she keeps going on and on about how the ender dragon has plagued the "land of hyrule" for thousands and thousands of years and the descendents of the builders (her and link) are destined to defeat it, with the rest of the champions assisting in the battle. revali does not like this part of the lore because he wants to play a bigger part, but he doesn't wanna beef with zelda because she's a huge streamer so he fights with link instead. revali is constantly challenging link to 1v1s at his rock spire but always taunts him like You don't even have a base to call your own! link usually ignores him though LOL

i'm not completely sure how to integrate the divine beasts into the csmp lore, but (and this is gonna be hashtag cursed if you know what i'm talking about) in the dsmp they had an era called the "pet wars" where everyone was killing each other's pets in the server for whatever reason? i swear to god i wasn't that much of a dsmp watcher i only cared about like. two people's lore max. anyways. i think the champions would tame pets and name them after their respective divine beasts. revali gets a parrot that he names medoh, mipha finds an axolotl that she names ruta, urbosa gets a camel named naboris, and link helps daruk get a fucking strider from the nether to name rudania 😭 zelda gets an allay she names terrako and link gets a wolf he names twilight :] the pets would be called the "divine beasts" and they are cherished very deeply by each champion, and they often threaten to kidnap each other's pets when they're mad at each other especially revali and link. it gets to the point where link and revali end up hitting each other's pets, and to prevent warring, zelda finds some plugin or mod to disable pet deaths, or at least pet resurrection (idk if this exists. it should tho)

each champion's land grows to be larger, they have more villages/villagers (especially zelda like come on castle town!), and the server of hyrule starts to really fill in! link's first home eventually gets blown up by a creeper and he can't be bothered to rebuild it because he doesn't really care about having a base. revali starts bickering with him being like What if you die? Where are you going to respawn? Where will you keep your valuables? (link is the person with the least amount of deaths surprisingly and it's because he keeps all his shit with him and his spawnpoint is at world spawn lol) so link is just like Ok if you're so keen on me having a base, then how about you let me borrow yours? and revali is appalled at the suggestion and they argue a little more until revali eventually gives in and lets link stay at rito village under certain conditions. (all of this is being streamed btw, most of the time so people are absolutely getting converted to revalinkism watching this). link ends up being a great asset for rito village, because he protects the villagers and helps level them up because he trades with them all the time, and absolutely annihilates at pillager raids. he also. makes huge automated farms and storage systems for him and revali, and revali is... impressed. link didn't even ask if he wanted that, he just made it and automatically shared the resources between him and revali like . wow. revalink are gonna get married in minecraft you guys it's part of the lore

i can't think of anymore CSMP other champion shenanigans off of the top of my head rn bc im sleepy now LOL but like. besides revalink lore, i definitely want to see urbosa & daruk shenanigans, zelpha lore, daruk and mipha lore, urbosa and mipha lore, and just all the shenanigans between all of the champions. now imagine champion descendent shenanigans. oh god it would be so chaotic. imagine teba constantly experiencing revali and link bickering and flirting and bantering and just being like 😐🏳️‍🌈❌

if i think of more ideas, i'll post them! i'm just brainempty from work but this au seriously has so much potential i wanna write it now 😭

[regretting-choices]

TOTK Spoilers Ahead!

When Nintendo said that Totk was going to be dark, I wasn’t sure what that meant at first. Would we see beloved characters die? Would there be more destruction? I had no idea what to expect.

Now having played it (I haven’t finished the game yet, but I’m relatively far in), I understand what they meant - and I think it’s brilliant.

Early on in the game, we discover that there’s some weird phenomena happening in the major regions of Hyrule. Link sets out to these regions to investigate, and it’s here that I think the dark tone of the game really starts to present itself.

Because while the opening cutscenes are dark, I don’t think they set the tone for the game. What I think this game does exceptionally well, is that it makes the danger feel real.  

In BotW, when you travelled to the major regions, you would get a cutscene of the divine beast kinda wandering around, but that was pretty much it. The towns themselves would feel normal, unaffected by the danger the divine beasts are supposed to present.

The villagers in these towns would say that they were in danger, but it never really felt like it because you couldn’t see the affects of the divine beast’s presence. The danger didn’t feel urgent, didn’t feel like a real genuine threat.

Tears of the kingdom improves on this in every way. While you travel to the various regions, you can immediately tell that something is wrong. The travelers and people of Hyrule will hint at each event - say that things seem off. And when you get to the villages and towns, it is so clear that this danger, threat, etc. is real and immediate. Gerudo town is perhaps the most dramatic demonstration of this with haunting abandoned streets, Gibdos wandering and crawling around like zombies, and with the Gerudo forced to hide underground for safety. In Rito village, all the adults have fled and the children are holding down the fort while their parents try to find supplies to keep them alive. The village is covered in snow, the bridge leading the way is broke, and it feels way too quiet in what is usually a bright and lively village. 

It’s eerie in a way that is hard to explain. We see the affects of each particular danger and how hopeless the people feel. 

Another example is the Gerudo Canyon stable. Because the road to the desert is so treacherous, the stable is forced to close its doors. A place that is usually busy and full of travelers being empty is deeply saddening. TotK shows the ripple affects of Ganon’s interference, and how the individual is affected vs how the kingdom as a whole is affected. It’s brilliant.

And I think that is exactly what makes this game so dark. We actually see what could become of these places if Link isn’t there to help save them, if he fails to destroy Ganon. We see what happens when things feel hopeless, when the threat is just too strong.

Sure the depths are scary and intimidating, sure the gloom hands are nightmare fuel, but seeing villages reduced to nothing, once proud people forced into hiding or sick or not themselves? It’s terrifying in a completely different way, and I love it.

[redloftwingfeathers]

I feel like talking about the shit Zelda not only had to put up with but also what she subconsciously summoned herself and you're going to sit and listen and maybe cry with me okay? Okay.

While I don't think that was very cash-money of 'Hylia' to make Zelda wait until she's reached true, unrelenting despair to finally find her light, it made me wonder how everything came into play that made her journey so painstakingly hard, and not just Hylia pulling fast ones from the clouds. (Trust me I wanted to blame the goddess so bad after that moving performance at the spring of power but wait!! there's more!)

Things I'm looking at are specifically Zelda's anxieties of wanting to be a scholar but having to throw herself to the dogs of religion to keep Rhoam happy, the HEAVY depression she carries with not just from the loss of her mother but also just constantly being berated by her father and feeling like she's not good enough for Hylia, the jealousy and anger she harbors towards Link in their beginnings and how it effects her growth.

All of these are things (coming from someone who is very mentally ill) are ingredients that distract Zelda from her goals, intentional or not.

Zelda has a classic case of "I wanna do This Thing (studying, traveling) but I have to do That Thing (religion, strict orders) instead and now the fun is sucked out of it and my mind is buzzing and now I don't know what to do girl (hylia) HELP"

What's even worse is despite her hand-picked maturity, she KNOWS what is right and what she needs to do (her level of self awareness is impeccable sometimes) but she is still just a child in the end, wanting to live her life without dictation, which causes frustration and anger and can lead to self-doubts.

Starting with the loss of her mother, Rhoam claims that Zelda did not cry at all during the ceremony, and that it proved to him he could still be a strong king with how unwavering his daughter was. And although that's shown as an "awe inspiring" moment, it shows Rhoam does not understand how the processing of grief registers differently amongst people, especially children. She may have not showed it when she was, what, 6? (Not every normal 6 year old understands the fragility of mortality) but you can definitely see it affects her later on as Zelda grows older. It may not be entirely visible at first, but the way they portray it in HWAoC (I know its not entirely canon but bare with me on this) she longs for her mother's advice and comfort when her pleas and ideas fall deaf on the king's ears. Her mother seemed to be a very wise and compassionate queen, where Rhoam is a wise and a very bite-the-bullet king.

When stakes are high he trusts what he thinks needs to be done, and he enforces Zelda to finish her training Because she is part of his plan to push back the calamity. He knows protocol, and there's no room for creative thinking when the land of Hyrule is in danger. (Disclaimer: I hate Rhoam but I can also try to see what Nintendo was doing. He's not intentionally mean, he's an assertive dad that wants to see his daughter succeed (and also hella depressed) but he's really fucking bad at it and comes off as a dickhead. He is the embodiment of a boomer that does things the old fashioned way to get things done).

But all of this pressure he is putting on her, taking away things that make her happy so they don't distract her from her duty, shooting down her ideas because he wouldn't know how to even approach it from his standpoint, it really does a number on Zelda and really births her insecurities.

No matter how hard she prays and dedicates herself to Hylia, it doesn't work. Her mind is distracted, filled with fear and very little hope that the magic isn't Working. What even kicks me in the jaw more is that she's putting all of her effort into these prayers, and it's not even her wish she's making. It's Rhoam's wish. Her Ancestral Family's wish. That's why it hasn't sparked. She's praying on the behalf of her father and ancestors and not herself because she firmly believes there's other ways to settle the score. Zelda knows the importance of her role but its just not clicking when someone else is forcing you to do it. It just doesn't work like that.

Moving onto her liaison with Link, she is, well, in the beginning very irritated with him. Even a little bit after being chosen by Fi. But I don't think she MEANS to be angry at Link, he didn't do anything wrong in all honesty. She shouldn't take out her anger on him, but she's jealous, and he exists...so like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When Link is suddenly chosen by the sword at a drop of a hat?? Yeah she's relieved, but there's also undertones of resentment. All of her Champions are here at the ready and she's still trying to figure out what shoe goes on first. She is the goddamn Princess of Hyrule, one who carries the blood of Hylia in her veins, and this random tiny knight who, mind you, fought tooth and nail to be her escort ends up finding his role before her? She is riding the struggle mule up Mount Lanayru (and I don't really blame her). And when she's exploring the shrines?? She makes it very clear to him she can work independently and does not need an escort, which although understood (freedom is a peace everyone strives for) she is careless regardless of her careful planning and efforts. She's a Princess, wandering Hyrule unarmed (and without her powers) with a horse as her only mode of transportation. You won't see yourself as a target even if they're pinned on your back, and with her determination to utilize these mysterious shrines as more Sheikah tech is being discovered is making her blind in remembering where she's placed in social status. It's dangerous, and I'm glad Link is there to see what she fails to see.

That's another thing too. As they progress and strengthen their friendship, Zelda sees Link as a mirror to question what her role really means. She uses him as guidance to help understand her situation, asking him "If you were told your whole life This is what you're meant to do, to take up your family's legacy...but one day realize this isn't what you want, would you still take the path you've been told to take?" In this case I think it's safe to say this is what Link knew he wanted. He loves being an aid to those in need, and becoming a knight despite following his father's path, this felt like his true calling. The spirit of the hero is VERY strong in his soul, and when he sees someone in need of help [Zelda] he's going to aid them whether they want it or not.

But Zelda still feels so lost, she feels so disconnected from her ancestors, as the previous daughters in the royal families were Given their powers at birth and meant to be awakened when the time has come. They were all given the gift of premonition, to be a medium for Hylia and a messenger of the gods, and overall able to keep Ganon away from the world no matter how many times he crawls back from the depths of hell. Being told your whole life you're meant to be like your ancestors, but not being able to fulfill any of those roles? It makes the past seem like one giant fairy tale when in you're in BotW Zelda's shoes.

No voices, no premonitions, no secret awakenings...Nothing.

At this moment, I finally understood why Urbosa said to Revali about Link. She said he is a constant reminder of Zelda's own failures. Link found his calling by following his instinct. Zelda has yet to figure out what she really wants, and is clouded by judgements not only from her father and people, but from herself too. With every passing day she is undergoing a meltdown, questioning if she is even meant to be apart of this whole plan anymore, probably something among the lines of "Was it meant to be someone else? I'm the only daughter, and yet I can't even do my one job." She lost everyone and everything, she's frightened, it feels like she's lost her faith in the gods, or even dare say, the gods lost faith in her.

But through absolute despair when Link just about gives his life for her protection, that's when it all clicked. She found her power and strength through Link, who was the one that, all this time, taught her about what she needed to do to awaken her powers without even directly telling her. Every conversation she had with him, she saw herself in Link. She saw all the effort he gave into becoming a royal knight, the unwavering determination in his eyes with every Lynel he slew, a never ending supply of optimism and hope no matter how high the stakes were. And yet he was also Free. He followed his path blindly, not even knowing where he'd end up, as long as he knew he was

able to protect those in need. And she wanted that.

He was her mirror, and Zelda managed to awaken herself when that mirror cracked.

Living the burden of being part of a prophecy and saying you're ready for anything, is very reckless. Understanding the heaviness that comes with sacrifice is not truly understood until it starts happening to you.

Zelda found her wish, her independence through Link. Her mind is finally clear and she understands what her role means in all of this.

She is meant to protect, to save, to understand more than just personal loss.

Zelda couldn't stand by idly anymore after everyone told her to do something else and let others handle the job. That was the last straw when Link stood in front of her, shield weak but at the ready when that guardian approached. She saw the desperation and said NO, which finally broke her seal. She chose to sacrifice herself, igniting her powers just as Hylia did for her people. She chose to save her last, literally dying hope, because Ganon cannot be fought alone.

He was the connection, the literal link, she needed to awaken her powers. And I just find that so fucking great.

Anyways thanks for coming to my TED talk I've been typing this for like 4 hours now

[sword-dad-fukuzawa]

a love letter to genshin impact (yes, really)

I tend to express my feelings on Genshin as indescribable rage and frustration but...I wouldn't play this game if I didn't love it at least a little bit.

I usually play Genshin with the sound off and with my main team: Beidou, Jean, Bennett, and Noelle. And I'm pretty focused on completing quests and getting the leveling materials for all the various characters I have to raise, considering I've long been trapped in the endless grind of late-game AR. But I'd just fought Stormterror. I was out of resin. So I figured I'd do requests.

Today, I had a request from Sara the bard to get her 10 sweet flowers. Normally, that wouldn't be a problem--except I'd just completed the "cook 20 dishes" BP quest by turning all of mine into Sweet Madames.

Looking for sweet flowers it was then.

Sweet flowers are everywhere. But they're also surprisingly difficult to find. With regional specialties like, say, Cecelias, you've got a pretty strict area in which they can be found and all you need to do is thoroughly search one or two locales. Or they have specific requirements that mean you spend a lot of time teleporting all over the map, like Qingxin.

But sweet flowers...they're just everywhere. The only real way to farm them is to meander around the world.

So that's what I did. I swapped out my main team for my bench team: Xiao, Xinyan, Tartaglia, and Diona. And then I went wandering around Mondstadt, looking for sweet flowers. For once, I had the sound on, and I just...ran around the map, following the dirt roads for the most part and avoiding combat.

It was while jogging around near Springvale that I remembered why I loved this game so much in the first place.

Before I got in deep with the lore, before I picked favorites among the characters, it was the open world that did it for me. Sure, the reason I started playing was seeing a picture of Xiao from the beta and being curious about Ono Kensho's character, but I continued to play because the open world is so goddamn beautiful.

And, yeah, sure, it's a ripoff of Breath of the Wild. Someone I know once called it "Genshin Impact: Breath of the Waifu" and really, he isn't wrong. I just don't think that diminishes how obscenely pretty the game is.

There's really nothing that beats traveling from Stone's Gate into Liyue and seeing the vast marshes and plains surrounding the Wangshu Inn, or climbing to the top of Stormterror's tower and looking out onto the cliffs and grasslands below. I'm on mobile, so the graphics quality isn't perfect, but it's still gorgeous.

And the sound. I usually don't play with the sound, right? But it was with the sound on, only half-paying attention, that I remembered that the game even sounds pretty. Someone put a whole lot of work into the foley for the sfx--how footsteps sound different in puddles or in grass, how there's a specific effect if your character runs through a bush, and how every character's outfit jangles slightly differently. There is birdsong, even, convincing birdsong. Yu-Peng Chen has been in the industry for well over a decade and his music is beautiful, too.

Genshin Impact may be a predatory gatcha game designed to make you spend money on increasingly overdesigned anime characters, but you cannot convince me that it wasn't made, at least a little, as a labor of love.

And I think it really hit me, how close this game is to my heart, when I was running back into Mondstadt to give Sara her sweet flowers. Most of the time, I just teleport in, like most people probably do. But I'd spent my time walking places like I had in the early game, before I'd unlocked all the waypoints, so I decided I'd go in from the waypoint on the shore.

Jogging over the bridge and seeing Cider Lake, then running through the gates and hearing the guards say something about Mondstadt as I passed them?

It felt oddly like coming home.

I'm resisting the urge to talk about how ridiculous this feels to me, how absurd it is to have such an emotional attachment to a video game. A free video game, and one that gets a lot of flack for being a BoTW ripoff, fairly easy to play, and inherently fanservice-y.

But I don't think it's that absurd to be so attached to a game I've poured hours of my life into. And I think there's value in a game that can make people do that, spend hours and hours in a lovingly made escapist fantasy.

It's not a perfect game. Genshin is weakest when it becomes too much like real life--when commissions feel like chores, when there's an endless to-do list of things to get done before the week ends. The wishing system becomes a chore too, because you have to desperately find chests and complete quests not because the exploration is fun, but because you need primos and the banner is ending soon dammit, Kazuha why won't you come home--

But even with its technical flaws and the corporate nature of a gatcha system, Genshin is still a damn good game. And I love it for that.

[lesserfandomappreciation]

Could you do Link, Sidon, Revali, and Bazz with a gn!s/o who has a general fear of men? Like, their s/o trusts the boys with their whole hearts but they grew up in a bad environment n learned from an early age that you don’t make eye contact with, speak unless spoken too, etc. with men because they can get mean. Maybe the s/o has worked to stop it but it it still comes out when s/o is stressed, someone gets angry or with strangers, old habits die hard n all. Thank you 💙

No worries dearie! Glad to do this request. This is something I struggle with sometimes too! I do hope I wrote this in a good way.

S/o fearful of men (BOTW)

Warning: may be triggering for some, does discuss fear of men, may be uncomfortable for some readers.

Link

Link really doesn’t pick up on this at all at the start. People tend to act oddly around him - a person wary of making eye contact when they’re upset is well within the realm of reasonable reactions. Until, that is, a stranger they meet on the road is upset. Link is watching this frustrated man vent his anger by loudly complaining about something, but his eyes run over to his s/o who is suddenly very frightened. 

Knight training actually is useful in this situation. Link steps between the man and s/o and makes it clear that this guy needs to calm down. The situation may be diffused, but it’s not until they’re both clear from the guy that Link gently probes into what the issue may be. 

Link is upset on their behalf. What they went through isn’t fair to them at all - they’re the ones who have to live with the engrained fear in them, not those responsible for the pain who they went through. But anger in this moment isn’t going to help. Now that he knows that angry men and men in general frighten them, Link reflects on himself. What can he do to make he never frightens them?

If he sees the warning signs of fear getting to them, Link steps in, putting a block between them and the stranger scaring them. A word from them, and he will straight up tell the other person to leave.

Body-guard experience becomes relevant once more! As does communication - he wants to make sure he doesn’t trigger their fears either. 

Sidon

Sidon noticed early on that something’s up, back when they were still friends and not in a relationship. Big, imposing, loud - sweet as he is, men like Sidon can unknowingly trigger others when they use wide motions or get very loud suddenly, without warning. Quietly he makes mental notes of this and adjusts his behavior based off what he sees they are comfortable with as he tries to figure out how to ask them about this. He may even go to his father, seeking personal advice on the matter. 

Self-assured by Dorephan’s words Sidon asks to talk to S/o privately. He takes them to a quiet place far from prying eyes and ears and asks candidly about this. Any nerves they have about telling him are gently quelled when he offers his hands, placing them beneath theirs should they want a grounding presence and gazing at them warmly. 

“Tell me your truth - you have my word that I will listen free of judgement.”

The prince’s heart breaks for them. Fear is a terrible feeling to wander in and they are forced into it by others unknowingly reminding them are crueler times and crueler lessons. But. Pity is not what s/o needs or wants. What they need is support. Communication goes a long way friends! 

Sidon keeps what they told him in mind and stays aware of not triggering any fears with any of his actions, though will be times he slips up at the start. He keeps an observant eye on them - if they seem uncomfortable or look like they’re on the brink of a panic attack he is more than happy to take them to a secluded spot for them to be away from the trigger. 

He’s not perfect, there will be mistakes - but he will go above and beyond to do everything he can to help. 

Revali

Revali struggles to realize this is something they struggle with. He tends to be a little (very) self-obsessed. Them being unable to hold eye-contact or needing to exit a room when some guy gets too uncomfortably loud could be interpreted as a shy person disliking confrontation and removing themselves from having to argue. That’s fine, that’s normal. 

It’s during a disagreement with them that Revali notes they are reacting weirdly to him. Distress is plain as day on their face. Hands are squeezed tightly, grasping at what they can to comfort themselves desperately. Something is wrong. The champion recognizes that they need space from him and gives them that, flying off to a friend of his that a woman and asking to keep an eye on s/o while he flies to vent frustrations. 

What better time to reflect than with flying? A flap of the wings brings up a different memory, reframing it with what he had seen just then. He doesn’t know what’s at the origin of this reaction - frankly he’s worried about the rage that might grip his mind if he let’s his mind wonder about possible causes. Instead Revali puts everything he’s reframed all together. And makes a plan. 

After a good chunk of time, Revali stops by s/o’s place and gently asks if they can talk. When they say they are okay to talk, Revali lays out his thoughts. “Sorry. For being a jerk and not seeing things sooner. You don’t have to tell me why me shouting or some jerk scares you - not unless you want to. But what do I have to do to make sure I never scare you again?”

It’s a lot of work ahead. Work he’s willing to do because his s/o and their safety is all he cares about. 

Bazz

Head of the Knights it is central to Bazz’s duties to observe and react accordingly. S/o got nervous after seeing two of the knights loudly fights and get angry; Bazz makes it a point to ensure they are away from the sparring area whenever they stop by. When their hand slips into his when a traveling merchant shouts insults at a guard, Bazz does not question it. When another shouts in front of them, S/o notices the head of knights standing by them, his hand next to them free and ready to hold if they need it. 

He doesn’t question why they may need this. Well, he does in moments of reflection and wondering but never does he bring it up. It’s clear to him that this is a point of fear for them. Though it hurts his heart to imagine what caused these reactions Bazz knows any anger at them won’t help his s/o. 

S/o tells him about it. Later, when their bond is truly close and courtship is present. He holds their hand throughout if they let him, their whole body if they are willing, or sits by them silently listening as they get through the difficult explanation. When they fall silent is when he speaks. “Thank you for telling me. What can I do to support you?”

Bazz remembers what they tell him. He does what he can to stand by them and help them through their most fearful days. He reminds them time and time again, no matter the incident, no matter the trigger, that they are loved and that they will always have him by their side. 

[certainempatheticturkeymuffin]

BOTW Challenge Ideas

So, I made a giant list of botw challenges. They’re under the cut, because trust me, it’s looong.

I might add more, I might not. Didn’t do it on a google doc because google docs look horrible on mobile. Please note that challenge runs are for fun and you don’t need to adhere to these exactly, if you have an idea, or like one of these, but want to tweak it slightly, it’s your game, you should have fun with it. I’m not gonna hunt you down or anything. Anyway, I recommend you give it a look over anyway because I added in-universe justifications for Link acting this way and some of them are funny.

The more indents they have, the more difficult I think they are. Then again, I haven’t attempted all of them, so I don’t really know. Italics are the “rules”, Bold is the name, and normal is the in-universe justification. Idk if Tumblr actually did justice to my formatting, so you may have to ignore this entirely.

This took several hours to make, and several more to put into tumblr, because tumblr hates Quotev’s formatting.

Edit: Formatting is fine, but only for the desktop version :(

Limited Teleportation: Purah dared Link to do it, not thinking that he’d take her seriously. You pick 5 shrines, and those are the only ones you can use to fast travel.

No Teleportation: Fast travel makes Link very queasy, so he’s not going to use it. No fast travel.

Only Foot Travel: Link’s allergic to horses, and fast travel makes him want to throw up, so he’ll stick to the tried and true method of walking and running. No horse, fast travel, or bomb launches.

Random Limited Teleportation: Purah dared him to do it. She has the names of each of the shrines and randomized them, she didn’t think he’d actually do it. Input all the Shrines into a randomizer, the top five are the only ones you can use to fast travel to.

Horse Only: Link loves horses very much. They don’t make him want to throw up, and they’re faster than walking. Sure it may be a hassle to drag them up mountains, but he always has a friend, so it’s fine. No fast travel, get a horse as soon as you can, you must have a horse beside you at all times (excluding the desert or other areas where your horse is literally blocked from entry)

My Best Friend!: Link thinks it’s cruel to have a lot of horses and pay very little attention to them, so he decides to keep one horse so they can be best buddies! You get one horse and it needs to be by your side until you defeat Ganon (once again, excluding the desert), try to keep it alive, you only get one horse and I hear the trip to Malanya will take quite a while without your best friend. (Bonus points if you name the horse Epona) If your horse dies, you must go to Malanya IMMEDIATELY and abandon whatever you were doing. No fast travel! (Teleporting horse is yours to decide though.)

Farmboy: Link and his horse have befriended a wolf! Link decides to officially name it Wolfie, and they’re a trio of best friends! The above, except add the Wolf Link Amiibo to it. Same rules apply, keep them with you at all times unless they are forbidden from entry.

I Do What I Want Old Man!: Link is honestly just doing it to spite the old man for leading him on for so long. The Plateau isn’t even that tall, he can climb down! It was only the fog that made it look scary! No paraglider. That's it. Have fun.

Limited Upgrades: Turns out, the Great Fairies have limited magic, even with him supplying the materials. That’s fine though, He doesn’t want them to waste their magic on him when they need it for themselves. You can only upgrade 3 outfits (9 articles of clothing) though you can upgrade them to their maximum.

Restricted Upgrades: Turns out, he can’t find the last two fairies. He feels bad, but it’s fine, he’ll just restrict his upgrades to repay them. It’s not like they’ll ever find out... You can only upgrade 5 articles of clothing, and only half-way.

No Upgrades: What are Fairy Fountains? Link doesn’t know! He’s too busy looking for memories to chase rumors. Fairy Fountains are not to be used for upgrading clothing.

Limited Clothing: Link thinks the clothes are cool, but he doesn't want to waste money on them when he has a perfectly good doublet and perfectly fine pants. He'll have a backup pair, but anything more is just excessive. You get 2 Armor sets and that's it, you can mix and match, but you can only have 2 pieces of headgear, 2 shirts, and 2 pants.

Small Wardrobe: Several travelers have given him the advice to "pack light" and "only bring as many clothes as you need" but a girl also said that "mixing and matching clothes is the worst thing ever" so he'll play it safe and pack lightly but avoid mixing two different outfits together. They’ve been in this world longer than him, so surely they’re right? You get two clothing sets, no mixing and matching

It's My Favorite Outfit: Several travelers have said to pack lightly, and some even said that it was only worth it to bring the pair of clothes that you wear. Smell apparently doesn't matter if you're a wanderer, which is good to know. You only get one clothing set, and if you plan on getting Vah Naboris, you know which one it'll be.

Birthday Suit: Link doesn't like clothes, they chafe and they get in the way. Underwear are the minimum he needs to be decent apparently, so he can't completely get rid of clothes. Someday though, he'll do it anyway. No clothes. Period. I don't recommend combining this with No Meals.

Restricted Clothing: Link figures that "packing light" would mean that he only has one set of clothes. If he plays it smart, one set is all that he'll need anyway. You only get one headpiece, one shirt, and one pair of pants. Mixing and Matching is allowed

I don't like pants: If he's being honest, Link hates pants. He likes the breeze on his legs and the grass, or rocks or sand or snow, beneath his feet. Pants also restrict his movement more than a loose shirt does. He's far more flexible without pants. You can only wear shirts.

This is my favorite shirt: Link doesn't like pants. He also got attached to one specific shirt. He loves it and he's not changing. Sure, he'll take it off to wash it, but he won't put a different shirt on or anything. You can only wear one shirt. Choose wisely

Aren't I beautiful?: Link doesn't like clothes, but headpieces are fine. A lot of them look really interesting too! People keep saying they'll look better with clothes, but his comfort is more important than looking good to other people. He looks good to himself, and that's all he needs. Only headpieces are allowed.

Safety First: Link doesn't like clothes. They're a waste of time and they feel weird. He doesn't really like headpieces either, well, except for one specific piece. Only one headpiece is allowed. (The name is a reference to Hard Hats.)

Shirtless Chad: Link can admit that he likes the attention when he goes shirtless. He isn't particularly muscular, but he's made more than one person blush, and he counts that as a win. If it means he's less restricted when using his bow or a weapon, well that's just a plus. Become that one buff guy that never wears a shirt. Pants only.

I don't smell!: Link doesn't like shirts, and he doesn't like anything on his head that might pull on his hair or block his vision. Pants were a bit of a compromise, until he realized how painful it was to step on a rock barefooted. Still, only one pair of pants is actually comfortable for him, and he rarely takes them off. One pair of pants, choose wisely.

No Shops: Link...doesn’t like asking for things. It makes him feel stupid or greedy, so when he found out that there was a whole profession where people gave things to you if you asked, he didn’t want anything to do with it. Even if it was technically a trade, it made him feel bad. You're not allowed to purchase anything from any shops or wandering merchants.

No Gifts: The king said not to trust strangers too much, and after his first encounter with the Yiga, he understood why. He doesn’t know if they’d try to poison him or use money to lure him into a false sense of security, but he isn’t going to trust it. He’ll be polite, and then immediately throw it away once their back is turned. He isn’t going to let his guard down. If an NPC gives you something, you ain't allowed to keep it or use it. If that thing is rupees, spend them on bugs and set the bugs free.

No Selling: Link didn’t know you could sell things to the shop owners, and even if he did, he’d feel greedy and stupid for trying to sell a shopkeeper bugs and plants, so he’d probably avoid it anyway. You're not allowed to sell anything to get money, if you want money, win it from a mini game.

Wiser the Miser: Link doesn't like spending rupees, so he doesn't. If he can steal or get something for free, he will. Someone gives him rupees? Their loss. Who needs to buy things when there's a world full of resources? Don’t buy anything. If you want exceptions, like getting into Gerudo Town, it’s your call.

No Selling or Shops: Link doesn’t like stores. They make him uneasy. Enclosed spaces where people ask for your stuff? No thanks. You’re not allowed to buy from shops or merchants, and you’re not allowed to sell anything either.

No Selling, Shops, or Gifts: Link doesn’t trust anything that people give him. Maybe it’s paranoia, but it’s entirely justified. Shops are the same, people asking for his stuff when he has more important things to do than barter. Shops are honestly a waste of time when he can get everything for free, except maybe goat butter. If an NPC gives you something, you must drop it, or, in the case of a food item, use it at full hearts/full stamina and if it has an additional effect you will stand in the middle of an inn and wait for the effect to wear off. You’re also not allowed to sell or buy at shops or from merchants.

No Chef Here: Link can make a good elixir, but he can’t cook and he’s not even going to attempt it. He’ll make do with raw apples and meat and whatever else he can find. He’ll be fine. Elixirs are fine, apples and stuff are fine, cooked food is not.

What's a Cooking Pot?: Link doesn’t know what the giant bowl thing is, so he stays away from it. If people give him stuff to eat or drink, he tends to throw it away, because he’s smart enough not to risk being poisoned. If it requires you to use a cooking pot, you ain't allowed to ingest it. This includes gifts from NPCs because we all know not to take candy from nice strangers

Don't Eat Raw Food!: The king warned Link against eating raw food, so he isn’t taking any chances. If you want to eat something, you need to cook it first.

No Meals: Link doesn't understand why people waste time eating. Nor does he understand the whole hunger thing. Maybe it's a Shrine of Resurrection thing? Essentially, you aren't allowed to eat or drink anything, including elixirs.

I Can't Cook: Link thinks his cooking is pretty good. Sure, he thinks it's weird that people eat Moblin guts and wood, but who is he to judge, he doesn't really know anything, and he hasn't died yet, so it's fine! No elixirs or proper food, only Dubious food and Rock-hard food.

Insomniac: Link wants to sleep, but he can't, not when there're so many things he needs to do. He can sleep after he saves Hyrule. No beds, including the one in your own house.

No meals or inns: Link doesn't need to eat, and it's unsafe to sleep in a room full of strangers. Mipha has his back, and Hylia does too, if he rests, he'll do so where there aren't any strangers or wild animals to stab him in the back. You can only heal via Mipha's Grace, Heart Containers, or buying your own home.

No Meals or Beds: Sleeping wastes time, and he doesn't need to eat. He needs to save Hyrule, and he can relax when that's done. You can only heal via Mipha's Grace and Heart Containers.

No Meals, Beds, or Heart Containers: Link uses all of his Spirit Orbs for Stamina, because anything that makes him faster will also help him save Hyrule faster. He does wonder why Purah freaked out and tried to force him to sleep when he admitted that he hadn't slept since he woke up, or eaten for that matter. Eh, maybe Zelda will know, and the only way he can ask her is if he saves her. Only Mipha's Grace and three hearts, have fun!

Ew: Link refuses to drink elixirs when he knows exactly how they're made. It disgusts him, and he's not letting them anywhere near his mouth. No elixirs/tonics.

Normal Hylian: Link isn't some sort of god, he can't just freeze time in the middle of battle to heal or change his clothes or grab a new weapon. He can only heal or change after a battle and if he breaks his weapon, he can take cover and switch out or he can just use bombs. Like a normal person. No changing clothes or healing during battle, no flurry rushes or bullet time. If you break a weapon, take cover and get a new one, or use bombs.

Actual Normal Hylian: Aside from not being a god, Link also needs to eat and sleep. Sure he can go without for a day or two, but eventually he'll just crash. And whether it's five raw apples or a five course meal, he needs something to eat. He also needs to stay hydrated, but that's what rivers are for. Try to make him sleep in a bed once every three days at least, and make him eat one meal a day (it doesn't have to be cooked, but it is generally preferred). Also, let him go for a swim every once in a while to stay hydrated, because I doubt he's carrying around any water. (This one adds on to the one before it, though not combining them is totally your call!)

Carnivore: Link got messed up in the Shrine of Resurrection, and now he can't digest plants. You can eat it raw or cook it, but you can only eat meat. Inclusion of Elixirs is up to you

Herbivore: Link gets queasy when he has to kill innocent animals, so he's doing fine just eating plants. He refuses to drink Elixirs too, knowing what they're made of. No meat or elixirs.

Liquid-Only Diet: The Shrine of Resurrection messed up and now Link can't ingest solid food, he also happens to be lactose intolerant, so no milk for him. Elixirs only.

No Map: Link doesn't want to waste time climbing the towers, he'll figure it out. Don't get the towers (except the Great Plateau), you have to use your surroundings, get a feel for the land. Use of Minimap, Divine Beast Maps, and Teleportation is Allowed (No Hyrule Castle Map though)

No Map PRO: Link doesn't want to waste time climbing the towers and realistically, he doesn't have a HUD in the corner of his vision telling him where North is. No Map+Pro mode, so have fun with that. You'll be very reliant on Death Mountain and Hyrule Castle. Divine Beast Maps are still allowed

I'm Lost: Link promptly forgot about the fast travel function and he really doesn't want to climb the towers. You can get the shrines, which are recommended for the spirit orbs, but you aren't allowed to teleport and you must be on Pro Mode. Divine Beast Maps are allowed. You can get the towers if you want to waste time, but you won't be looking at the map, so it's not recommended

The Legend of Zelda: Link has no idea where he's going, but he figures he'll be able to figure it out the more time he spends awake. He feels like he's forgotten something though... We're going back to the NES days! No teleportation, no horses, no bomb launches, and absolutely no map! Have fun getting lost just like the good old days where tutorials didn't exist and maps were reserved for dungeons. And, like dungeons, Divine Beasts do have maps and you can in fact use them.

No Retreat!: Link isn't a coward and he's stubborn. He isn't running from a fight even when he probably should. If you hear the battle music, you can't run away.

No Rest for Heroes!: Link doesn't need to sleep and he doesn't really care that it's dangerous at night. He'll beat whatever stupid monster picked a fight in the first place. You can't sleep through the night to avoid monsters, and you must stay and fight if you hear the music. You have bombs if you run out of weapons

I'm Not Failing Again: Link is guilty and angry. He is Hylia's hero, Protector of Hyrule, it's high time he did his job. If you happen to be near a monster, attack it. Monster camp? Destroy it. It doesn't matter if they don't see you. If you see them, you kill them. Simple as that. No intentionally avoiding monsters either. Best paired with No Map, but I'm not your minder.

FOR THE FALLEN!: Link is the Hero of Hyrule and he will do his job. Sure, he has a problem with rushing into battle, but really, what hero didn't? It's essentially the same as I'm not failing again, but you aren't allowed to do Stealth Takedowns, you see a monster, you run in and do melee combat, bows are allowed if you're close range and the battle music is playing.

Boss Hunter: Link doesn't like boss monsters. Taluses especially are literal death traps for travelers. He's sure he'll get a reward too, they're called Boss Monsters for a reason, right? Kill every boss monster in the game.

Lynel Hunter: Link knows they pose a threat to the people of Hyrule. At least you can run away from most boss monsters pretty easily. For the safety of Hyrule, he will kill every single lynel.

Limited Weapon Slots: Link never meets Hestu. No Koroks to expand your weapon or bow slots.

Spears Only: Link didn't feel comfortable using a sword because he felt like he didn't live up to who he used to be. But the claymores and other two handed weapons were bulky, and he was horrible with a bow. And then he found a spear, and he's never regretted grabbing it. The only weapons you can use are spears, no bombs either. Have fun getting a spear in the first place. (The Korok Limitation does not apply to the rest of these unless you want it to)

Elemental Spears Only: Link likes spears, but elemental spears are way better, in every way. He's never going back. Spears Only too easy? Well now you can only use spears that have an elemental effect.

One-handed Weapons Only: Link's muscles have atrophied from the time in the Shrine. He'll have to make do. What it says on the tin, only use one-handed weapons.

One-Handed Swords Only: Link would rather not use a stick, he's been trained with a sword so by Hylia he will use a god dang sword! One-handed swords only.

One-handed Elemental Swords Only: Link hates that he can't handle larger swords because these elemental ones are great. They just seem way harder to come by than the bigger ones. These disappear the further you get in the game, so have fun with that I suppose. Rationing is going to be your best friend.

One-Handed Elemental Weapons Only: Link loves elemental weapons, but he still hasn't built up enough strength to use the big ones, and he wasn't great with spears or the bow, but the Wizzrobe rods are fun too. One-handed too easy for you? Have fun with this. Options are the Wizzrobe wands and the small elemental blades, the further you progress, the less of the weak blades that'll pop up, and the stronger ones are two-handed weapons, so you'll be killing a lot of wizzrobes if you want to keep a good supply.

Rods Only: Link doesn't really like swords or bows, or really any other weapon. He couldn't really pinpoint why. Until he grabbed a wizzrobe's rod. Power that he didn't know he had coursed through him, and he decided that he wasn't using anything but rods from now on. Only use wizzrobe rods. If it's easier, use any weapon until you find your first wizzrobe, whatever works for you.

Boomerangs Only: Link didn't like getting in close, but he also sucked at archery. Then he found his first boomerang. His aim was good and it came back! It didn't break upon impact, it was perfect! Boomerangs only

Two-handed Weapons Only: Link feels inferior to his Before-Calamity Self whenever he wields a one-handed weapon. Because BC Link was trained with a sword, so there's no way Post Calamity Link can ever compare. To get rid of that feeling, Link only uses two handed weapons, weapons that he's pretty sure BC Link was never trained in. Use only two-handed weapons

Claymores Only: The king, upon Link's inquiry, said that he used a royal claymore. In an effort to remember him, and an irrational fear that he'll forget everything again, Link decides to wield a claymore. Even when he finds out the less than stellar parts of the King's personality, he's too used to the claymore to give it up. Claymores only.

Korok Leaves Only: Link doesn't like swords or traditional weapons, and the Wizzrobe's rods are a bit too...hostile? Yeah, hostile. But the Korok Leaf's magic is quieter and more serene. It also seems...familiar, but he can't pinpoint why. It's also pretty hard for him to break, so he's fine with using it to blow opponents away. Korok Leaf Only, have fun beating Ganon, though Dark Beast is impossible with only a Korok Leaf.

Bow Only: Link likes the bow. He likes it very much. Past Link was good with a sword, but Present Link is not Past Link, Past Link is never coming back and Present Link will grow to become his own person. What better way to distance himself from Past Link than to specialize in a weapon that knights rarely use? Bow only

Normal Arrows Only: Link does not like the sensation he gets from using elemental arrows, and really, they are much too expensive, he'll stick to his normal arrows. Bow only, with only normal arrows.

Elemental Arrows Only: Link finds them very effective, and very fun to mess around with. He kind of forgets that boring normal arrows exist. Bow only, only elemental arrows.

Bomb Arrows Only: Link likes explosions, and the ones he gets from bomb arrows are much more satisfying than the ones he gets from plain old bombs. Sure they're expensive, and sure the rain keeps them from exploding, but...really, after being killed and resurrected, he can afford to give into a few whims, right? Bow only, bomb arrows only

Ancient Weapons Only: Robbie said they were more effective, and Link'll be the judge of that. He'll have to scavenge a lot of dead Guardians, but it'll all be worth it for these supposedly more efficient weapons! Ancient Weapons only, go to Robbie's immediately after the Plateau, I don’t think you actually need the quest, until then, all weapons are allowed

Master Sword Only: Fi is calling out to him, and Link will get to her as quickly as possible. Get thirteen hearts without weapons or using bombs as weapons, then go straight to the Great Hyrule Forest to retrieve Fi. Fi is the only weapon you're allowed to use as a weapon. Other weapons can be used to cut down trees and such, but if they damage a living creature or a monster, then you must reload your previous save.

Trial of the Sword: Fi is weak, and Link hates seeing her like that, so he wants to help her as quickly as possible. It shouldn't be hard for a chosen hero, right? It’s essentially the above challenge, but you also do the Trial of the Sword immediately after getting Fi. Weapon rule is obviously exempt for the duration of the Trial.

Wooden Weapons Only: Link doesn't like the sound of clanging metal. He only uses wooden shields, bows, and weapons. He doesn't care if it makes Death Mountain difficult, his poor ears don't like the sound. Only use wooden weapons, shields, and bows, if it attracts lightning, it's not allowed. Korok leaves or other non-metal but still non-wood items are also banned.

Metal Weapons Only: Link doesn't like splinters, he'd rather be a lightning rod. He also doesn't really trust the durability of wooden weapons, so he'll avoid them like the plague and use only metal shields, weapons, and bows. Only metal weapons, shields, and bows are allowed, if it attracts lightning, it's good to go.

Nuzlocke: Turns out, Link forgets how to use weapons once he breaks them. It's an annoying little quirk that means Link can only use each weapon once. You break a stick? You can't use another stick for the rest of the game, same goes for all weapons, bows, and shields.

The Moon's Curse: Every Blood Moon, Link loses all of his weapons, shields, bows, food, elixirs, and items. He only keeps his clothes and the special items. Link thinks it's Ganon trying to stall his inevitable defeat. Every Blood Moon, clean out your inventory, your hands must be empty, whether or not you count clothing is up to you, and you can eat meals to get rid of them.

Tech Mage: Link....has forgotten how to use weapons. It's a bit unfortunate but the king told him to collect the runes for a reason right? And the Wizzrobes' rods just need to be waved around, no training needed, so he'll be fine! Runes and Rods only.

Techie: Link...doesn’t really know how to use weapons, which makes it hard to kill anything. But, he does know how to use the runes. He did just learn how to after all. He doesn’t...really need weapons...right? Runes only, no weapons, shields, or bows. Well, allowance of shields can be personal preference, since Guardians will probably be a nuisance until you get Daruk’s Protection, if you allow use of the DB Powers.

No Shields: Link finds them bulky and useless, he'll just go without. Simple as that, no shields.

Fragile: Link doesn't really find the need for heart containers when he's mostly running around. Besides, it's just more incentive to get better at fighting. No Extra Heart Containers. Divine Beast Heart Containers can either be kept or traded in for stamina at the Hateno statue.

Asthma: Link can deal with not being able to run for long periods of time. What he can't deal with is how fragile he is. If he hadn't had that fairy, the Moblin would've killed him in one hit! No, he needs to be way more durable than he is now. No Extra Stamina Wheels.

I Don’t Need A Goddess’s Help: Link looked at the statue once, and saw it as a waste of time to pray. He's failed once, he doesn't need a goddess's help to do what previous heroes did alone and on their first try. No praying to statues, so no extra Heart Containers or Stamina Wheels.

Zero Deaths: Link isn't immortal, Mipha's magic isn't as powerful, and fairies don't work on him after the Shrine of Resurrection, so Link has to be careful. He won't get a third chance if he dies again. Disable Mipha's Grace and don't collect fairies. If you die, it's over. Ganon wins.

Sorry, Your Gifts are Worthless: Link appreciates the thought behind the champions giving him their powers...but he can't actually use them. He's not a trained medium or anything, and he needs to communicate with them to make the powers work....soooo.... Don't use the divine beast powers.

I'll Be Quick: Link never got the memo that he was supposed to help the Divine Beasts, but, well, Zelda was alive and the champions aren't, and the only one actually causing any immediately dangerous issues was Vah Ruta, but the Zora will be fine, they're fish people. Defeat Ganon without the Divine Beasts.

Time for Fun: Link is bored, then he remembers all the mini-games around Hyrule. Get the best score on all the mini games.

Photogenic: Link likes taking pictures and getting information for things. It's a fun pass-time that also helps out Symin and Purah. Take a picture of everything, it doesn't matter if you fill your compendium, but you must take a picture if you see something new (obviously only starts once you get the camera rune)

Everything Breaks: Link finds breaking things fun, and if it keeps him sane, might as well indulge his urges. Make a list of all the breakable items in the game, and then break every single one. Maybe you'll defeat Ganon, maybe not. Vandalism is more important.

Economist: Link doesn't really know how to hunt, or which fruits are safe, so he collects things, sells them, and proceeds to buy things that he knows are safe. He buys all his clothing and food, weapons are perhaps the only things he can get for himself. He helps out NPCs too, on the off chance that they'll give him something. Once a city boy, always a city boy. If you pick it up in the wild, you can't use it unless it's a weapon. Sell everything you pick up, and instead buy all your food and clothing. Elixirs too. If you have a picture of a recipe from the stables, you can use those, but only those.

Eventide Challenge: Link is a bit of a completionist, but he also hates back-tracking, so, using the towers as a measure of his progress, he decides to do everything he can in one region before going to the next. You do all you can in one region, or as much as you feel like doing anyway, then you collect the next tower and get rid of all your food, weapons, shields, bows, meals, and clothes. You must make your way directly to the tower if you leave the region, collecting shrines or fighting monsters before collecting the tower is sort of cheating. (You can decide for yourself if previous regions are off limits or not. If they are, I recommend planning out which region would leave you in the best position for Ganon. If not, just have fun!)

Reverse Dungeon Order: Link expected the Divine Beasts to get harder as he progressed, but they got...way easier... Vah Naboris, Vah Ruta, Vah Rudania, Vah Medoh (people say Rudania is the easiest, and I can't even get past the puzzles, so...maybe Fireblight is easier, but Rudania kills me via my unintelligence and I did Vah Medoh in less than five minutes, just go for the hardest ones first and the easiest one last, since I guarantee someone found Vah Medoh to be challenging and Vah Naboris easy. This one is probably the most customizable.)

I'm Not A Hoarder!: Link doesn't like using his resources, because he might need them later and it's such a bother to backtrack and get more if he runs out. He collects things because he might need them later. And really, it's better safe than sorry. You see something, you pick it up. Don't sell anything, try to eat or use as little of it as possible, actively seek out more rupees via mini games.

I may have a problem: Link acknowledges that it isn't exactly normal to have so much of everything, and to immediately restock upon using some, but...he can't stop. Max out all your inventory space. 999 of everything. Max out your rupees while you're at it.

I'm Actually Not A Hoarder: Link doesn't see the value in wasting time picking up useless crap. He has bombs, and he doesn't need to eat, he'll be fine. Don't pick something up if you don't intend to use it immediately. Keep your inventory as sparse as possible. Only collect rupees if you intend to use them for something.

Speedrun: Link has a task he needs to get done, and he needs to do it quickly. Pick a speedrun category and do it. Don't compare to the world record, compare your time to your previous times and measure your progress that way. World record doesn't matter, only having fun does.

Where does this go again?: Link is currently in a pickle and has no idea where the blue flame is. He found one in Akkala and decided that it was the one Purah was talking about. He couldn't find it again when Robbie asked, but he did find the one in Hateno, so he used that one. Use the Hateno Blue Flame for the Akkala Lab, and the Akkala Blue Flame for the Hateno lab.

Impaired Senses: There has to be some consequences for resurrecting, and only losing his memories is a very light consequence. A blindfold is the most obvious one, though you can also turn off sound, which still has a little bit of impact, though it isn't as drastic.

Auto Saves Only: Link is subject to the whims of the goddesses. What it says on the tin, no manual saving for you!

Hunger Games: Link has the rules of the game outlined to him by a goddess. He can do nothing but submit, fearing her wrath. Pretend that towns and stables don't exist (avoid them like the plague), Master Mode, Only Foot Travel, the only time you enter a village is if you intend on completing the Divine Beasts and/or Memories for Impa. If you see an NPC don't interact, only wear clothing sets without set bonuses or special effects, if you see a Yiga, kill them, the Yiga are the only NPCs (aside from the Main Story NPCs) that you are allowed to interact with. Interacting with Koroks and Great Fairies is fine. Every blood moon, you choose one tab at random and completely empty it (special items tab doesn't count, Master Sword and Hylian Shield are exempt from this), and every time you collect a tower you can scan an amiibo, try to ration them.

Pacifist: Link doesn't like killing. Never has, never will, and he avoids fights like the plague. There's no need for excessive loss of life, he'll defeat Ganon and save the Champions, but that's it. Only kill the blights and Ganon and any other mandatory fights for the true ending (Like, I think Kohga is mandatory.)

I'll use this until it breaks!: Link doesn't see the need to stockpile weapons, not when almost anything can be used as one. He'll be fine. Essentially, you pick up the first weapon you see, you use only that weapon until it breaks, when it breaks you, again, pick up the first weapon you see, rinse and repeat. Master Sword is allowed, since Ganon’s going to suck without it.

100%: Link is going to do everything. He has no memories, and he's been dropped in this giant world. He's doing everything and nothing will stop him. You know exactly what this entails and I don't recommend it unless you're speedrunning, and even then, it's a bad idea.

Don't get hit: Link's stubborn, he doesn't like getting hurt, so he won't. Take no damage, even a quarter of a heart means you failed. Doesn't matter if it's a golden heart or not.

[tasteofshapes]

This is my first time back on tumblr in about...a month? and coming back to this (@drarryruinedme7​) and this (@triggerlil​) made me feel so full and loved. Thank you. ❤️  I had to step away for a while because I wasn’t in a very good place — I couldn’t write, or do anything creative, and my energy was incredibly low. It felt like I had gone mute and the world was too loud, too bright, too noisy, and I couldn’t quite keep up.

The only thing that brought me any sort of relief was Breath of the Wild, and I pretty much played that non-stop. Losing myself in Hyrule was an escape, and I found my way back to myself through it. I know that there’s a ton of articles out there on how BotW has helped people through depression, and yeah, it’s been my own personal therapy vehicle for the last few weeks. Why am I writing this? I’m not quite sure, except that that game means a lot to me, and I guess I’m trying to figure out how it’s helped. I’ve always been a Zelda fan, but I’ve gotta say that BotW is something special. Part of it is how Link is in this: he begins as a broken, failed hero who has lost a century of his life and wakes up to find that all his friends are dead, he’s lost all of his memories, the few people who are left and who do remember him blame him for what happened with Calamity Ganon. He’s left to travel around the ruins of Hyrule alone, and even the background music reflects how broken Hyrule's become— all you get are a few sad strains of music, a note or two drifting on the wind as you climb mountains and explore beaches and ride across open grasslands.

It’s so goddamn depressing—and yet, there’s still so much beauty in that game. Like the places that you travel around are so breathtaking. Nintendo’s literally imported real life locations into the game and they’ve gone all out to make every single landscape intriguing. There’s so much to explore and so many secret ponds and tiny grottos waiting for you. And the best part is, all of it is right there in the open. There’s no secret code you have to enter, all you have to do is just wander around and explore. And honestly, I think it’s that sense of exploration that helped me find myself again. Like this is my second play-through, and yet the game still continues to surprise me. The other day I found a tiny little pond in Zora’s Domain that was just absolutely teeming with frogs, and I spent a happy little moment running around catching them. And I’ve just discovered that if you deprive a Moblin of all his weapons and there’s a Bokoblin next to it, that big ass monster will grab a Bokoblin and fling it at you, which basically killed me dead. There’s so much beauty waiting for you to uncover, and there were so many moments when I just stood on a hill and watched the sun go down, waiting for night to fall so I could watch the dragon wind its way through the sky. 

And throughout it all, Link never gives up. He just carries on, fixing things one thing at a time. Even with all the side quests? They serve a purpose: Link’s helping people. In Kakariko village, you bring ingredients for Koko and help her learn how to cook her mom’s recipes. You collect fireflies for someone who can’t leave the house; fetch weapons for a kid in memory of his grandpa; compete with a stable hand on how fast it takes for you to catch a horse; take pictures of leviathans for researchers. In my favourite side quest, you purchase an abandoned house and help build a town From The Ground Up. Slowly, Hyrule begins to heal and begins to rebuild. You don’t just see it, you’re an active part of it. It was like I was slowly putting the pieces of myself back together again with Link. It was a reminder that it’s okay to be broken and damaged, that it doesn’t mean that I’ll always be that way; that everything looks insurmountable at first, but you just gotta do it one step at a time. 

[nolongerapileofashprobably]

Little Bird

Aka a little fic post-Skyward Sword that explains BoTW Zelda’s nickname. Enjoy!

[[MORE]]

“Don’t worry, Zel. Our Little Bird will be perfectly fine.” Link assured Zelda, unaware of her shocked expression as he tried to lead her out of the nursery. “Karane and Pipit love her, plus they have some practicing to do.”

Zelda shook her head, still unable to get the name out of her head. Little Bird. It was a nickname she hadn’t heard in a long time. Her mother had given her the same nickname when she was born.

After she died, her father used it for years, barely calling Zelda by her actual name. It had spread to the point that the entirety of Skyloft began to call her Little Bird. When she wandered through the Academy, it was near impossible for her to not be called that by Horwell or Owlan. Once she started class, they had the smallest amount of self control that let her just be Zelda again. Not little.

She wished Henya was like that, but the old cook was intent on the name. Henya swore that she had called Zelda’s mother by the same name until she had Zelda. This, of course, freaked her out. She didn’t want to have a child just for the cursed name to cease to exist.

Even Link’s parents had called her that, though they were respectful enough to do it when she was visiting Link or helping with his mother’s chores. She’s never admit it but the name sounded like nails on a chalkboard whenever anyone else spoke it. There was something about it that made her go crazy.

But Link’s parents had this way of saying it that made her feel more loved than anything. Perhaps the reason behind that was the fact that it made Zelda feel like a part of the family. She and Link were so close, it was only natural that his parents ended up raising her whenever her father was too busy. Which he always was, but that didn’t mean she loved him any less.

She just... liked the feeling of being accepted into Link’s family. They were so supportive of her, despite her bossy attitude and even when she and Link had their fights. It never mattered to them, since they knew she and Link would end up by each other’s side no matter what.

Zelda had always known they would be together forever, though she had a bit of trouble with transitioning from wanting to be with him to wanting to be with him. Link had the same issue, eventually leading the two of them to get into numerous fights all because they were to dumb not to notice the other was utterly in love with them. And Link’s parents... they had a front row seat to when it got really bad. She always wished they got to see the two of them now.

Last time she saw them, she and Link hadn’t talked in three days. Not the longest bout of silence the two had, but this time it was a bit different. Neither wanted to take that chance, the one where they would admit their feelings for another and just be together finally. They had been screaming about the other’s inability to notice anything else but themselves. She said some particularly nasty things, even accusing Link that he wasn’t truly her friend. Why? She couldn’t even remember now. She just knew he had yelled something about how selfish and conceited she was.

Link’s mother found her that same night, and Zelda couldn’t help but cry into her arms because she drove away the person she was in love with. His mother had hugged her real tight, murmuring that everything was going to be okay, that the two of them just needed to be honest with the other. At the time, Zelda didn’t know how that would help any of it. But she just continued to cry in his mother’s arms because she thought she lost her best friend.

They didn’t live long enough to see the two of them make up.

When his parent’s had died, from an accident in the sky during a horrendous storm, the name ended up disappearing. No one called for “Little Bird” when dinner was ready, so Zelda knew she could wake Link up or get him to stop carving a wooden figure. There were no hair ruffles after a particularly tough fight with Link that assured her everything would be okay.

She suspected her father spoke to Henya about the name, since the old cook never called her Little Bird again. It had become taboo. For the longest time, both Link and Zelda were ticking time bombs, just one nudge from blowing up or bursting into tears. That was what brought them back to normal, actually.

No one had understood what they were going through. To an extent, Zelda didn’t know exactly what Link was going through. But she understood more than anyone else on the island. She lost two people who she considered to be family. He had lost the last of his.

Until now. Until they grew up and created one of their own. And it had been years since she heard that name. He had the same way of saying it. Loving, gentle, but not condescending. Link never called her Little Bird, instead opting for ‘Zel’ or ‘Zeldy’.

But he just called Alouette, named after his mother, the very nickname that she detested for the longest time.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” She asked him, turning around as soon as he dragged her from the room. His blue eyes went wide, quickly placing a finger in front of his mouth before slowly closing the nursery door.

“Karane didn’t tell you?” He asked in a panicked whisper, whipping his head around like someone would overhear them. Maybe in Skyloft, someone would have. But on the surface, they weren’t confined to the rooms at the Academy. They had their own home.

“No, not that,” Zelda answered, lightly punching him on the shoulder as she laughed. He feigned heartbreak and she stuck her tongue out in retaliation before continuing. “I’ve known for two weeks now that she’s pregnant. The other thing.”

“Two weeks?” He repeated, incredulous at the idea that she didn’t tell him the second she found out. “Zelda, Pipit said Karane just told him.”

Zelda shrugged, momentarily distracted at the memory of Karane freaking out. Her best friend truly was something. “She didn’t know how to tell him.”

“You told me right away.” He reminded her, as if she ever had a choice but to tell him immediately.

“Yes, because I didn’t know if having the soul of a goddess was going to complicate something as mundane as pregnancy.” She rolled her eyes, interlocking their fingers as they continued down the hallway. Zelda didn’t want to accidentally wake Lou up, especially since their best friends would be there in a few minutes to watch over her.

“You still would have told me right away, right?” He inquired, though the concerned expression dulling his smile betrayed his playful tone.

“Yes, sleepyhead, as soon as you woke up sometime during the afternoon, I would have told you.” She joked, making him pout. Zelda looked over, never able to resist putting a smile back on his face. She knew Link did this on purpose, but if she got to kiss her soulmate, did it really matter?

She unraveled her fingers from his, cupping his face so she could bring his fat head back down to a normal height so she could properly kiss him. It never got old, the butterflies still dancing in her stomach as her lips met his. Sometimes he would pull back so she would have to chase him, giving her a taste of her own medicine. Sometimes she’d do the same to him, just for old time’s sake. And sometimes, like this, they were more than happy to not play any games and just be with each other. Zelda eagerly took advantage of this, snaking her arms around his neck and pulling him closer. His arms found themselves wrapped around her waist, leaving no room between their bodies. Until of course, Link laughed and reluctantly pulled away, giving her a light kiss when she frowned.

“What was the other thing?” He asked her, voice barely lauded than a whisper. He rested his forehead on hers, humming as she took a second to remember what he was talking about.

She bit her lip, her gaze flickering between his eyes and lips before she sighed. “Little Bird.”

It was two simple words, when strung together symbolized exactly what Skyloftians were meant to be. High in the clouds, free as can be, and utterly loyal to their other half. The name was suited to a life on Skyloft, even though Zelda had her own distaste for it.

Link’s lips parted as it clicked in his mind. Then, he tilted his head, the lopsided smile that she adored making an appearance. “I always liked when my mom called you that. I know you hated it when anyone else called you that but you never told my parents to stop.”

“I liked it when they called me that.” She replied with a sad smile, the memories once again washing over her. Unlike the one’s that belonged to Hylia, these ones were just for Zelda.

“They always knew you would end up being their daughter,” He told her, drawing away when she laughed. “No, really! I always overheard them talking about how much they can’t wait for us to get over ourselves so you could officially become a part of the family.”

Zelda smiled at the thought. “So... Are we bringing back ‘Little Bird’?”

Link shrugged, before his stare shifted to the door down the hall. “It just feels right. We may not be in the sky anymore, but we’ve always been a part of a pair. I don’t know if they’ll still be riding Loftwings in a few generations, but this can be our way of paying respect to our home. To our life. To you.”

Her heart surged with affection, all the love she felt for him swelling inside her. There was never going to be anyone else. Not when Link was so damn lovable.

“I think it’ll grow on me.”

“You think?”

“You hope.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Urbosa, do you know where my mother got the nickname ‘Little Bird’ from?” Zelda asked, peering up from the journals her mother had left behind. She saw the term numerous times in the last journal, but no explanation for why that was the name she had given Zelda.

Urbosa stopped wandering the princess’s room, a small smile spreading as she sat down next to her.

“Your mother told me it was a family thing,” The warrior started, relishing in the fact that Zelda abandoned her focus on finding the formula for an elixir just to listen to her. “Whenever the royal family had a child, that child would grow up with the nickname Little Bird. Apparently, the first ever Zelda in your family had been given that nickname. Her husband convinced her to use the same one for their child. It’s odd that such a simple thing has stayed in your family since the beginning of Hyrule. But that’s what makes it all the more special, in my opinion.”

Zelda couldn’t help the sad smile that crept onto her features, which seemed to be inevitable whenever she spoke about her mother. “So that’s why you call me your Little Bird.”

“That and you are my Little Bird.”

[elegiacmarquise]

The Legend of Zelda: Stone of Paths: Main Characters and Introduction

Here we are the designs of the Link and Zelda from the concept of a fangame I’m creating: Stone of Paths, which it could be considered as a prequel of BOTW. Before I start, however, I do want to thank my friend g0thi-cr0c, who patiently helped me with the translation of the first messy draft: thank thank you a lot!

I’m really really sorry, true Zelda fans, if this AU is kinda inconsistent with canon: despite I tried to inform myself as best I can do, I’m aware there are something I’ve might be missed; therefore if you notice some continuity or even logical errors, tell me! As you may notice in the next lines, the following are the basics of the games: so I didn’t deepened some parts of the story nor the character, and if I can get some help from some enthusiasts, I can be more than happy! So criticism is more than accepted! Short Version (also known as tl;dr): Setted 10.500 years before BOTW main events, the quest of this incarnation of Link is to defeat a Ganon which split itself into the three (plus two after an event) timelines which started from Ocarina of Time. Starting from the northern of the Akkala Region during the Child Timeline, the Hero of Paths (initially a simple forester) will be helped by Cice, a fairy sent by Zelda to call Link, Tiusha, the daughter of the Gerudo Matriarch and Nanas, a Sheikah who discovered and passed a part of his life to study and develop the Sheikah Slate and its correlations with the Guide Stones. He will give Link the fruit of his studies in order to travel to other timelines. Even the Princess herself will help the hero, albeit her distant relationship with him: initially emotionally afflicted by a tragedy happened in the game’s beginning, she will slowly be aware of herself and unlocking Hylia’s powers. In the final dungeons her presence will be fundamental! ———————————————— Link, the Hero of Paths: the main protagonist of this game; he lives with his horse Epona in the village of Redleaf, northern Akkala: a zone particularly liked by wayfarers for its peculiar position between mountains and seaside. His job is to be a forester but often he helps his fellow villagers in their everyday duties. Gifted by a very good sense of orientation and sword skills, Link is already celebrated in his homeland, mostly for bravely protecting it by the countless monsters who usually scare the wayfarers during their wander. His adventure starts in the beginning of Autumn: the entire village of Redleaf was preparing to host the yearly Fall Festival, and since it was the period of the year which traditionally attracted most tourists, Link overworked himself to make surd the festival was going as best it could be. In the day the festival begun, a mysterious, horrific, creature suddenly appeared in the town nearly destroying it, causing both the tourists and the locals to run away. As soon as he could, Link took his wooden sword and fought the monster but was unexpectedly hit hard by the beast, leaving him nearly dead. In his uncertain state, he heard a muffled voice which tried desperately to tell him something he couldn’t distinguish. That voice vanished just after. Soon after, he was woken up by Cice, a little Fairy who took care of him. After the fairy presented herself as to be sent by Princess Zelda, who desperately tried to send him help with her weak telepathic powers. The magic being begged Link’s help in order to save Hyrule from the return of Ganon and his fellow army, promising him the safety of the village as well: when the forester accepted, Cice hurried Link and Epona to go to the Kokiri Forest, where the Master Sword was protected  and to defeat Ganon as soon as possible. In the woods, despite the Deku Tree and the Sword’s spirit agreed for the Hero to extract it, they both weren’t as sure as they were with the other Links: despite their awareness of the heroic nature of the Akkalan forester, they still had the sensation he was too weak to defeat this force, but didn’t know what exactly led them to these thoughts. They felt this incarnation of Ganon was really different, almost as he came from another world but at the same time they couldn’t prove it, so they preferred remaining quiet. With a new sword in the sheath, the hero ran towards Hyrule Castle, where he met Zelda for the first time a little before trying to defeat Ganon. Despite the weakness of her powers,Zelda still cared about his arrive, to the point to give him some of the best weapons in the castle. She also made her mother bless him, despite the queen being deeply worried about the lack of her daughter’s actual powers. But when Link managed to defeat the beast and everything was about to be restored into their original form, a dark force revived Ganon, allowing him to be even more powerful than he used to be; it destroyed the already corrupted castle, killing almost everyone who lived there at the sole impact, including the Queen of Hyrule. In the tragedy, during the escape from a falling castle, the Hero accidentally lost the Master Sword, but at the same time found the barely surviving body of Princess Zelda. Cice ordered the swordman to escort her to Kakariko Village, the birthace of her old nurse Impa; she the only surviving person who could cure her. After a troubled travel, they arrived to the village: surprisingly, Impa was already aware and prepared of their visit, having been advised by the late spirit of Zelda’s mother in dream. Without anything else to do, and shocked by the dispersion of his beloved villagers and failure of his heroic duties, the swordsman was requested by Impa to met Nanas, a Sheikah scientist. A former ambulant shopkeeper, he’s known for leaving behind his former life to do researches about a miraculous Stone (which will be called the Sheikah Stone terminal in BOTW). This stone can memorize some new information which can also be manipulated into runes; they afflict the surrounding world with the connection of a smaller rudimentary tablet made with an extremely rare material (also known as a first version of the Sheikah Slate we’ll see in BOTW). As Link first stepped into Nanas’ home, the stone glowed in a light Nanas didn’t ever see before, and automatically installed an unusual  rune the scientist remembered not programming: when activated, Link could see passages otherwise invisible which could lead him directly to the monsters Ganon sent through all Hyrule. The first passage he found brought, in spite of himself, to the first beast he met in a deserted Redleaf village. After finally destroying it,Link could open another secret passage which led him… in the same place. But something at the same time seemed to have changed: some of the buildings, or new faces which couldn’t recognize Link at all. As the hero remembered, they were preparing themselves to host a festivity; however, when asked about the Fall Festival, the people looked at him strangely and replied they actually were excited about the upcoming visit of King Horatio Casimir Hyrule. Between the greeting crowd, the King recognised Link instantly, deeply surprising the hero: as the King would tell him in a second moment, the true reason he visited such a far village was a Prophecy that has been handed down for centuries. It told a green dressed Hero would come from another Hyrule’s Land of Autumn at the time in which a single Princess Zelda existed in all the three timelines and introduced the Fallen Timeline. Unlike the other two parallel Hyrules, the people living in this one were generally aware of not being the only one. Added to the fact the King didn’t have a distinctive legacy since the premature death of his wife, he became slowly worried about the right time for the prophecy to happen, so he decided to go against the court’s will, both relieved and even more worried to be right about his encounter. In fact, both Link and Ganon would have to come at the same time; in order to prevent a total destruction in his land, the King explicitly asked Link to bring him the Zelda from his dimension, defeat Ganon and finally reunite both the timelines he was in, along with the third one. Therefore, after hearing the King’s request, Link and Cice went back to the Kakariko village in his world and told Impa, Zelda and Nanas about the three Hyrule timelines; they started their main quest, in order to find the Master Sword again and rebuild Link’s native village. Princess Zelda Telene Hyrule: the Princess of Hyrule and first female born in the Royal Family of Hyrule after 100 years, therefore a descendant of Hylia. For this reason, added to the possibility of an incoming menace, her concerned parents took the drastic decision to rarely let the Princess go out of the castle; this norm had become harsher after the premature death of her father when she was still a child. The Queen of Hyrule, who wanted to show the daughter the variety of the reign’s population and tey to make feel Zelda less alone, decided to bring in her castle some exponents of every Hyrulean race; and the child became particularly close with the Fairy Cice. Aside of her isolation, she spent a rather peaceful childhood. While she was already prepared to act as a proper princess and was raised in a peaceful period, Zelda was still worried about her future both as a queen and as a descendant of Hylia, fearing to disappoint her loving yet severe mother. Even at the beginning of her eighteenth year of life she couldn’t do anything aside from a weak power of telepathic speech she gained when she was a toddler. In an apparently normal day of her life, an huge malevolent entity possessed her castle, imprisoning almost everyone in it: the Hyrule army tried to defend from the beast but were mortally defeated. While the Queen and her daughter tried to think about a solution, Zelda decided to send a telepathic help appeal to everyone in the kingdom which only a comatose Link received. With both hope in her heart and worry about his safety, she asked Cice , the smallest being in her castle, therefore the most likely to pass unnoticed to Ganon, to reach for the hero and to cure him with a mixture of a medicine she prepared herself and the fairy’s own healing powers. She couldn’t do anything but revolving her prayers to the Goddess Hylia and searching for the best weapons in the castle, in order to give Link the best aid she could offer. Usually described as calm, imaginative and compassionate, this Zelda often shows the tendency to be overly obsessed by negative thoughts and guilt feelings, especially after almost her entire court was killed by Ganon. Despite her first encounter with Link in the castle was hopeful, she will close herself after the accident and feel useless to have not helped enough to avoid that tragedy. Spending most of her day in her room, she often asked herself the reasons she was gifted by such a weak power and why she wasn’t as powerful as her ancestors, trying to give herself an answer she couldn’t completely satisfy. She saw Link’s presence as the concrete incarnation of her own failures  to her duties as both a Princess and a descendant of Hylia; therefore,when he came back to Kakariko Village from his interdimensional travel, she preferred avoided directly talking to him, preferring being mediated by Impa instead. However, she was aware about the vicious circle which her behaviour could to her and the few people she could trust, so she took the wise yet difficult choice to restart a temporary new life and get used to the simple village life. Despite she was still emotionally overwhelmed by her beloved mother’s grief, she was strong enough to become Nanas’ assistant; while she offered him to do some smaller works for him, she slowly became fascinated by his researches. She also befriended Tiusha, a cheerful Gerudo girl who kept staying in Kakariko village after finding her ideal voe in Nanas. Despite her firstly avoiding behaviour, Zelda became progressively closer to Link as well: she was deeply displeased about the lack of help she offered him, but eventually apologized to Link in tears and was happily forgiven, keeping evolving herself further. Positively influenced by both Nanas’ brilliant mind and constant effort in what he does, by Tiusha’s optimistic yet powerful behaviour and by Link’s selflessness and courage, she slowly became more free by her negative thoughts and influence of her mother visiting the lands around Kakariko village for some research requested by Nanas. In order to travel safely and to reassure a worried Impa about her wellbeing as both a surrogate child and as a Princess, Zelda also restarted practicing archery and learnt some sword basics. However, the moment Zelda will remember the most was when another emotional crisis came: the sudden miss of her mother’s love and role model rapidly interrupted her slowly healing process. This time, however, something changed; her heart was instilled with her first wish, a spark of hope in her previously pessimistic mind-set: to visit the Spring of Power, the Spring of Courage and, lastly, the Spring of Wisdom. She was insecure about her mastery with the weapons, so she asked Link, who already had to go there in order to find the Master Sword, if he could escort her. When the green dressed hero accepted, they prepared themselves and left the village despite Nanas, Cice and Impa’s doubts. Acting as the third and last guide in the game, after Cice and Tiusha, her bond with Link intensified to the point of revealing him her past and her feelings when the swordsman escorted her and protected her from the monsters. When they arrived to the Spring of Power and defeated Ganon together, Zelda started to slowly regain Hylia’s powers, fully obtaining them as she arrived to the Spring of Wisdom. As she would tell Link and Cice, when she prayed at each Spring, she internally reached up a state of ecstasy and felt surrounded by a comforting light Link would only catch a small grasp of; she also heard the reassuring words of her mother, who told her she was proud of her progress and that she would be a great Queen to Hyrule . Lastly she saw a beautiful and mysterious woman who kissed her right hand without saying anything. Back in her world, a Triforce jewel in her gown appeared. She felt for the first time in full peace with herself, as she felt her telepathy power improving and other abilities unlocking. As she progressively gained her powers, her help was crucial during in the resolution of the last few dungeons, and her intervention (as King Horatio hoped) was crucial to reunite each Hyrule into an united big reign. Along with Tiusha, Cice and Nanas’ technology,she participated in the final battle with a dimension-merged Ganon, the most dangerous Hyrule ever witnessed; her godly abilities,united with Link’s skills and Master Sword (merged from the three dimensions by Hyrule’s unification) managed to defeat and seal it.   This incarnation of the dimension-merged Ganon, however, lasted for 500 years until it became more intelligent and powerful: its freeing became the Calamity Ganon whose legend was narrated in Breath of the Wild. At the end of the adventure, despite facing up a first politically difficult period, Zelda was crowned as Hyrule’s Queen and her wisdom and diplomacy were loved by her subjects; it’s hinted in the game’s credits she visited the Redleaf village to speak again with a Link who implicitly accepted to marry her. Their children’s progenie after 10.500 years will give the birth to King Rhoam,and then to the Zelda of Breath of the Wild. Nanas’ discoveries and research, already known and developed by a small elite of Sheikah people Link would meet into his journey, were made famous by Zelda’s narration of the events: even more people were interested in his technology and his very first uses of the terminals and the Sheikah tablet, to the point they developed them for more uses, just as the future Sheikah Towers and Shrines. King Horatius from the Fallen Timeline abdicated the throne in favour of the owner of the Triforce and willingly dedicated himself to help the now Queen Zelda as her political adviser. Thanks to their resourceful knowledge about politics, as well as Hyrule’s cultures and timelines, their governing guidelines were useful to keep the Reign in peace for 500 years. Thank you a lot for reading! I hope you’ll like it:3

So… I happened to be more into Zelda.

After my initial skepticism due to its high praise from both critique and pubblic, I finally brought Breath of the wild, which it’s revealed to be the best decision I did in a while: I loved that post-apocalyptic setting, that ruins, the charm of villages and characters blended with a fun gameplay and the fitting music! *v*

I also loved the characters and the sparse storytelling, and even the Zelda herself, to which I never really was a fan due to her kinda aggressive behavior and unfitting character design, she has still a lot of interesting and relatable parts! I especially like how she struggles to do her duties and her difficult relationship with her father. I didn’t like however, how fastly and suddenly she got her powers.

I’m looking forward to buy even more game from this saga, despite I still like Mario and Pikmin better, maybe starting from Skyward Sword, which has such an intriguing plot.

[moistwithgender]

Monthly Media Roundup (May 2019)

The march of time inexorably proceeds beyond my grasp and so I must write another post. I’ve been a bit burned out, just focusing on one diversion (it was Zelda, you know it was Zelda), but after finishing it I recovered enough energy to get a few more things done in the last half of the month. I didn’t watch any anime or read any manga in May, though I did read some 70s Marvel, which I liveblog in my “curry reads comics” tag. Last time I did an actual capital-P Post about my Marvel reading was a year ago after marathoning a full(ish) decade. If people are interested in more of that I could work at making posts for each year of issues I read, recapping the developments and my thoughts on them (which will become more relevant as Events become more common, I imagine). I’ve just got a few games to talk about this month, but I imagine I have a lot to say about at least one of them.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch): 2 years ago I did something I extremely rarely do: stood in line at a Best Buy at midnight for the release of the Switch so that I could buy it with BotW. BotW was also out on Wii U, which I had, but the promotional material for BotW had struck such a chord in me that it justified making the jump for the new console (this would eventually become troublesome when the first model of joycons failed, but, well). I got home, put some ten odd hours into it, and then put it down for two years. I’ve always had a problem where, struck with the intuition that I will end up forming a deep relationship with a work, I will put it off for years. I put off Persona 3 for five years after buying it at launch, and it eventually became the most personal game experience I would have, even seven years onward. I think the two factors that pushed me to finally play through BotW was wanting to watch a friend stream it (but also not wanting it spoiled for me), and needing a distraction for when I was taking care of my cat.

It’s been about two months now since he passed away, and I finally finished the game at 215+ hours about half a month ago. So, I was playing this game as a coping method while preparing for loss, and in dealing with loss. It’s appropriate that the game is effectively both a fantasy about reclaiming at least part of what you have lost, and a colossal exercise in coping. The game is as much about getting distracted from your responsibilities and fucking off to snowboard in the mountains as it is about being aware of the world around you. The Zelda games have frequently used themes of Shintoism to portray harmony in nature and in civilization. I’m currently replaying Ocarina of Time and the cosmogony myth (is it a myth if a talking tree explains it to you?) specifically words the goddesses as “[giving] the spirit of law to the world” and “[producing] all life forms who would uphold the law.” When I was younger (see: early 20s) I didn’t scrutinize the text much but now I figure it’s reasonable to read “law” as “natural order”. It should be noted that for an N64 game, OoT has remarkably good prose. BotW, in transitioning the series in what may be its third main genre (as opposed to the genres of Zelda 1 and OoT), has taken that Shintoist aesthetic and incorporated it into the entire philosophy of the game’s design. More than just being a game whose narrative concerns an imbalanced world, BotW embraces the trends of open worlds and immersive sims to create an immense, varied space where the coded laws of physics are always impacting the experience. Thunderstorms make metal equipment a liability, while rain covers the sounds of footsteps. Wind can sweep away items, fire and high temperatures affect flammable objects (including yourself), and aforementioned metallic items can conduct electricity, which can be used to solve puzzles in unintended ways. Weather changes regularly based on the region and changes the world in tandem. Rain doesn’t just fall, it actively collects, and ponds become bigger, and surfaces become slicker. Each systemic element (pun not intended) that was incorporated affected everything else in the world, and in interviews there were mentions that changing the volume of wind in one area had a butterfly effect on another, causing pots to fly off of patios in a village. It’s no wonder the game took five years to make, considering how rarely glitches occur in the game (and most that I know of have to be deliberately recreated for exploitation). You’re engaging with enemies as much as you are with the environment, and at times even with your own body, creating and consuming food and drink for the purpose of staving off sunstroke or frostbite. As a result, BotW’s Hyrule is immensely palpable, and easy to lose oneself in from how livable it feels.

When I first started playing at release, I was a bit disappointed to discover that villages existed in-game, as early promotional material and the state of the Great Plateau you start on painted a picture of a lonely world. In the end, the soundtrack and vast amount of uncolonized land does give an understated sense of melancholy that defines the game, though the fact that every five steps you’ll find a Korok micropuzzle waiting to YA HA HA and fanfare at you betrays that a bit (I still love those Koroks and their puzzles, don’t @ me). The NPCs in this are numerous, though, from the occupants of the villages to wandering traders, and their personalities are all distinct and charming, and probably the best I’ve ever seen in a game, or at least in a long time. If this game wasn’t railroading the Link/Zelda relationship so hard, I would have liked a Dragon’s Dogma-style “date any NPC (within reason)” mechanic. I’m just going to have to start a “NPCs you should marry” side-tumblr.

Another defining aspect of the gameplay, and easily what makes the game surpass arguably every other Zelda, is how Nintendo heard the decade or so of complaints about the linear Zelda lock-and-key formula being reiterated to the point of stagnation, and, after great success with A Link Between Worlds’ item rental subversion, just decided to make everything optional. You do the tutorial on the Great Plateau, and, if you feel especially gutsy, you can beeline it straight to Ganon. He’s in horse-riding distance, or running distance, if you’re tenacious. Will you make it to him, survive the hordes of enemies, and take him down? If it’s your first time playing the game and you haven’t learned the systems, probably not. Is it possible? Absolutely. Much like how the monthly cycle of a Persona game is a proverbial Rocky training montage of preparing for The Big Fight, everything you do in BotW is in preparation. A lot of open world games can feel dissonant in that you’re incentivized to be distracted as a player and make your own fun, meanwhile the protagonist keeps saying “I’m gonna get bloody revenge on the mafia boss!” during bowling matches. There is still, unavoidably, a sense of urgency played up for narrative sake in BotW, since Impa insists Zelda is waiting and can’t hold Ganon back forever, but it’s all much more narratively justifiable, if you want that. You know, because Zelda is for hardcore roleplaying.

I couldn’t resist a second playthrough, even after logging 215+ hours, so I went ahead and started a separate file on Master Mode, Nintendo’s weird in-house, in-franchise rebranding of, uh, a hard mode. Previously it was called Hero Mode. Why do you--well, okay, I know why they do it. They’re likely trying to distinguish it from a “we just tweaked the numbers” hard mode, and also want to make it feel less threatening than something labeled hard mode. If they’re going to go to the trouble to make it a distinct form of play, they want to try and appeal to everyone. And it is fairly distinct. All enemies are bumped up one rank, so a red bokoblin is blue, and a blue bokoblin is black, and so on. There is a new strongest rank of enemy, though in my run I did not seek them out. There are enemies (and treasure chests!) perched on flying rafts, which can be one-shot with proper bow aiming, but also carry dangerous elemental arrows, and can alert all other enemies in the area. Stealth is much more difficult, and pointless early in. All enemies regenerate up to a third of their health, including bosses! Though, that can be temporarily interrupted by inflicting any amount of damage on them, so it behooves you to be on the offense. Less autosave slots! This wasn’t a problem for me. Guardians randomly delay the firing of their beams! This was absolutely a problem for me and I avoided them entirely in my run. In the beginning when tools and resources are scare, particularly on the Great Plateau, Master Mode is at its hardest, and its most thrilling. Rather than aimlessly exploring, I was pressured to decide where I knew things were, and beeline it to them. Sometime in-between two of the four main optional dungeons, I had amassed enough valuable resources that the game had settled back into the same kind of difficulty as normal mode. Bosses were a little harder due to regen and my resources being somewhat scarcer, but they were manageable. Competently performing flurry attacks (upon successfully dodging attacks at the last second) was extremely valuable to me, but I imagine with enough food in my inventory, I could have brute forced my way through a lot of the fights (though, uh, obviously thou wouldst like to live deliciously (please hate me for this phrasing)). I chose to forego the Master Sword for the sake of challenge, and beat Master Mode with only seven hearts, in around 25 hours. You should play Master Mode, it’s fun.

Here’s a little gameplay SPOILER:

Something I haven’t done, but would like to eventually do, is avoid the main dungeons and just head straight to Ganon. When I played Master Mode, I wasn’t totally confident, and did the dungeons for the resources. After watching some speedruns I learned that if you skip the dungeons, and therefore the main bosses, you have to fight them all at once immediately before the fight with Ganon, without breaks.

That. Sounds. Great.

Wandersong (PC/Steam): Have you heard about Homestuck?

Okay, wait. Wait. Come back, wait. Stop leaving. PLEASE.

Okay, I got the most inflammatory sentence out of the way. Now that we’re eased into that: Wandersong is unignorably influenced by Homestuck. Homestuck conjured a lot of baggage, from having a really difficult, pretentious, arrogant author (I should know, I gave him the benefit of the doubt for way too long), to having some unfortunate narrative turns, to being a billion words long. Wandersong invokes the vaster-than-God scope, the minute and personal perspective of the heroes, and its inclinations toward emotional intelligence (it still surprises me Homestuck had these moments given the author’s deeply unsympathetic sense of humor), and… condenses it! It also makes it a light puzzle-platformer and is about performing music (note: not rhythm, you don’t have to have ANY rhythm), and looks like a Paper Mario game. It is very charming, very funny, very optimistic, and most surprisingly, uncompromising at times. Wandersong says that you, despite your role, are capable of great things, especially self growth and change, as long as you commit to it. If, faced with the consequences of your bad decisions, you choose to double down and keep at it, you will reap what you sow. This is distinctly different from Undertale’s brand of pacifism route optimism, where “no one has to die!” This brand of optimism is a measured but enthusiastic “you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved, but you can save the rest” and I think that’s a uniquely valuable message.

I was a little confused about the resolution of the communist uprising chapter, but I recall the game bringing my cynicism into question, and the most important thing a work can do is make you question yourself.

(Also, if any of my mutuals are low on funds but interested, I do have a drm-free version I can share.)

Minit (PC/Steam): I don’t think I actually have a lot to say about Minit! It’s very fun and curious and short. You play a little… duck… thing, and you pick up a cursed sword which kills you in one minute. Then you wake up the next day, and die in a minute. Then you wake up the next day. Having only sixty seconds of vitality, you have to optimize your exploration. There’s a slow-speaking old man who you will die listening to, but the hint he gives at the end of his sentence will lead you to something valuable. There’s a guy in a bar angry about the lack of music. If you change the music, he will probably dislike it. If you keep changing the music, you might live to see him like it. There’s a boat ride to a tropical island you have to grit your teeth and wait through. Not all of the events are slow, some are quick bouts of hurried exploration. Most of it is, given the time limit. I’d say more, but given the overall length (it took me about an hour to finish), I’d risk spoiling a sizable fraction of the experience. It’s about $10, though I got mine in a Humble Bundle Monthly subscription. The spec requirements are very low, so your laptop can likely run it.

A Hat in Time (PC/Steam): Heads up, I’m gonna get into a lot of spoilers for this game, including endgame spoilers, but also heads up, the story isn’t really the point in this game. This is a game about tone and platforming. That said, I’m gonna be talking exclusively about the weird ideas in this game, and if you want those weird ideas to be a surprise, then just skip ahead until I put up big letters.

I’m somewhat hesitant to be critical of A Hat in Time because despite a number of weird Things about it, I recognize that it’s quite popular with a lot of people, and that always makes me pause and want to figure out what it is that makes it pass the bar for others. My guess at this point is that it invokes nostalgia through its unmitigated imitation of games that came before. The games it chooses to ape are all your childhood’s Greatest Hits, Wind Waker (which it most resembled in its earliest development), Super Mario Sunshine/Galaxy (which it most resembles now), Banjo-Kazooie, Psychonauts, etc. It never really surpasses those games, for me, and at times cribs from them to the degree that it obscures the game’s own identity. After all, what you enjoy may help define you, but you wouldn’t say it’s your personality. Well. Unless you kin the Gamecube. I guess. There are bonus levels to the game’s different “worlds” (I thought they were different planets, since your hub area is a spaceship, and you access them via different telescopes, but it turns out it’s just one planet?), and you can collect photographs, which sequentially tell a story about the residents of that “world”. Psychonauts did this because each level took place in the mind of a character, and the photos together told a story about the character that fundamentally changed the way you thought about them, and made the whole game feel richer as a result. I collected the photos for all but the DLC levels in AHiT (those are Really Hard), and of those five or so worlds, none of those bonus photos told me anything that changed how I thought about the characters. There’s a dock town run by a mafia (s-sorta) led by a chef, but did you know they all used to work at a processing factory before going there? There are two manipulative bird directors who are fighting over the same studio to produce their own film and win an award, but did you know they… wanted to be directors since they were kids? There’s a devil analogue who steals people’s souls if they wander into his forest, but did you know he was a prince, and the princess was mad he talked to another girl (it was a flower girl, he was getting flowers for the princess), and imprisoned him until they both the prince and princess turned into evil ghosts? That’s the only one that comes close to being an “oh” moment, but I don’t think it does for the reasons the writer was hoping for. In general, these are prologues without substance.

Speaking of substance, the game has a bit of an issue with theming. At least, it does at first. The first town is the previously mentioned dock town, run by a mafia. By “mafia”, I mean a bunch of meatheads who talk about how they like punching people, and refer to themselves individually, in the third person, as Mafia. Mafia loves to punch the poor and the birds. Mafia is a one-dimensional character copy-pasted across 20% of the game. Mafia laughs. They’re run by a chef, but also they can’t cook, so there’s a cat chef in hiding who routinely swaps out their food with his so no one has to eat bad food. I don’t know why, when the town has maybe three non-Mafia character. He does eventually leave and board your ship, so maybe he’s just looking for something to do. The leader of the mafia also boards your ship, for a joke and to sell you an upgrade. The mafia are also afraid of mud monsters, or aliens, or something. There’s a girl with a moustache named Moustache Girl who wants to use your Time Macguffins to overthrow organized crime, and Hat Girl decides that’s a no-go. There are giant faucets around the town that replace all the water with lava. You might be noticing these things have little to no connection. You might be suspecting this level was made first when the dev was inexperienced. I might be suspecting this. It’s fine.

Later worlds do a much better job of theming. There’s the movie studio split between two birds. One of them a penguin, who prefers science fiction, the other a…

...hmmm. I suspect this guy, The Conductor, is an OC the director has had for a while, maybe since childhood, that they just decided Is A Bird, and carried it into the game, since the game occasionally is like... bird?? Alternatively, it’s some sort of corruption of Woodstock from Peanuts. Possibly both. Anyway, this guy just wants to make movies that take place on wild western trains. He has a strong fake Scottish accent, and the penguin, named DJ Grooves, is some sort of disco Elvis. They’ve both hired owls as actors, and some crows have snuck onto the train set (the crows are so obviously the G-Men from Psychonauts’ Milkman level it bothers me a bit). This is already a little busy, but it’s okay! Birds, movies, two distinct genres, and you trapped in-between them, just trying to collect your macguffins. It works. You take part in both of their movies, and your performance in both determines the winner, when suddenly… CORRUPTION WAS AFOOT, and you have to explore the depths of the studio and engage in a showdown.

Another world is a spooky forest where your access is restricted by completing certain contracts for the devilish character. Sometimes it’s murder (reasonable), exploring a haunted mansion in survival horror format (ooh!), fixing the plumbing in a well (wait, what), and doing mail delivery (back up back up). Half of that works. The finale of the forest makes up for it, though. This game insists on most of its bosses having like 4-5 phases and breaks for dialogue and the gall required to get away with that honestly earned my respect. They’re pretty fun times.

The best level to play is, unsurprisingly, the first DLC. I say unsurprising because it’s clear the dev is learning as they go, and the level design improves as they go along. Aside from bonus levels, the first DLC takes place on a massive cruise liner titled the SS Literally Can’t Sink. Ha ha. It’s split into three parts. The first part has you exploring the many interconnected rooms of the ship to find broken shards of a macguffin, the second part has you taking that mental map and using it to frantically complete multiple timed fetch quests at once, and the third part, now that you understand the ship pretty intimately, capsizes the ship, requiring you to traverse frigid waters and overturned scenery to retrieve babies and the ship’s incompetent but adorable baby seal crew (the seals speak in hewwo talk, the game is unforgivably loaded with memes but let me have this). This progression is my favorite in the game, and while I haven’t bought the Nyakuza Metro DLC, I’m looking forward to it.

The ending level had me a bit bewildered at first because in the beginning when Hat Kid refuses to use time powers to stop organized crime, I saw it as a hamfisted way to create tension between Hat Kid and Moustache Girl. Apparently it was working up towards the moral of the story. In the final level, Moustache Girl has stolen all the macguffins, and possessing ultimate power, becomes corrupted ultimately, and summons everyone in the world to her Bowser castle to be judged and die. On first glance, I thought “well, sure, that’s sensible,” but when Hat Kid finds the support of all the villains in the game, I was a little confused. The villains sacrifice themselves to give you infinite health, explicitly stating that they’ll just come back through time magic if you win so who cares (cool stakes), and you overcome authoritarianism with the support of corrupt hollywood, organized crime, and the literal devil. This would be fine if at some point Hat Kid, you know, took them on a Zuko Quest to face turn all of them, but that doesn’t happen. They just all decide “hey yeah, fuck this girl! Also we don’t have time for the nuance this might require!” After all is said and done and you collect all your macguffins, you’re given the choice of leaving the defeated Moustache Girl a single macguffin so she can defeat the mafia (whose side are we on) or just saying nahhh. Neither appears to make a difference, but maybe in a year or two we’ll get a DLC that makes you regret your words and deeds. You try to fly your ship to your home planet, and the villains all grab on to your ship, which is in space, begging you not to leave. I seriously suspect they intended to incorporate face-turn scenes and just couldn’t find the time, because nothing but physical proximity implies these guys would have any emotional attachment to Hat Kid, and that’s a bit of a stretch. Anyway, Hat Kid brooms them off the ship to plummet down to earth and flies away. Sheds a tear about the whole thing. In the end, the moral was that Order good, but too much Order bad, except if you are Hat Kid, in which case Chaos good. Or maybe…

After finishing the game I decided to look into any left over secrets, since my completion score was in the 80s of percents. Turns out that if you use the camera badge to finagle the free look feature into a marginally open armoire somewhere on your spaceship, you can find a shrine to Hat Kid with a couple skulls, a bunch of blurry photos, and some strange symbols. If you doing this while wearing the mask that lets you see the secrets of the dead (for platforming and puzzle purposes, of course), there’s a bunch of alien text you can decode. And then there’s some youtube channels. And a twitter account. All sharing more of those decodable ciphers, all talking about vague dreamy apocalyptic histories and dark betrayals. Or something. That’s right, this game’s got a fucking ARG. I cut things off there. If the developer Gears for Breakfast is gonna make an occultist grimdark sequel to A Hat in Time, they can put up a trailer for it.

OKAY I’M DONE TALKING ABOUT A HAT IN TIME, the short of it is that I had a lot of mixed feelings but had fun.

How did I end up talking more about A Hat in Time than Breath of the Wild? What are my priorities?

Well, that’s everything I finished in May! Will I get back to anime and manga in June? Guess we’ll see! Again, let me know if you want me to do year-recap Marvel posts, since my liveblogging is mostly just shitposts, and the occasional attempt at thoughtfulness among those posts feels kind of out of place. Honestly, I’m probably gonna do that anyway, but it’s nice to see interest. If you read all this, thanks a lot! Go play Breath of the Wild and Wandersong.

[minsyal]

[Home, Link x Reader]

         After the smoke had cleared and the Calamity was defeated, the survivors were left with nothing but a mess on their hands. The guardians had shut down for the time being, the monsters had retreated to their clans, the remaining Yiga had disappeared into the shadows, and the citizens were feeling the aftereffects of the battle. Large craters littered Hyrule Field that would eventually turn to hills as if nothing had ever happened there.

          “Hey.” You approached a small oasis where Link was sat, staring straight into the water. The final battle had definitely exhausted him. He turned to you, a soft smile appearing on his lips as he moved over to make room for you.

           “Holding up well?”

           He nodded.

           A weight landed on your shoulder, peering down you noticed it was his head. The blonde tuft of hair swayed as a light breeze passed through the canyon walls. Gently, you wrapped an arm around his back and squeezed him closer to you. A sense of relief washed over the two of you as you sank into one another. It was over. His shoulders rose as he inhaled deeply, his eyes fluttered shut.

           “Oh, there you are.” A voice chimed from behind. It was Zelda. Her footsteps carried softly toward you and came to a stop.

           You were put in charge of the rebuilding of Castle Town, as well as finding people to repopulate the area. With a small crew of men, the first shops were rebuilt. Although they were not up to par with what they once were, it was only the start. The castle was repaired slowly with Zelda at the head of construction. Link was becoming a jack-of-all-trades. He assisted mostly in the castle with Zelda, but he also helped with Castle Town. When he had any free time, he was traveling with a small group of men to relinquish the land of the remaining monsters.

           Teba of Rito Village, Riju of Gerudo, Yunobo of Goron City, and Sidon of Zora’s Domain were put in charge of taking care of their regions. Thus far, everything was going successfully. The Divine Beasts were transferred to their successors and were definitely taking some time to learn the controls. Purah was currently in Zora’s Domain, teaching Sidon the controls. Once finished there she is to report to Goron City, hopefully by then the temperature will have dropped.

           “The door’s jammed.” You groaned, slamming your arm against it hoping that maybe it would swing open. Link watched, arms crossed over his chest, bags at his feet, a smirk on his face. Turning to face him you raised an eyebrow. He uncrossed his arms and motioned as if asking “do you want help?”

           “I can do this without you.” You said in an exasperated tone. The house had simply resettled since the last time you had visited. Bolson and Karson had obviously not listened to your instructions when you asked them to keep the hinges working. They’d get an earful the next time you saw them.

           “I just need…” another slam to the door, “a little bit…” a soft crack resonated from the door, “ugh!” Wiping the sweat from your brow you threw your arms up in an irritated fashion. Letting them flop down next to your sides, you groaned loudly and drew your hands together. Eyeing Link from the corner of your eye, you now noticed his head tilted slightly upward, the smirk much larger and more apparent.

           “Get over here and open it.”

           With a swift kick to the hinge, the door flew open to reveal your home. He returned to the bags, sweeping them into his arms before motioning for you to enter first. Everything was covered in dust. The display cases were empty, the Champion’s weapons now on his person. You wandered around the open room, opening the windows to allow air to flow through the space. While this was not what you had expected to come home to, it was home and that was all that mattered in the end.

           This was the place where you spent many nights with your partner, dreaming of the future when peace had been brought to the land. This was where you learned to cook, to swim, to do all the adventurous things that had once been foreign concepts. The small pond below was how you recalled, filled with lily pads, fish, and a hoard of fireflies.

           Smiling, you brushed off the photos revealing memories of the past that did not include you. He was fond of the Champion’s photo, but insisted that was not his favorite. He preferred the ones stored on the Sheikah Slate, the ones of the two of you.

Request: hi!!! your description says requests are open so I was wondering if I could request a botw link x reader? my idea was something after link finally defeats ganon and saves zelda, what that would mean for his s/o (someone who traveled/fought with him during the events of botw?) and what they would do maybe? thank you so much!! I love your blog, it's my go-to for botw imagines, you're a wonderful writer :) Okay just a heads up! Idk if the monsters actually disappear but that’s what I’m saying! Enjoy!

[wavewood]

The Girl at the Museum: A Zelink Modern AU

The Girl at the Museum FFN AO3

Word count: 10,344 Summary: "There was little to do on his long shifts at the museum, but he was happy to look at her and let himself craft stories about her life and his life and how one day they would intertwine in the most elegant way. Often times it felt like fate." Link spends a summer working at a museum, Zelda is the mysterious girl who is always there. Zelink Modern AU Oneshot BOTW-ish

Today, Link imagined her as a foreigner.

She came from Termina, had a thick accent, and often said, “How do you say…?”  She was here for the summer on a research trip, and at the end of the season she would return to a small town in a distant country to write an obscure archeology book Link would one day find years from now, when she was just a distant memory.  She would bike in the early morning to a dusty library to write in a leather notebook and eat pastries her neighbor baked.  One day they would accidentally meet at a hotel bar, and she would find him charming and funny.

Yesterday, Link imagined her as a painter.

In reality, he knew nearly nothing about her.  Everything he did know he gleaned from watching her, and that was still barely any information.  He knew she absentmindedly ran her delicate hands through her long, golden hair when she was reading.  He knew she liked to braid it when she needed a break, and then let it loose when she biked away.  He knew her milky skin turned pink when she sat in the sunlight for too long.  He knew she preferred jean shorts and loose t-shirts with vintage lettering.  He knew she loved the museum.

Based off of her appearance, he assumed she had to be around the same age as him, or maybe he just wished it.  Was she also eighteen years old, just a few months away from attending university? Maybe she was deceptively young looking but actually worked in a bank and had a husband?  He constantly wondered.

At first he tried to control himself and actually do his job, but his job as a Visitor Services Associate at the Mila Vah Windfall Museum was boring. By the third day she was the only interesting thing he could see from the front desk, and so he finally gave up and watched her.

He often imagined her as a girl from his high school who was so shy that he had somehow missed her throughout the past eighteen years.  Then he would charm her and she would slowly become comfortable around him.  One day he’d drive her to the movies in the rain but they wouldn’t want to leave the comfort of the car, so they’d snuggle up and –

Link hadn’t meant to let his imagination run so wildly, but as the time ticked by each shift she seeped deeper into his thoughts until he spun an entire life story for her, many of which ended up with her enthralled by him just as much as he was enthralled by her.

Today she was sitting in the Wintergarden.  Link sat at the front desk, as always, and stared at her through the massive window across the lobby.  She sat cross-legged on the step of the small, stone fountain in the center of the glass room.  Sunlight streamed down from the windowed ceiling, slipped past the leaves of the enclosed trees, and cast dappled rays on her delicate form.  She was absorbed with a large book in her lap, so large that Link would guess it was a textbook.  Occasionally she would run her hands through her long hair and nibble at her bottom lip. Surrounded by luscious plants, vibrant flowers, and spotted sunlight, Link thought she looked like a princess.

Sometimes he imagined her as royalty, but those dreams always left him feeling distant and hopeless.

There was little to do on his long shifts at the museum, but he found he did not mind the solitary hours.  He was happy to look at her and let himself craft stories about her life and his life and how one day they would intertwine in the most elegant way.  Often times it felt like fate.

.

He vividly remembered the first day he saw her.  It was just the beginning of summer - his last one before he went to university across the country - and his first day at his new job. He had been dressed in jeans and a simple black shirt that had the words Mila Vah Windfall Museum in neat, elegant white letters.  That morning he had even brushed his light brown hair, but despite his best efforts it still stuck up a bit in the back.

The Mila Vah Windfall Museum was actually a mansion that had once belonged to a wealthy woman who had very expensive tastes.  She was a bold, charming woman who, by the end of her life, had collected so many treasures that she needed a museum for them all. After she died, her children transformed her mansion into a display of all her most prized possessions, from paintings and sculptures to animal skins to rare flowers.  The museum was technically just a house of junk, but the junk of Mila Vah Windfall was all incredibly expensive and historic.  On his first day, Link was required to wander through the rooms to become familiar with the layout and collection.  He passed through room after ornate room, each time surprised at what this woman had managed to collect.  She had soldier’s greaves from the Reestablishment Era, portraits of her done by Hyrule’s most famous artists, skeletons of Lynels, and even diamond encrusted lingerie.

Despite the vastness of the collection, the museum was not as popular as Link would have thought.  It resided on the outskirts of Akkala, high on a hill and surrounded by gigantic trees. Not many people from the small neighboring towns had interest in making the trek, all except for one.

When she came in on his first day he had been ready to greet her as he had done with the few other guests - an overzealous smile and cheery welcome - but she ignored him and strolled past him straight into the Wintergarden.  At the time he had just been amazed by her presence.  She was beautiful, and he wanted to know her, yet she also had a haughty, unattainable air about her that just made him even more intrigued.

She was there nearly every day of the week from morning to early afternoon. Often times she would read, but she also frequently strolled through the rooms, taking notes in her tiny, leather notebook, and sometimes she would even draw.  On these days that she wasn’t in the Wintergarden, Link would make more walkthroughs of the museum.  He was supposed to check for discarded maps, but he just liked to see what she was doing.

Sometimes he tried to busy himself with something besides her, but he would always go back to dreaming of finally walking over and making conversation. He had never heard her speak before. He wondered how she sounded.  He wondered if they even spoke the same language. He wondered if she would like him.

He generally liked his days off since he got to sleep in and wander around town with a few friends.  Sometimes his grandma would give him some money and he’d take his younger sister out for ice cream.  Sometimes, though, he found himself thinking of her and he would wait anxiously until the day came where he would work at the museum again.

.

A month into his job and he hadn’t gotten any better at filling his long hours with something besides watching the mysterious girl.  He also hadn’t gotten the nerve to talk to her, mostly because he had no idea what he would even say.  Hi, I just wanted to know if any of the many daydreams I had about you were remotely accurate?  He had a feeling that would not go over well.

Sometimes when the days were particularly sunny and the amount of visitors particularly low, Link would get so bored he would even attempt doodling. He mostly just colored in the words on the note pad.  Today, he was bold enough to attempt flowers.  The person who worked before him had drawn intricate flower petals with many patterns and colors.  They had left the doodle on the desk, and so Link felt like challenging himself and copying the intricate designs.  He was surprised by how absorbed he became in the task.  His lines were sloppy and uneven, but he was determined to get better.

“Excuse me?”

Link reluctantly looked up from his masterpiece of a doodle, only to freeze at the sight before him.  The mysterious girl who had shown up every shift without fail was now standing right in front of him.  He had never seen her this close before.  Her face was gracefully round, her pink lips small and cute, and her long hair was a luscious gold.  She had stuck a neon pink pencil behind her ear.  Her doe eyes were a striking sea green that held such an intensity he thought for sure she knew everything about him, even the fact that he daydreamed about her constantly.  

In his shock, he had not replied to her.  He stared dumbly at her and noticed that she had a light smattering of freckles across her pale skin.

She lifted a brow. “Hello?”

So, she did speak his language.

“H-h-hi,” Link stammered as if his mind was a computer that had just sputtered to an end.  He then abruptly stood up from his chair, accidentally knocking his pen down to the floor.

She paused for a moment and studied him carefully, likely calculating his level of sanity.  Her eyes then traveled down to the desk where she noticed his many attempts at drawing flowers.  She didn’t say anything, but he knew she must have been judging him for his doodles. His face was becoming redder by the second, and though the museum was required to be at a comfortable temperature, he felt suddenly hot.

“Right,” she said, regaining her composure and remembering why she came in the first place.  She took a breath, and then explained in a rush, “There is an error in one of your exhibits.  The plaque for the vase depicting the Battle of Lake Kolomo is incorrect.  The year should be 1456 at the earliest, since that is when the battle actually took place, and currently it is 1356, which is preposterous because the coalition at Lake Hylia hadn’t even been formed yet. I am sure one of your curators made a simple error, but if there are any questions to my reasoning I am happy to discuss it.  I do believe that the vase was made in 1457 since creating pottery took a fair amount of time back then and so it would have been at least a few months.  I wouldn’t estimate the vase was made any later than 1460 since that was the year when new pigments were introduced to Hyrule and there are very few colors in this vase.  Anyway, please let the appropriate party know of the error and that I am here to explain my reasoning if need be.”

Link could only stare.  None of that had registered.

“Sorry,” he said slowly, waking up from his daze. “Could you say that again?”

The girl audibly sighed.  “Please tell the curator of the East Wing section to come to the front desk because there is an error in the plaque,” she said, annoyance creeping into her voice.

“Oh,” Link said simply, blinking a few times before he finally felt alert again.  “Right, okay…so for complaints you need to fill out this comment card and then – ,”

“No, this isn’t a complaint about the bathroom not having enough toilet paper – which, by the way, it doesn’t,” she interjected, leaning against the counter. “This is a flagrant error in the exhibit, and who knows how long that has been there?  This needs to be addressed now.”

Link was still taken aback, now by her boldness and confidence.  She gazed at him with those intense green eyes, waiting for him to follow her commands.

Remembering his training, Link placed the complaint card in front of her and replied, “I can assure you that we respond to all of our complaints promptly.  This will be dealt with shortly once you have filled out the card.”

“Really?” she replied skeptically, leaning farther over the counter to glare at him.  “How promptly?”

“Um…” Link stumbled as he tried not to notice how much closer she had gotten. “Very…promptly...”

They stared at each other for a moment in which Link wondered how far she was going to push this.  He assumed she was wondering the same thing.

“Fine,” she resigned.  She slipped the pencil out from behind her ear and quickly filled out the form with brisk movements.  When she was done she slipped the pen back into her ear, gave one last final glare, and left the building.

Once she was gone, Link quickly looked at her complaint form.  She had ignored the lines of the paper and the sections that had requested the date, name, and email; instead, she just wrote in large letters:

Battle of Lake Kolomo is wrong – call me.

Beneath that she wrote a phone number and signed off with her name in bold, confident strokes.

Zelda.

For a moment Link looked at the door in a daze.  Zelda was not at all what he had been expecting.

As if on autopilot, Link placed the complaint card in the slot where all the other cards go.  He really did hope this error would be fixed promptly.

.

The next day the girl – Zelda – entered as she always did: quickly and without a single glance towards Link.  She didn’t go off into the Wintergarden today, but instead headed straight for the staircase into the heart of the museum.  Link felt an odd mix of both relief and disappointment. Now that he had learned her name and actually had an interaction with her, which he began to realize maybe hadn’t gone that well, he couldn’t predict how his shift would go.  Would she ignore him?  Could he continue to spend his hours imagining storylines for her if he knew her name?  Things just felt different and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that yet.

He was so worried about the future of his daydreams that he didn’t even notice her approaching until she slapped a hand on the desk in front of him. Link’s head jerked up with a start to see her staring at him with those keen emerald eyes.

“It hasn’t been fixed.” She stated.

It took Link a moment to process her words.  “Oh,” he replied simply.  After a second, he swallowed the lump in his throat and continued with more confidence than yesterday. “I’m sorry, Miss.  I am sure it will be fixed soon.”

She glared at him a moment, and he could tell she was calculating her options on how to proceed.  Like the day before, she huffed “fine,” and walked away from the desk.

.

The next day followed the same pattern.  She briskly walked into the museum and headed straight for the East Wing, and then she briskly walked back to the front desk.  She informed Link that the sign remained unfixed and Link assured her that it would be fixed soon, even though he had no idea if that was true. This time she didn’t even say fine, just glared for a moment and then stomped away, her long golden hair swishing behind her with flair.

The same thing happened the following two days.  Whenever she spoke to him Link really wanted to do something different – maybe offer to look at the sign with her, or ask why she cared so much – but he would always fall back into the same instinct because her presence made him inexplicably nervous and excited.

He didn’t understand why she had this effect on him.  He knew he was prone to romantic, elaborate day dreaming, but this was the first time he had actually felt genuinely infatuated with somebody.  Much to his embarrassment, he was a hopeless romantic, and for some reason he was enthralled by her.  He must have dreamt of every possible life for her – one where she was popular in the city, studious in a faraway land, a princess in disguise – but somehow he had never dreamt of her as she truly was, and that was perhaps the most exciting part of it all.

.

At the end of the week the sign had finally been fixed.  Link knew this before she came in that day, and he was unexpectedly nervous when she walked in.  Would she thank him?  Would he finally be able to say something substantial and she would think he actually had a brain?  He frantically thought of different scenarios and how he would respond to them in a way that would make her want to hang out with him more.  

He was ashamed for the disappointment he felt when she returned from the East Wing only to go straight to the Wintergarden, not even glancing his way.

For a day Link denied that her ignoring him had any impact on him at all. By his second shift he had accepted that he was disappointed.  He tried to go back to inventing a storyline for her, this time using the small bits he knew that he got through their interactions to fill in the gaps, but it wasn’t the same.  He didn’t have the same engagement with his daydreams like he usually did.  He was tired of wondering what she was like. Now he wanted to know.

By his third shift, he was so incredibly bored that he did something incredibly stupid.

It didn’t take her nearly as long to notice as he had expected, and for that he was grateful.  He had just finished restocking the pamphlets when she approached the front desk.  She stood proudly before him with her hands on her hips and her head held high.  By now he had time to prepare himself so that he was bold enough to look her in the eye and not glance away.

“There’s another error,” she stated. “In the West Wing, the sign for the Rito Tapestry of Voo Lota says that the Voo Lota Shrine is in the province of Hebra, but it is actually in the province of Tabantha.”

She spoke in a rush, like her mouth couldn’t keep up with her brain, and it threatened to rattle Link again, but he remained focused.  He fought his instincts this time to go back to what he always said, and instead replied with, “So, are you really into history?”

“Excuse me?” She said defensively, crossing her arms.

“You just know so much about it,” he answered, trying to keep a calm exterior when he felt total panic on the inside. “You must really like history.”

“Oh, goddesses, no,” Zelda rolled her eyes. “I detest history.  It’s almost entirely memorization, a little bit of philosophical thought, but far too stagnate for me.”

“Oh,” he said dumbly, caught off guard again by her answer.  He had thought for sure that she was some kind of history buff.  He did not expect somebody who knew all of these random details to hate it.  “How do you know so much then?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, some things you just hear and it sticks, you know.  Like when you’re listening to music and you don’t even realize that you have somehow learned all the words to a song you don’t even like.”

Link looked at her skeptically.  “Yeah, but that’s for music, not for geography or historical facts.”

“What’s the difference?” She responded, and Link was amazed again by the intensity in her striking green eyes.  He had a feeling she was rarely wrong.

Instead of answering her question, he asked one of his own.  “Are you a genius?  And I don’t mean somebody who has a few good ideas, but I mean a real, certified genius who could read at six months and do calculus in fifth grade.”

She blinked a few times, taken aback, and her cheeks had a hint of red in them now.  She looked down at her feet for a second, and he realized it was the first time she had looked away from him during their many interactions.

“The odd thing is,” she said, moving right past his question as she leaned against the counter. “The sign was accurate before, and now suddenly somebody changed the information to something that is completely inaccurate.”

She peered at him curiously and he tried not to smile. “Hm, that is odd,” he agreed.  “Thank you for letting us know, will you please fill out this comment card so that we can fix the issue?”

Her lips turned up into a wry smile, and this time he felt himself blushing under her sharp yet amused gaze.  He slipped the comment card in front of her but she didn’t even glance at it. “I expect this to be fixed promptly,” she said in an almost teasing way.

“Of course,” he put on his most charming grin and she glanced at him suspiciously one last time before sauntering away, leaving the comment card untouched.

Hours later, once she let her hair down and left the museum, he grabbed the original sign from the drawer.  He discretely returned to the tapestry and switched the signs, tossing the incorrect one in the trash on his way back.

.

It took longer for her to notice the next error, but three days later he was thrilled to see her marching towards his desk again with the same mix of confidence and irritation at there being false information in the world.

It was an especially hot summer day so she had her golden hair in a loose bun. She wore a navy tank top that showed her pale shoulders and a smattering of freckles along her collarbone.  Link was jealous of her comfortable attire – a black cotton shirt and pants was not exactly great for this summer heat.

“There’s another error,” she said.  Unlike the last time, however, she was smiling.  Link hoped she was smiling because of him. “On the Terminan translation for the Book of Vows, one of the words is in present tense when it should be in past tense.”

“I’m not surprised, but you know Terminan?” he asked, trying once again to seem calm and professional but he couldn’t stop himself from grinning.

“Not very well,” she admitted. “Just enough basic grammar to know that the sign is incorrect.”

“Will you fill out a comment card?” He asked.

“No,” she answered, and then spun around and left.

.

The next time the error was an incorrect date that was off by a year, then the wrong type of rock for a sculpture, then an artist’s first and last name were switched.  She caught every single one.  Each time she strode confidently to the front desk and announced the flaw.  He hoped she played along because she got a reason to speak with him, but he was confident that she just loved to test her knowledge.

On a particularly rainy day she approached him again.  “There’s another error,” she didn’t even wait for him to ask what it was. “The sign for the taxidermy crane says the scientific name is Dromaius Novaehollandiae, but it’s actually Gruidae.”

He opened his mouth to reply but she suddenly leaned in much closer than before and his words caught in his throat.

“Make it harder next time,” she whispered. “This one was too easy.”

She quickly jumped away and walked back to her spot, leaving Link stunned and his heart swollen with an undeniable crush.

.

Link tried his best to keep his eyes on the old women he was talking to, but he could feel Zelda’s gaze on him and he never had to work so hard to just look at something.  He gave his usual speech about handicap accessible ramps, and if he smiled a little more than usual he would not admit it was because the mysterious girl finally seemed interested in him.

It had been a week since Zelda approached him and hinted that she knew his game.  She didn’t always solve his inaccuracies within a day, but his most recent one had stumped her.  On the third day he heard from two of the guards that she had been circling the museum all day reading each placard multiple times, looking more frustrated as time went on.  A whole week later and she still had no idea what he had done.

Now she seemed to think the best plan of action was to sit in the Wintergarden and stare at him like he was some kind of specimen on a microscope. Her attentions made him flustered, hot, and a little bit light-headed, all of which he tried to keep hidden but he knew he was doing a poor job of it.

“You feeling okay, young man?” One of the elderly ladies asked, peering up at him through her half-moon glasses.

Link chuckled nervously and continued his spiel about elevators, ignoring her question.

He soon said goodbye to the group of ladies just as his manager came up to watch the desk while he went on his lunch break.  He took his paper bag out from the drawer and began to walk across the lobby to the employee break room as he always did.  Halfway there, however, Zelda stepped right in front of him.

For a second she just glared at him, but then she said, “Let’s get lunch.”

Link’s heart skipped a beat.  Although he became incredibly nervous, he obviously agreed.

.

“Tell me about yourself,” Zelda ordered as she took one of his grapes from his lunch bag and popped it into her mouth.

They sat on top of the hill just above the museum in the shade of a large tree.  It was a cloudy summer day, but the air was warm and the gentle breeze was a relief against his flushed face.  They sat side by side on the grass.  Link munched on his meager sandwich while Zelda stole his grapes.

“What do you want to know?” He asked.

“Anything that will help me figure out what you’ve changed this time,” she replied, gazing out at the dense forest that surrounded the museum.

“So you want a clue,” he clarified and her sharp green eyes snapped to him.

“No,” she said defensively. “I don’t want you to give it away.  I just need to figure you out more and that will help me solve this puzzle.”

Link wasn’t sure how he felt about that.  Did he mind being just a game to her?  He felt like he should have some dignity and be offended, but he was too excited to be talking to her to care.

“So,” she prompted as she leaned forward with her arms on her knees, looking at him keenly. “Let’s start with your name.”

He chuckled around a mouthful of food. “I can’t believe you don’t know my name after all this time.  It’s Link, by the way.”

“Link,” she muttered, mulling it over. “Not what I expected.”

“Oh really? What did you think it was?”

“I’ve always just thought of you as Mr. Misinformed since you’re spreading misinformation to the world.”

Link let out a short laugh, nearly choking on another mouthful of his sandwich.

She popped another grape into her mouth.  “Why do you work at the museum?” she continued.

“Needed money and they were the first people to offer me a job,” he replied simply.

“What do you use the money for?”

He felt it was already becoming an odd line of questioning, but he didn’t hold back. “Saving up for college mostly, sometimes I buy food.”

“When are you going to college?”

“In August.”

“Where?”

“CTU.”

“What will you be studying?”

“Don’t know yet.”

“Are you excited?”

“I guess.”

“Are you happy that you’re going to CTU?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t sound thrilled.”

He paused now and looked at her.  “Don’t you think it’s my turn to ask you questions?”

“I don’t see the point in that,” she sighed as she flopped onto her back and stared up at the clouds.  Her golden hair fanned around her head, blades of grass poking between the strands.

“Well, I do,” Link said, finally finishing his sandwich.

“You ate that quickly,” she stated bluntly.

“I’ve always thought I should become a professional speed eater,” he replied as he began eating his few remaining grapes.

“Is that what you’ll study at university?” she asked teasingly.

Link gave her an amused look, knowing she was trying to steer the conversation back to him.

“So, are you at university or in highschool or neither…?” He asked, trailing off and wishing he had the same confidence she did.

She sighed, clearly annoyed he insisted on asking her questions. In a rush of words, she said, “I’m about to go into my second year at Rhoam University. I’m still undecided in my major but I’m choosing between mechanical engineering and molecular biology.  I was born and raised in Castle Town.  I’m allergic to bees.”

“There,” she added a second later, smiling slyly at him as the wind played with a few loose strands of her hair. “Now that you know these basic facts, let’s get back to you.”

“Wait,” Link cut in, the words just registering. “You go to Rhoam University.”

“Yes,” she answered simply and he shook his head in amazement.  Rhoam University was the top in the country, one of the best in the world, but he wasn’t surprised she was at that school. Plus, Rhoam was in Castle Town, which is where he would be starting in September…

He stopped his thoughts before they spiraled any further down that rabbit hole.

“So then, what are you doing in Akkala?” He questioned, finishing his grapes and moving on to a granola bar.

She was quiet for a moment and looked back to the passing clouds.  Her smile had fallen and she looked a bit sad. After a moment, she replied with a bit less confidence than before,

“My father is sick.  Nothing life-threatening, but the doctors recommended that he get away from the city to escape the stress of that lifestyle and get some fresh air.  So we came to Akkala where there are plenty of trees and nothing ever happens.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Link said quietly, his heart squeezing with sympathy.

“Don’t worry,” she brushed it off, sitting back up again. “It seems to be working well for him.”

They were silent for a second, Zelda staring down at the museum beneath them and Link looking at the pieces of grass now entwined with her hair.  He wanted to know more about her father, but didn’t want to push too far.

“Do you like Akkala?” He asked, resisting the urge to pluck the blades out for her.

She shrugged. “It’s fine.  I see the appeal, but I don’t have much to do here.”

Link huffed in agreement.  That was the story of his life.

“Is that why you’re always at the museum?” He inquired and she looked at him again with a sharp gleam that made his heart flutter.

“Precisely,” she nodded. “This is the most interesting attraction around that I can bike to.  And it’s air-conditioned.”

Link chuckled.  He always missed the coolness of the museum on his days off.

“Now, enough about me,” she said, regaining the confidence and quickness of her usual self. “I need to learn more about you in order to figure this out.”

And so Link spent the remaining twenty minutes of his break answering an array of seemingly random questions, but apparently it did not suffice.  Zelda was still at a loss for what was missing in the museum.  Before he returned to his desk, she insisted they get lunch again tomorrow so that she could continue her investigation of his psyche – or something along those lines. Oh, and he needed to bring more grapes too.

Link couldn’t have stopped grinning if somebody paid him to.

.

The next morning Zelda marched right up to the front desk.  When she finally stood before him, she let out a big breath and announced, “I’m an idiot.”

Link smirked, already knowing where this was going.

“It was clever of you, to hide it in such plain sight,” she grudgingly conceded, “but last night I came to a revelation and realized what was wrong here.”

“And that is…?” he asked with a tilt of his head.

“Your name tag,” she answered. “It says Pipit but your name is Link.”

“That’s correct,” he grinned, finally able to snap off the wrong name tag that he had been wearing for the past week. “Are you embarrassed it took you that long?”

“No,” she huffed before spinning around and stomping away, clearly both embarrassed and annoyed.  Link, on the other hand, felt triumphant.

.

Although Zelda had solved the puzzle, Link was happy that it didn’t stop her from demanding lunch with him.  The next few days followed a similar pattern as the one before. During his lunch break they would walk out to the shade of the tree on the hill and Link would eat while Zelda stole his grapes and asked a series of questions that popped out of her stream of conscious.  With each day Link was able to get her to answer more and more of his own questions. He discovered that she was in fact a certified genius but only had a love for hard science, nothing that couldn’t be quantified.  She told him about a volunteer program she was a part of in Castle Town where she taught chemistry to underdeveloped schools.  She talked about her roommates who would drag her out of the library to parties, and how she would sometimes dance by herself in her lab when nobody was around. He also learned that her mother had passed when she was very young, and her father was overworked and often gone, but he was kind and all she had left.

He also learned she enjoyed eating chips and apples, in addition to stealing his grapes.

On Friday it was a complete downpour and so they couldn’t go to their usual spot for lunch.  Instead, they ate in the Wintergarden on the same bench Zelda always sat in.  The rain pounded on the windowed ceiling, and Link noticed her frequently glancing up at it, enchanted by how the water splattered and rippled on the glass.

“What are you studying all the time?” he asked as Zelda peeled one of his oranges.  He was sure to bring two this time so that they could both have one.

“Whatever I feel like,” she answered. “Sometimes when I don’t know what to research I find a random artifact in the gallery and learn all I can about it.”

Link was both amazed and intimidated by her desire for knowledge and her ability to seemingly understand anything if she chose to research it.  He wondered if that was what she was doing with him: researching him completely so that she could solve all of his puzzles.

He had nearly forgotten about this game he had started.  They had begun speaking more as friends and less about the game.  She even smiled at him when she came into the museum now.  It was a coy, teasing smile, one that took his attention away from whatever he was working on.

“Can I see your notebook?” he asked, pointing to the leather book she was always vigorously writing in.  It sat beside her on the bench, the pages thinning and warping with use.

She shrugged and handed it to him like it was no big deal, but Link felt as if he was holding a very important part of Zelda.  The leather was cracked in his hands as he flipped through the pages.  The notebook reflected much of Zelda’s own mind.  It was overflowing with information, words often becoming smooshed together around the edges and arrows drawn between sections, connecting her disparate ideas.  Her handwriting was both messy and elegant, the stems and swoops of her letters long and elegant but tight together.

“Don’t you ever get bored of the museum?” He wondered, running his fingers gently across a doodle she did of a flower.  Perhaps they weren’t so different after all.

“Sometimes.  I wish I could drive to other places, but all I have is my bike so I can’t get too far anywhere,” she answered.

“Where would you like to go?”

“The old research lab up north,” she replied. “I hear it’s a pretty small, unimpressive museum, but that’s where a lot of scientific advancement took place so I’d like to see it nonetheless.”

And, as if his mind had suddenly disconnected from his mouth, he said without thinking, “I could drive you there if you want.”

Link could feel his face become flushed with embarrassment.  Why did he offer that?  Would she think it was a date?  What if they went and she grew bored of him, or he crashed the car?

“Really?” She exclaimed happily, shocking him out of his panicked thoughts. “Would you really take me?”

“O-of course,” he stammered out. “I mean, if you want to ­­­­– ,”

“I do!” she jumped in, full of a passion that she always gets when she talked about her studies, or fruitcake. “Can we go this weekend?  I’ll pay for gas and whatever else you might need.”

“It’s only forty minutes away.”

“Nevertheless, I will make this the easiest forty minute drive of your life.”

Link highly doubted that considering he was now going to lie awake all night in a mix of panic and excitement.  He agreed to take her tomorrow anyway, knowing there was no way he would say no to her.

Later, after they had made their plans and exchanged phone numbers, he returned to his desk and came to an important realization.  He didn’t actually own a car.

.

That evening Link had to beg his grandma to let him borrow her car.  Even though he would be horribly embarrassed to drive Zelda in it ­– it was brown with peeling paint and the brakes screeched so loudly dogs would bark – but it would do.  He told her that he and some of the boys from school were going to go to the beach for the day.  Although he wasn’t doing anything unsavory, he knew that she would become unbearably annoying and thrilled that he was going to spend the day with some girl, so there was no way he was going to tell her.  Though she was hesitant at first, she did eventually agree.

“Yes, thank you so much, Grandma,” He said excitedly, kissing her cheek with glee.

“But you should bring Aryll,” she added and his heart dropped to his stomach.

“Grandma,” he started with exasperation but she held a finger up to stop him.

“Poor girl hasn’t been to the ocean in a year.  Be a good brother and take her with you.  I’ll even give you money for ice cream.”

Link felt guilty – he hadn’t lied to his family since middle school when he stole a candy bar – and now his only hope was that Aryll, his twelve year-old sister, would suddenly hate the ocean and refuse to come.

He was disappointed (but not surprised) to see Aryll bouncing up and down with delight at the prospect of going to the beach tomorrow.  What had Zelda done to him?  She made him all worked up about going to a museum that he lied to his family and now was in a stupid mess.  He supposed he could come clean but then his grandma would definitely embarrass him about going out with a girl and trying to keep it a secret.  Shit.

That’s how Link ended up in the car with Aryll on the way to Zelda’s address begging her to lie to grandma and say they went to the beach when instead they were going to a museum up north.

“I’ll do it for a hundred rupees,” She huffed, grinning mischievously at him from the passenger seat. She had always been annoyingly coy and confident while Link felt like a fumbling, awkward boy all the time.  He envied how easy everything seemed for her, and then he remembered that she was only twelve and it just made him feel worse.

Despite all that, he still loved her the way brothers do: unconditionally but never to be said aloud.

“That’s absurd,” Link rolled his eyes, steering the car further up the hill towards. “I’ll buy you ice cream.”

“That’s nothing, Grandma told me she gave you money for that,” she retorted. “Just for that, I am making it 150 rupees.”

“Fine, I’ll give you ice cream and ten rupees,” Link countered and she was silent for a moment, pondering the deal.

“That and you fold my laundry for a week,” She replied quickly and Link just shook his head in exhaustion.  He didn’t like it, but they were close to Zelda’s address now and he didn’t have any more time to bargain.

“Deal,” he agreed and she squealed with victorious delight.  “And don’t be annoying, or ask too many questions, or talk about – ,”

“Wow, you must really like her,” she interrupted with another smirk.

“Shut up,” Link said just as they pulled up in front of the address.

Or at least he hoped it was right.  The house was massive and absolutely beautiful with a manicured garden, cobalt paint, and the Hylian flag floating in the breeze outside of their front door. He wondered if anybody else lived with Zelda and her father.  Why would two people need three floors to themselves?

As Zelda rushed out of the front door and across the lawn, Link became horribly embarrassed of his Grandma’s car again, and of Aryll who looked positively thrilled to be meeting this mysterious girl Link had tried to hide.

“Get in the back,” Link ordered Aryll but she crossed her arms in refusal.

“I was here first.”

“You aren’t even old enough to sit up front, get back.”

“Fifteen rupees then,” she countered and Link wanted to throttle himself.

“Ugh, fine,” he hastily agreed as Zelda reached the car and Aryll quickly crawled into the backseat.

“Hey,” he greeted her, trying to be as charming and cool as he could in Akkala’s oldest car. The door creaked as she swung it open, and he noticed her wince.

At that moment he really wished he had just continued admiring Zelda from afar.  It really was much easier than this.

“Good morning,” she greeted cheerily, plopping into the passenger seat.  Even after talking with her for the past week, she still had that unattainable air about her.  Her long blonde hair looked paler in the morning light and the sun reflected brilliantly in her emerald eyes.  She wore jean shorts and a black t-shrit that had the words Rhoam the Earth on it.  Link thought she was the coolest girl he had ever seen.

“Sorry, I had to bring my sister along,” Link apologized nervously as he began to drive again.  “This is Aryll.”

Before Zelda could even say hi, Aryll bluntly asked, “Are you rich?”

Link wanted to throttle her now.

“Yes,” Zelda replied without a pause in the same terse, matter-of-fact tone she often used when answering questions.  “Are you?”

“No,” Aryll unashamedly replied while Link’s face became scarlet with embarrassment.  “What do your parents do?”

“My dad’s a politician of sorts,” she replied, nonplused. “What do your parents do?”

“Mom’s a waitress. Our dad is dead.” Aryll corrected as if it were another ordinary, uninteresting fact.  Link kept his eyes on the road even as he felt Zelda glance to him.  He had never mentioned his dad.  He wondered if she would be weird about it.

For now, at least, the two moved past the topic and continued to bounce questions off of each other.  Link was glad that Zelda didn’t seem to be upset about Aryll joining them, and he thought that they got along well.  They both were honest and blunt in a way that few people ever are.  Link drove in silence as he listened to them talk, and though he was still bitter towards Aryll, he did enjoy learning more about Zelda.

“Do you like Link?” Aryll asked with a teasing lilt to her voice as Link’s face became red again for what felt like the twentieth time that day.

He felt Zelda glance at him again.  After a second, she replied with the same mischievousness as Aryll, “He’s alright.” And then the two giggled together and Link once again regretted everything he had ever done to that point in his life.

.

At the Akkala Research Museum, Link learned very little.  It was a tiny museum with even less traffic than the Mila Van Windfall Museum. It sat atop a cliff right on the coast of the East Hylian Ocean and the tall, skinny trees swayed at the slightest breeze.

He followed Zelda throughout the museum, his heart squeezing with affection whenever she pointed something out with excitement or jotted a note down in her journal.  She possessed an infectious joy and passion when she talked about her studies, and Link couldn’t help but feel a bit of that same enthusiasm, even though he had no idea what she was talking about most of the time.

Thankfully, Aryll stayed out of their way as she was occupied by a children’s interactive exhibit where she could build little robots.  It seemed both girls got something out of their visit, but if anybody had asked Link what his favorite part was he wouldn’t have been able to give an answer. All he knew was that his crush on this mysterious girl had grown into something more and he was thoroughly doomed.

After they wandered the museum for a while, they ate some food Zelda had the foresight to pack and sat on a bench beside the cliff.  Despite the panic and embarrassment in the morning, Link couldn’t help but feel content with Zelda sitting beside him and a beautiful view of the sea.  Zelda and Aryll talked about the little robots that she had been playing with for a while, but then Aryll decided to wander off on her own and explore the small surrounding area.  Link and Zelda continued eating their lunch, contently listening to the squawking seagulls and the distant rumble of waves crashing on the beach.

“I’m sorry about your dad,” Zelda said quietly, suddenly breaking their comfortable silence.

Link looked to Aryll, who was a ways off chasing the butterflies floating amongst the flower bushes. He swallowed a lump in his throat and tried not to think of his dad.

“Thanks,” he replied a bit awkwardly, never really sure what to say.

“My mother died when I was six,” she added.

Link looked at her now. She had a serene yet sad smile on her face and her eyes gazed out to the horizon.  In this cloudy weather, her usually vibrant green irises seemed more teal than emerald.  He wasn’t sure what to say, but he trusted that Zelda knew he felt the same useless pity that she felt for him.  Instead, he talked about his dad, something he almost never did.

“My dad died a few months before Aryll was born,” he explained quietly. “He was in the military and died in combat overseas.  It’s odd…I never really knew him that well, but I miss the idea of what we would have been like if he had come home.”

He stared at his sandwich, no longer interested in it.  He had never spoken about that feeling before, but it was a relief to finally voice it.

“Do you…” Zelda started softly, before trailing off in uncertainty.  She paused, and then tried again in a frail whisper. “Do you remember what he looked like?”

Link turned to her to see her eyes glistening, but that serene smile was still present.  He had a feeling that she wouldn’t like his answer, and that she already knew it, so instead he gently placed his hand over hers and hoped that she gained the same comfort from his presence as he did from her.

This time her smile had warmth in it, and it made the heaviness that had fallen in Link’s heart lighten just a little.

At that point Aryll came back and announced that she was bored.  They left the museum soon after with Link driving and everybody quietly listening to the radio.  As they drove onto the highway, Link glanced to Zelda to see her looking at him with that warm smile on her face again.  He couldn’t help but smile as well, and he felt inexplicably drawn to her even more since he first saw her at the museum.

.

At his following shift at the museum, Zelda brought him peanut butter brownies and a bag of grapes.

“This is me repaying you for taking me to the museum,” she said sweetly, handing over a box of brownies. “Aryll told me you loved chocolate and peanut butter.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Link started, touched by the fact that she took time to make him food, but Zelda quickly moved past him.

“I know, but I did.” She then pulled out a bag of green grapes and plopped them on the desk. “And these are for all the grapes I’ve stolen from you.”

Zelda then glanced to the side and Link followed her gaze, seeing his manager approaching as he usually did in the mornings to check-in.

She lifted a brow. “See you at lunch?”

“Obviously,” Link replied with a wide grin.

She winked at him and then walked back to her usual spot, her hair swishing behind her.

.

Link and Zelda became inseparable after that.  When he worked at the museum he would constantly glance at Zelda and she would glance at him, and they would share smiles they thought nobody else could see but them.  They weren’t as subtle as they thought though, because soon the security guards in the lobby would tease Link every day.  

“You should tell her she looks like a model and you want to make her into a sculpture,” one security guard helpfully supplied, chuckling with his coworker as if they once again spent a few minutes trying to think of museum pick-up lines.

“Oh, oh, how about…are you an artist, because I’m drawn to you,” the other one added.

Link wanted to quit right then as the two guards laughed together beside him at the desk.

When he wasn’t trying to evade the security guards, he looked forward to his lunch breaks where they would lie on the grass beneath the tree on the hill.  On particularly slow days, Link would watch her draw flowers in the Wintergarden.  On the weekends they would meet up and Link would drive her to some part of Akkala she had never been to.  Aryll frequently joined, much to his annoyance but Zelda was always happy to have her.  The places they went to were areas none of his peers were interested in – burnt forests, lake shores with high mineral deposits, muddy banks brimming with frogs – but he soon realized he would go wherever she wanted just to spend time with her.

He often wondered how to become more than friends.  He dreamed of her boldly marching into the museum, announcing she wanted to date him, and then they would kiss and laugh and it would all be so easy. Occasionally he would seriously consider marching up to her and announcing his wish to date her, but just the thought made him horribly nervous and nauseous.  He always reassured himself that he had more time to figure it out, that he would know when the moment was right and it would work itself out.

That’s why when she told him she was going back to Castle Town in two days, he felt like time had passed unfairly quickly.

“What?” he gawked as they walked up the hill during his lunch hour.

“It’s a little early,” she explained. “But we start earlier than CTU does, and I need to move into my apartment before classes overtake my life.”

Link didn’t know what to say, but his disappointment must have been apparent.

“Let’s hang out tomorrow night,” Zelda suggested enthusiastically. “I need to have some more of Lon Lon’s Ice Cream before I go back to Castle Town.”

“That sounds good,” Link agreed, but the usual excitement he felt for their get-togethers was mixed with the dread of her leaving.  Nevertheless, they made plans to bike and meet there tomorrow to celebrate her last night.

“It’s not like this will be the last time we will see each other,” Zelda smiled, sensing his distress. “Once you get to Castle Town and settle in, text me and we will meet up. I’ll bring you to some upperclassmen parties.”

“Oh, look at you,” Link teased and rolled his eyes. “You’re just a second year and you think you’re all high and mighty.”

“Better than being a first year,” she jibed back. “But seriously, I’m excited that you’ll be in Castle Town with me.  It’ll be nice having another friend there.”

Link just smiled and kept the rest of his concerns to himself.  Though they would be in the same city he worried she would become consumed by her rigorous classes and labs and hanging out with better, way smarter friends.  He bet all the guys she hung out with had their own cars and could follow along when she spoke of molecules and photons.

Those thoughts plagued his mind for the remainder of his shifts, and they still bounced around in his head as he biked to Lon Lon’s ice cream café the next night.  He told himself once again to stop thinking about it and just enjoy their last summer night together, but he wasn’t doing a good job of it.

At the ice cream parlor they laughed and chatted and Zelda got some of her vanilla ice cream on her nose, which was so frustratingly cute Link had to look away.  They sat by the pond and watched the fireflies slowly begin to awaken and lazily float around them.  She laughed at his jokes and briefly touched his arm.  He tried to get the courage to tell her he would miss her horribly for the next few weeks, that he liked how much her intelligence intimidated him, that her energy was vivacious and infectious, and he felt drawn to her like a moth to a lamp.

He didn’t know how to say all of this though.  Instead, he just said, “You are nothing like I expected.”

She licked her cone and raised a brow. “Oh really?” She teased. “What did you expect?”

Link smiled and shook his head. Twilight was fading into night but her green eyes were still as bright and as intoxicating as they were in the Wintergarden. Her golden hair fell gracefully around her shoulders, and her cheeks and nose had a hint of red to them, still a bit sun burnt from their latest excursion. He didn’t know if it was because he was inclined to romantic fantasies and all that, but he truly thought she looked as elegant as one of those paintings in the museum even in jean shorts and an old t-shirt.

“I don’t know,” he said after a second. “but you are nothing like I ever imagined.”

“Is that a good thing?” she asked.

He grinned at her. “Very.”

They stared at each other for a moment, and Link so desperately wanted to kiss her.  His fingers actually ached from resisting the urge to cup her cheek and stroke her hair.

But then she went back to licking her ice cream, and he felt the moment was gone.  He asked if she wanted to do anything else that night, but she had an early train in the morning so she decided to head back home.

They slowly walked to their bikes that were propped up against the side of the ice cream shop. It was only a few dozen yards away, but Link frantically spent the entire walk begging time to slow down and thinking of the words to say to show how he felt.  All too quickly they arrived at their bikes and Zelda hopped on. She was about to take off when she stopped and looked at him.

She smiled a bit sadly and began slowly, “Well, I guess I’ll see you in a few weeks…”

“Yes,” Link agreed, his heart thumping wildly in his chest.

“You better text me when you arrive,” she ordered with a slight glare.

“Will do.”

What to say? Would she feel the same?

“Well…” she looked to the road and adjusted her pedals. “See you later?”

“Yeah,” Link said even as he internally screamed at himself to stop her and say something different. “See you later.”

“Okay,” she said slowly, shooting him one last weird glance before sighing and adjusting her bike again. She then pushed off the curb and began biking away, her blonde hair floating behind her.

Link watched her till she turned the corner.  

He sighed. “Shit,” he said to himself.

Immediately he felt the weight of regret sinking in, and he realized he made a huge mistake. He knew he would never have the perfect words to say, but it would be better to say them than not at all.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he grabbed his bike and began to peddle after her as fast as he could.  He weaved between a group of moms and their toddlers, past a truck, and even ignored a puppy to try to catch up with her.  It didn’t take him long to find her, but he was still as winded as if he had run a mile.

He peddled furiously down the long straight road, easily gaining on her.  When he was a few feet behind her, he called out to her and she spun her head around with a start.

“Link?” She called in confusion, braking to a halt.

Link jumped off of his bike before it even came to a complete stop, tossing it into the grass. His breathing was heavy and his heart was beating furiously.  She looked at him with confusion, her eyebrows furrowed and her pink lips pursed together.

“You’re like nobody I’ve ever met,” he said in a rush. “I took up more shifts just so we could hang out more.  I think I’ve spent a total of fifty rupees just trying to get Aryll to behave so that she wouldn’t embarrass me in front of you.  I also risked getting fired every time I switched those signs because you and I both know that’s not okay, but I did it because…because…”

“Because…?” Zelda urged, looking expectantly at him with her big green eyes.

He swallowed the lump in his throat.  “Because I…I like you.  A lot. In a, you know, more-than-friends way.”

The grin that immediately broke out on her face was triumphant and wicked and absolutely joyous. Meanwhile, he felt horrified and was ready to sprint all the way home if he had to.  She jumped off of her bike and snapped the kickstand into place, never taking her sharp gaze off of him.  In just a few steps she was standing before him, her doe eyes gazing up at him and her hands held sweetly behind her back.  For a second she just stared at him, and Link forced himself to hold her mischievous gaze even though he was terrified out of his mind.

“It’s about time,” she finally said, and then she tugged on his shirt and brought his lips down to hers.

He was stunned at first.  His brain didn’t reboot until she was just starting to pull away, but then it was like he snapped back to life again.  His arms circled around her waist and held her against him as his lips moved with hers. Her lips were softer than he ever imagined.  Her silky blonde hair tickled his arms and her sweet smell washed over him.

He then started laughing and had to break the kiss for a breath.  She laughed with him as they held each other, their foreheads pressed together.

“I’m sorry that took me so long,” he apologized.

“Seriously,” she playfully rolled her eyes at him.

He gently tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Well, why didn’t you make a move?” He asked, not at all accusatory.

“I don’t know…” she shrugged, blushing and looking up at him with those big green eyes that he could never disobey.

“No, I know,” he replied and she laughed merrily again before reaching up to resume their kiss.

They gently held each other and shared kisses again until a minute later when a car whizzed by and honked at them, making them blush and laugh all over again.

“You better come to Castle Town quickly,” she demanded as Link picked his bike off the ground. “I am very impatient.”

“Oh, I know,” he replied and she swatted playfully at his arm.  He grabbed her hand and pulled her in for another kiss.  He was worried he was starting to become addicted to them.

“I’ll see you soon,” he whispered, giving her one last hug.

“I’ll see you soon,” she echoed, pressing her lips to his cheek.  They finally stepped away from each other and got back on their bikes.

“Bring grapes,” Zelda ordered as she slowly began to bike away from him.

“Obviously,” he replied and she smiled at him over her shoulder.

He watched her bike away, already imagining all the things they would do together in Castle Town.

Notes

As usual this took an embarrassingly long time to write and it was supposed to be a short oneshot but it came out to be over 10k words.

This was inspired by “Me at the Museum, You in the Wintergardens” by Tiny Ruins.

The museum is based off of The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Thanks for reading!

~~Wave~~

[wildlingknight]

So like I wrote this stuff down around September 2017 with the intention to write a fic about it (I might still do that when I have more time) but it’s just sitting and festering in my drive so I’ll put it here for now and build on it when uni is done. It’s a super long post but I did put a cut in.

There’s a whole bunch of mind vomit stuff here:

 I was talking to my discord group about things that could have been added to Botw because I’d gotten to a point in the game when I’d done mostly everything and was just putting off facing Ganon because I didn’t want it to end. So I came up with gods and spirits that you might meet in random places and sometimes they have quests for you or something. Taken directly from the server:

“This isn't really a hc more a random idea but what if there were time specific places on the map in botw? Like I just found  place on the side of death mountain called shadow hamlet ruins, what if you go there and it's just some ruined houses with a meteor wizzrobe in any other time but on the night of a new moon there's like creepy shadows that kinda come out of the wood work and shadows of the ruins and they don't exactly attack you but make you super uneasy and circle you a bit and it's like the people who lived and died there as a result of the calamity, like we know it corrupts the living but what if it doesn't let the dead rest either?

Like there are places all over hyrule that are just places until you visit them on a specific night or day or when certain parameters are met and you have a unique little event happen like a person you wouldn't meet any other time with items you can only get from them or maybe the dragons rest somewhere and you can just stumble across them, or more spirits and godlike beings who you wouldn't come across any other time apart from this one random spit of woodland halfway up the dueling peaks on a night where it's raining you come across an ethereal glowing woman or something who watches over the plants and mushrooms like glow like her, and you can't really interact with them because we are insignificant to them, they are so indifferent to us with our mortal comings and goings that the most we can hope for is a glimpse of them, just to make the world feel even more alive than it already does

I think Link is more aware of them because he is goddess chosen, goddess touched, and he's a gentle and pure soul who they in turn are drawn to, I like that he has a connection to them through having being dead but I personally like to think they're a bit afraid of him, he was brought back through science like magic without the godesses interference or hands, that shouldn't happen he died and by all means should have stayed dead but here he is, wandering hyrule saving people and dragons and riding gods across plains and placating giant mechanical creatures that will only listen to him, in their eyes he's a fucking monster or demon

And they know you don't piss off a demon who denied death so they're cautious but curious in equal measure”

And then neatened up and made less mind vomity:

Ruins

On specific nights- different for each ruin- the ghosts of the people who lived and died there during the calamity come out on the night they were wiped out. Different for each place depending on how close they were to castle and what the actual cause was, e.g. castle town would have been hit first and hardest by the Calamity itself so that would get spooky on the night of Zelda’s birthday every year. If they are fairly far away from the castle e.g. Shadow Hamlet ruins on the far side of Death Mountain, it would be a different night and they would feel different due to the nature of their deaths, such as being wiped out by monsters fuelled and powered by the Calamity. They don’t attack but most travellers accidentally come across them and fear for their lives saying ruins are haunted at night so they try to avoid them, preferring to go to living villages or taking their chances with monsters out on the roads or in the woods. When Link (and later Zelda) enter the ruins on the specific night they act up the spirits hiss and circle him and lament their passing in groans and wails but they do not come close because he is light and they cannot touch him. He died for them and Zelda cried for them, they are Goddess chosen and Goddess touched.

Lesser Gods and Spirits

Found all over Hyrule, again during different specific times when certain parameters are met.

A lesser Goddess who watches over plants and mushrooms that glow with the same ethereal light as her- can only be found where they grow in abundance, like the pillar in Kakariko on a rainy night during a new moon, and also conversing with Cotera the great fairy there.

A giant stag with two faces who watches over the life and death of animals, seen all over Hyrule as long as there’s a moon showing, so not on cloudy nights. Eyes like miniature galaxies and coat the colour of moss, fur appears to be made of grass and hooves of wood and several times the amount of antlers normal deer have that are white like bleached bone and strung with what looks to be pearls.

A woman with long black hair, horns like a Lynels and the face of a wolf who’s snout ends turned up like a Moblin’s, with three eyes that constantly glow like the reflection of a cats at night and who’s mouth doesn’t move when she speaks in a growl and smoke and sparks emits from her open mouth over her lolling black tongue- the Mother of Monsters and she hates Link.She doesn’t attack him when he meets her but she is unkind to him and she growls and snarls at him, threatening to curse him and his children’s children for as many of hers he has killed. Found in Akkala in Rok woods and Tempest Gulch most commonly but also occasionally other places, can take the form of a monstrous wolf when the need to escape arises.

A child made of water that swims with the fish, watches over everything that lives and breathes in water. The Zora refer to them as ‘The Child of Nayru’, and offer to them to keep the fish they eat good and plentiful. Seen by Link on the banks of the Rutala river when he stops for a drink after tackling the Rucco Maag shrine. Ripples like water constantly so it’s difficult to pin down specific features or gender, and voice is almost gurgling sounding

A giant scarab beetle, white and iridescent, often seen in the desert around Dragon’s exile and known to Tera, the great fairy at the Gerudo Great Skeleton, the god of all insects. (There’s a joke going round Hyrule that Beedle is the god of all insects.)

The spirits that are just going about their work are cautious but curious about Link. Usually they are indifferent to mortals, their everyday motions and wants insignificant in the grand scheme of things. The Calamity was a tragedy, but nature still goes on so they can’t afford to abandon their work.

Link and Zelda

The Gods are frightened of them. Link died and should be subject to the laws of all living things but here he stands, blemished but alive, and yet it was not the Goddesses who chose this, it was without their aid, a magic forged by man. Instead he wanders, alive and well, helping who he can, man and spirit alike, Dragons take notice of him, Gods allow his burden upon their backs, abominable machines who listen to only him, at his command. And Zelda isn’t dead either, they should be dead, they had their time, had their chance. They carry too much light within them it hurts the spirit’s and god’s eyes to look upon them.

Once while I was playing with my friend we were talking about the koroks and I came up with a hc on how they’re born I guess:

“Maybe they're branches that fall off the deku tree when they start to rot because hes old as balls so I bet he loses branches like old men lose hair and then because of like forest magical bullshit they become the new children of the forest and they grow up to be like Hestu and it takes thousands of years for them to reach like 'maturity' but when it's time for the deku tree to die one of the korok will take his place but all those who grow to maturity before he dies go out into the lost woods and set up root and become the ogre trees”

And then because I like to hurt them while they’re all sleeping:

“I'll just leave this here for when y'all wake up, what if the reason Wild likes to eat so much is because he is trying to fill the void of loneliness left behind after his friends in the army start treating him differently after he becomes the chosen one and because of Zelda's initial dislike of him then after he wakes up from the shrine of resurrection he doesn't know why he's so hungry all the time until after he starts remembering zelda and then realises he's doing the same thing, trying to fill the void left in him after losing everyone he loved and half his memories and having to wait until he's strong enough to see Zelda again”

Enjoy!