#LU Meta

[thejolteonmastertj]

Also, poor Legend definitely has communication issues. Poor bro always getting read as mean or rude.

More fuel for my Autistic Legend headcanon.

(Source: https://www.tumblr.com/linkeduniverse/758261870143619072/entrance-pt2-coming-soon-comicarchive-about)

[batrogers]

Okay, fine, revisiting my “Time has PTSD” arguments in light of the most recent updates.

I’ve previously analyzed the question of Time’s reaction to the letter in Dawn pt. 9 here, and established my baseline that – what we do know about Time’s backstory strongly implies that there has been conflict in his Hyrule post-Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask which may have predisposed him to have strong, negative reactions to recent events like Twilight’s injury. I also did a revisit of that in the first part of Moving Forward, where Wild and the others were playing and Time seemed disconnected and out of it.

After the past few updates, I admit it’s striking to me that we’ve now gotten three sets of double-panel reactions where Time is blank for several seconds before actually displaying an emotional response (if he does at all.) It’s a really interesting choice on Jojo’s part.

This is literally every update except for “Enter...” since Dawn pt 9 (an update in which nobody talks at all.) Ever since the letter, Time has had a marked lack of response to the others. He’s reserved; he’s pulled back from treating them as comrades but he’s also retreated from giving orders. I noted in my last analysis that it looked like Time was calling the shots – but he’s not actually continued doing that. Once they set out, it seems like he’s just.... stopped.

Stopped engaging with them, and stopped reacting until something drastic (like the skultula, or bewilderment about the Epona comment) forces him to react, as happened with the likelike ages back.

A brief repeat of my prior analysis: while it’s been three years for us, between the last time Time smiled (when Sky asked him about Malon in ‘Miss Her’) to now, in-comic it has been maybe a few days, depending on how long Twilight took to recover. In that time, they battled Dink (who they don’t yet understand) Twilight ran off alone, showed back up and was taken out in seconds. Time made the split-second decision to save Twilight rather than battle an iron knuckle ala his era, and now we’re here.

Something I noticed on revisiting analysis is that we have seen Time get upset and off-balance before: when Wind began asking him about the Hero’s Legacy as well. Some of what people say when they analyze Time & Twilight stuff is how Time acts towards Twilight, as his son/descendent – but Wind is, in a sense, also Time’s successor and he reacted much the same way to him, too. Notably, Twilight in the midst of his injuries explicitly states some of his stubbornness is about his feelings about said legacy – both when he refuses to rest in the immediate, and while delirious in bed.

Whatever Time’s own burdens, Twilight very well may have actively made Time worse without realizing it. Knowing that someone looks up to you and has pushed himself to nearly dying would upset anyone, nevermind someone who possibly has been a commander (and, therefore, responsible for other people's safety) before too.

The tension of the Chain struggling to to sort themselves out in the dungeon is not helping, although I don't think everyone is oblivious to it. Warriors attempted to reassure him when they discussed the Iron Knuckle's survival, and they do still defer to him (Sky looks for his approval before entering the portal) even if they don't let his bad mood ruin theirs. (eg. Despite his scolding over the skultula, Entrance pt 2 is a playful scene.)

Time was not always like this. He’s playful, teasing the others and showing off his masks; he’s not nosy or controlling– he lets Legend refuse to explain his hair – but not entirely closed off, ala Sky asking him about Malon. I don’t think Jojo intends him to be a grumpy no-fun asshole (she drew this dayglo nonsense in the middle of Twilight taking forever to die), so I wonder.

What is the reason for his stress? And where is Jojo going with it? I’m deeply curious to see how the dungeon is going to play out, when someone who should be among their strongest members is so compromised. I don't think it's gone unnoticed, and my prediction (and, tbh, hope because I like the dynamic) is that Warriors may step in and try to get Time to calm down...

But mostly I wrote this to reiterate my feelings: I don't think this is "a bad mood." Time is legitimately upset, possibly triggered, and I am very sure -- as much as Twilight may have caused it -- it's not just about him.

(And, let me repeat bc I'm sure someone will try to take this and run with it: Twilight is not responsible for this.

He is not guilty in any way with respect to Time's trauma or subsequent behaviour; there's no way he could've known this would happen. I hope if it does keep coming up someone steps between them to cut it off... but acting like Twilight did nothing to set this off downplays how the group dynamic affects everyone and has the potential to cause conflict all on its own.

It's ten times more interesting to see that Time is reacting to something Twilight actually did, than some nebulous attachment to an idea of "family" that overrules sense, reason, or having met each other literally days or weeks ago at best.)

[naehja]

About the idea of Legend and Fable being siblings

You know, I love the idea of Legend and Fable being siblings because…

…It could actually make sense. and it could have a reason to exist.

Time died in this timeline, whatever it was a timeline where he didn't have the seven years gap and get killed as a child, either he failed during his final fight as adult.

Whatever how Time died, he died. Hylia's hero failed, because he was too young, not enough experimented, ect…

Lullaby/Zelda barely managed to do something after Time's death and the situation was not great. For years, centuries, it has been terrible.

It was the start of the Downfall Timeline.

Years and years after the death of the poor young one, Hylia realized that Ganon was going to return. That she had to trigger the two reincarnations, Zelda and Link, to stop him. Or it would be the end of the world.

But she didn't want to make the same mistake. Link wouldn't be a nobody or a helpless child. He would have more power. So he would be more armed to face the menace, more prepared.

He would have the blood of Sky, her second hero, he would have the blood of Four, who married his Zelda at his Era. And he would have her sacred blood. The kid would be powerful. So he wouldn't face a tragic end.

And so Legend and Fable were twins.

What Hylia didn't plan was the reaction toward a little prince. Good thing, the mother of the twins refused to let her baby die and asked to her most faithful personnal knight to take the baby and to protect him. He accepted, thinking that killing inocent baby was a horrible thing, whatever a prince was a monster ONE time, this baby didn't do anything.

The twins didn't grow together, of course. Legend was a energic kid, and he was very smart for his age. He was able to speak to animals and to trees. At first his uncle didn't believe him but was forced to do it when faced the truth. Legend was a sensitive kid who always wanted to help people. He didn't want to become a knight but he liked the sword traning.

Sadely, the events of Link to the Past happened a lot sooner than Hylia had planned. Legend was barely eight. (Hylia has really failed her tactic to kill Ganon with a prepared adult, yeah)

He had some training with a sword, but wasn't a soldier. He survived to all the trials until finding Fi. Because he was talented, smart, lucky.

Fi was…not in a good state. Nobody hads taken care of her since the death of the previous hero. She was forgotten. She had still his blood on her. And then this tiny child take her in his little hands and she recognize her master's blood, he hears her voice. She sees how much he was young, fragile, still innocent and decided that no, this one wasn't going to die.

So Legend, without knowing it, has learned some of Sky's fighting style thank to Fi.

He has reforged her with his tiny hand, treating her as the most precious thing in the world.

He was always holding her when sleeping because he had a lot of nightmares for obvious reasons.

And Fi corrected his movements in a fight.

He could hear her because of Hylia's blood and because of Sky's blood in his veins.

And so the idea of Hylia, after the death of the previous hero, deciding to reincarne her hero as Sky's descendant, as her descendant to give him more powers, more capacities to survive….is very interesting.

And imagine, during the events of Linked Universe, Sky being like "you have the same fighting style than me?"

"The master sword teached me!"

"She SPOKE to you *o*?"

[uncleskyrule]

so apparently the Chain's ages are:

Time > Wars > Twi > Sky > Wild > Legend > Hyrule > Four > Wind

but i've been writing them like this:

Time > Twi > Wars > Sky > Wild > Four > Legend > Hyrule > Wind

welp

[thejolteonmastertj]

Words cannot express how much I love the body language & paneling here, bro is confusing himself. 😂

& here

Everybody loves that face, but IMO, the best face is this NEXT one.

It’s the escalation

from the blank face,

to an “ugh” face,

to a “what in HECK IS going on back there” that really kills me. It’s perfection.

Moving Forward

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Archive/ About / Linktree

[thejolteonmastertj]

WILD WHY WOULD YOU TEMPT FATE LIKE THAT.

(Source: https://www.tumblr.com/linkeduniverse/758261870143619072/entrance-pt2-coming-soon-comicarchive-about)

This is so ominous, bruh.

Now if something happens to Wild Legend’s gonna blame himself. 😭

He knows it too lmao Lege looks pissed.

[batrogers]

Civilized Or Not

So there’s some common Zelda fanon I wanna talk about, relating to civilization tropes I think some of y’all haven’t really thought about in detail before, and that’s Hyrule (Zelda 1 &2 Link), Wild (BOTW mostly), and Ravio (LbW).

I’m using the Linked Universe names, because that’s where most of it comes up, because these things happen most often where you can contrast the boys with each other. This is often done, quick and dirty, by people assigning “roles” to each without much thought. Ravio’s unfortunately tends to be extremely pervasive outside LU spaces, too.

But, in brief, there is a trend for people to craft these characters in a framework of innocent vs savagery vs trickery that can have some really unfortunate implications I’m not sure many are even aware of. Hopefully I can explain better where these ideas come from, why they’re so easy and appealing, and why we should try to avoid repeating them for more than just the sake of “easy” but also to stop repeating some really nasty historical tropes.

I would start from what’s probably the simplest one to address: the tendency towards a “feral” personification of Wild. This tends to come from two places: Wild’s amnesia, and the collapse of society around him and his lost place in it.

Now, brain damage is complicated. You can lose a range of things to any given injury because of the way information is encoded differently and in different places. You can lose memory and/or skills and/or coordination and/or balance, etc, because it all depends on what got damaged. But in-game a lot of stuff suggests that Link retains things like speech, reading/writing, coordination, and martial skills. None of the people who knew Link prior to his injury suggest he seems changed in any way not attributed to stress and anxiety...

And, more importantly, real people suffer memory loss just like that in the real world. Treating him like he’s become “feral” due to memory loss is cruel to actual people living with brain damage today, and if you go there you should have a good reason for it.

Social collapse is a wide-spread theme in basically every Zelda game. The threat that the Big Bad poses is almost always the destruction of society as it exists: Malladus literally vanishes the infrastructure of New Hyrule in Spirit Tracks; the Twilight turns people into spirits living lives they don’t realize are questionably real in Twilight Princess; Veran freezes the passage of time to force people to work forever in Oracle of Ages. King Daphnes and Ganondorf under the sea vie over the fate of the world above in Wind Waker: keep what’s been made, or start all over again?

In modern culture, people tell a lot of stories about the fragility of civilization and what happens in its absence. You get the range from Lord of the Flies, in which children wrecked on an island attempt (and fail) to recreate civilization on their own, Kipling’s “The Jungle Book” in which Mowgli is treated as reckless and innocent, and a much more obscure piece from the 18th century “Paul et Virginie” (and likely many more I don’t know offhand.) Essentially all of them play with the question of how do people become civilized, and what happens when they do? In Lord of the Flies, the children were civilized and failed to maintain it; in the Jungle Book, the boy wasn’t civilized and innocently interacts with it. In Paul et Virginie, the children were (relatively) uncivilized on the (French colonized) Mauritius, raised by their mothers but when the girl was sent away, she becomes civilized and dies tragically to preserve it.

The two Links most removed from civilization are Hyrule and Wild. Wild “lost” civilization, losing both his memories of it and the structure of it. Making him feral, without manners, and without a place to belong is that kind of Lord of the Flies savagery mixed with Mowgli’s innocent playfulness: there isn’t a structure to adhere to, so he’s a savage. Whereas Hyrule is more like the Paul eg Virginie side: innocent of civilization, he remains pure and sweet and kind, unable to conceive of big concepts like evil or money or so on. Neither position permits them to interact with the civilization that is right there in front of them! Wild can buy a house; he has people who know and care for him. He has social connections and social rights. The world exists, but the fandom does not seem to want him to interact with it in favour of remaining “wild.” In Zelda 2 – a game explicitly set within a decade of Zelda 1 – there are whole towns with trade and a castle and massive structures with on-going life in them... but very few fans seem to ever reach into that story or relate it back to the first. Hyrule, the character, does not exist within Hyrule, the country.

Strangely, Wind Waker does not fall prey to this, I think because the structures are presented as fait accompli: Link wakes up with his grandmother and his sister, he has a defined home, and a society in which you spend the entire game forced to engage with. Zelda 1 & 2 were not sophisticated enough to waste resources on going as in depth in social terms (although such interactions absolutely exist in Zelda 2!) and BOTW leaves such interactions as optional: you can survive the game with minimal social contact... but it’s a choice to play with it that way, not the default. The ways in which this edges onto the noble savage trope, in which “uncivilized” tribes are either innocent or brutish (rather than complex social systems in their own right) is fairly obvious.

There is one other character in Zelda who gets treated to the question of whether he is an innocent, free of civilization and all its rigour... or something else. Ravio, coming from the devastated world of Lorule, can often wind up slotted into the scared, innocent child trope and unfortunately that’s the better position people frequently take. The worse one evokes the Merchant of Venice: the deceitful, Jewish merchant who values money over people’s lives.

Lorule (and Nintedo’s approach towards their humanoid Zelda villains in general) is near-eastern-coded in many ways, down to the fact that Yuga’s outfit is the spitting image of Ottoman dress. Yuga being a depraved bisexual (a common historical trope about Muslim men towards Christian men and boys), and Hilda being deceitful and conspiring against everyone she was once allied to are a backdrop to the ways in which Ravio is a greedy coward. He’s not an evil character in the game; the mechanic of penalizing death without being too severe is interesting and works well! But that doesn’t take away the stereotype, just like it’s not okay Nabooru is pretty explicitly predatory towards child Link in Ocarina of Time, too.

Arab and Jewish stereotypes often converge, because both people's originate from the same region, and both are hostile "Others" to Christian Europe and Nintendo doesn’t have a great track record of their near-Eastern coding in Zelda. It crosses the whole gamut from harem and amazon tropes with the Gerudo to breath-takingly anti-semitic or anti-black (Ganondorf being green, eg. non-human, in various incarnations), all packaged neatly in the ideal of medieval fantasy Europe. The scale would be impressive if it wasn’t so damn awful, but we can at least stop repeating it in our fanworks.

Wild doesn’t have to be feral to be a playful little shit; Hyrule doesn’t have to be pure and innocent to be kind. Ravio doesn’t need to be innocent or scheming, and he shouldn’t place money over Link’s well-being (If you chose to respawn at home, he is consistently only ever concerned for Link! Once you buy the items outright, he promises he'll still be there to take care of you.)

Do better. It’s more interesting that way, and I want to see that variety grow!

[If any of y'all would like me to dig up better sources on any point, I can do so but I didn't want to bog this post down further. I have largely left the anti-arab stuff alone because it's not the biggest issue with Ravio's fanon presence, which is the focus here.]

[enkephallic]

Limbus Company: Deep Analysis of Sin

So, I decided to take a deeper dive into the different sin types in Limbus Company.

The TLDR Version:

Wrath - Unable to accept something

Lust - Having a strong desire

Sloth - Losing sight

Gluttony - Satisfaction-seeking

Gloom - Controlled by pain

Pride - Contempt of others/selfishness

Envy - Desire to surpass

Regarding the sinners' skills, the sin position is important as well. A S1 sin is a surface-level appearance, but S3 represents something deep inside them.

The detailed explanations are under the cut!

Wrath

Wrath, on the surface level, can present as being irritable or hard to get along with.

Wrath S1 examples

LCB Ishmael, who seems irritable and nitpicky at first.

Seven Heathcliff "Why am I doing this stupid job?"

Hook Office Hong Lu "Don't speak so softly, I'll feel homicidal"

S2 gets closer to how they really feel. The feeling of wrath comes from the feeling of "I can't accept this" - whether it's how they're being treated, how their environment is, etc.

Wrath S2 examples

LCB Heathcliff (past speculation) - Discriminated, mistreated, resenting what's happening to him

LCB Sinclair (past) - I don't want to get prosthetics

W Corp Hong Lu - Bored with his job.

And S3 wrath represents a strong rejection - they won't accept Anything they deem contrary to their own beliefs and ideals. It is a violent refusal.

Wrath S3 examples

N corp identities who are brainwashed - Kill all the dissenters and heretics.

Pequod Ishmael - "It's MY way or the HIGHWAY, god damn it!" (Throws a fit if another ID kills an enemy)

R Corp Ishmael - Hates it to the point she's looking for Singularity information of old R corp

LCB Rodya - I can't accept this armchair revolution and endless poverty. I have to kill this old windbag.

Lust

Lust in this case is a pursuit of something non-physical - a relationship, an ideal, a core element of your self. On the surface level, this can present as really wanting to be something.

Lust S1 Examples

LCB Don Quixote - Wants to become a great Fixer.

W Corp Ryoshu - Wants to be a great artist.

Sous Chef Gregor - Wants to improve his cooking.

S2 is a little stronger than just normal desire. They will willingly hurt other people or trample them to achieve their goal.

Lust S2 Examples

Tingtang Gangleader Hong Lu - Uses violence and is callous to those invading his turf

The One Who Grips Faust - Massacres Sinclair's village to get what she wants

LCB Ryoshu - Her idea of beauty ties in with violence

S3 is a little different - It's desiring something so badly on an existential level. It's pretty much what they live for.

Lust S3 Examples

R.B. Chef Ryoshu - Needs to be one of the Eight. Will stop at nothing to achieve this.

N Corp Heathcliff - Not brainwashed, doesn't really want to be. Wants to preserve his "true self".

G Corp Gregor - After an irreversible transformation, fully believes his reason to exist is to be a killing machine.

Interestingly, both LCB Heathcliff and Hong Lu have a Lust S3.

Sloth

Sloth is inaction, watching from the sidelines, not seeing what is in front of you. This can start with just simply being misguided, believing something to be true when it's not.

Sloth S1 Examples

W Corp Don Quixote - "I am working at a Wing!! CHOO CHOO!! Sally forth!!"

LCB Outis - Her piss-poor act of blind acceptance and obedience.

LCB Meursault - It is simply none of my business if Sinclair hyperventilates and vomits on the floor.

S2 sloth is more purposeful, not taking action when one should or purposefully being ignorant of reality.

LCB Faust - Does not tell Dante and the others a lot of information and doesn't stop sinners from running amok.

LCB Hong Lu - Despite being perceptive, does not seem to register bad situations as bad or react to pain appropriately.

G Corp Gregor - This feels wrong but I'll just continue with it anyway.

S3 sloth is a total loss of vision, not being able to see what's important to them. Losing sight of all they used to desire, and doing nothing about it.

Dieci IDs - Lost their memory and doesn't even remember what was most important to them.

K Corp Hong Lu - Doesn't seem to mind his total loss of freedom and autonomy, despite desiring freedom in other IDs.

LCB Yi Sang - Could not care about anything he once loved or aspired to be, until he was able to gain his wings once more.

Blade Lineage Don Quixote - Once used her strength to fight alongside her comrades, but now kills for purely her own sake.

Gluttony

Gluttony is a desire to be satisfied, whether it's something material or psychological. This can present like greed or selfishness at first sight.

S1 Gluttony Examples

LCB Rodya - "I want meat, I want money, I want to gamble!"

LCB Ryoshu - "Let me smoke. Let me do as I please."

Lantern EGO Don Quixote - Curious about the abnormalities and wanting to know more about them

S2 Gluttony is wanting more at a crucial point in their life, or desiring more than they could chew. It could also mean getting hooked into something or addicted.

S2 Gluttony Examples

LCB Ishmael - "I quit my job, I need something that's not labour hellscape... Hm? That hag can sure talk..."

R Corp Heathcliff - Began deriving enjoyment from killing

N Corp Don Quixote - Didn't even need the brainwashing, got hooked onto the N Corp ideology herself

S3 Gluttony seems to be the final stage of seeking what they desire - being satisfied, even when they shouldn't be.

S3 Gluttony Examples

Tingtang Gangleader Hong Lu - Seems completely happy and enjoying himself

Seven Heathcliff - Actually learned to like his job

W Corp Hong Lu - Doesn't want praise or a raise, just fine with how things are now

Gloom

Gloom represents pain, and how it affects how the person treats their situation or other people. On the surface level, they may appear melancholic or having given up.

S1 Gloom Examples

LCB Yi Sang, LCB Gregor - Self explanatory.

Rosespanner Meursault - Crushed by work

R Corp Ishmael - Headache, pain, does not like it here

S2 Gloom is a moment of despair, when something in their heart was broken. This may also involve guilt and inflicting pain.

W Corp Don Quixote and most W Corp IDs (Except Hong Lu and Ryoshu) - The shocking reveal of what W Corp really is.

N Corp Heathcliff - "What the hell am I even doing??"

Lobotomy EGO Heathcliff - "All my friends are dead."

S3 Gloom can represent letting their pain affect how they treat others. Lashing out, being insensitive to others' pain, or simply giving up and accepting the hurt as inescapable.

W Corp Yi Sang - Abandoned hopes for freedom, just wants it to hurt a little less

G Corp Outis - Knows she cannot escape the unfair treatment

LCB Ishmael - Lashes out and hurts others because she is deeply hurting, making it more painful for her too

Pride

Pride is the belief that they are different from other people, and so the rules don't apply to them. This can seem as arrogance at first, even if they are not actually like that.

S1 Pride Examples

LCB Sinclair - Rich boy 1

LCB Hong Lu - Rich boy 2

LCB Faust - Doesn't hide that she thinks she's better than everyone else

S2 Pride can contain disdain for other people, and believing they are better than those around them. Therefore, their actions can be excused in their eyes.

S2 Pride Examples

LCB Meursault and LCB Outis - Competent and they know it themselves. Outis thinks of her comrades as dirt and points and laughs when they die.

W Corp Ryoshu - Her art comes from chopping up the dead and deformed passengers, doesn't give a single shit about them

LCB Rodya - Believed she was special enough to make a difference and split the hag's skull.

S3 pride goes a step further - their own desires take precedence over anyone else's. They may even see other people's lives as literally the same as a blade of grass. If they want something, they'll trample everything and anything.

S3 Pride Examples

The One Who Grips Faust - Probably doesn't even give a shit about the grand ideology or her minions. Just did it because she could, and wanted to.

The Middle Little Sister Don Quixote - "I can kill anyone who disrespected my organization!"

LCB Ryoshu - Has the littlest regard for human life.

Envy

Envy can start out with the simple desire to surpass someone, to become better than others. To want more than what other people have.

S1 Envy Examples

Tingtang Gangleader Hong Lu - Began wanting to be stronger, to have more power.

LCB Heathcliff - Rich bastards are annoying, they don't deserve it more than I do

Shi Ishmael - Just wants to survive in a world of dog eat dog

S2 envy is the need to be better than what you once were, to surpass yourself and get something accomplished.

S2 Envy Examples

LCB Yi Sang - Bettered his own craft and created the mirror.

Pequod Members - Lay their past self to rest, and opted to hunt the whale.

R.B. Chef Ryoshu - Wants to make better and better pies

S3 Envy is the result of their desire to surpass - or that they have accomplished something, but with a heavy price.

S3 Envy Examples

W Corp Ryoshu - Extremely powerful, but her sword will suck up her health if she doesn't charge it properly.

R Corp Heathcliff - Gained insane power but lost something important to him in the process.

LCB Sinclair - Was able to avoid getting prosthetics but his whole family dead.

Pequod Heathcliff - Managed to get out of the Middle but is covered in scars he can't erase.

I will continue to write more specific theories, but this is how I feel about the sin affinities right now! I'd love to write about EGO and enemies as well soon.

[batrogers]

I feel like the implication that Four considers this to be "We've done well avoiding friendly fire" says much about his adventure we don't yet know. Because also, he's the one who SAID it.

Four thinks about friendly fire as a thing to be concerned about! How many times did he fail it himself, then?

FOUR?!?!?!

"We've done well avoiding friendly fire" like bro???

Ain't this you???

By now Four is just making jokes between himself alone. He thinks that he is the funniest man alive and he is right.

Art credit to Jojo @linkeduniverse!

[thejolteonmastertj]

I love how in fanfics we always had the Chain use those funky nicknames as aliases at least but no, here they all straight up all wrote their actual name, between the 9 of them in like 5 different languages…

… and most of them seem oblivious to how confused that innkeeper must be lmao no wonder Wars had to bribe the dude.

[batrogers]

If you want the short version of "Which Link's pay their taxes?", here's my LU headcanons going off the excessively long post here:

Sky = He's telling people what taxes to pay because he's helping Zelda build the city on the surface and in Hylia's name, he's got way more sympathy for Gaepora now that he's had to deal with it himself.

Four = He's enjoying immensely that his grandpa handles it for him, and he has NO intention of seriously dealing with it himself if he can ever avoid it. (He has indeed been sat down and taught how, and he is fond of insisting that he is *fourteen*, you are NOT dying, stop making me do this--)

Time = Zelda gave him lands as a gift for his military service and the whole knighthood thing, but she was sensible enough to give him lands that manage themselves, so he only "owns" Lon Lon Ranch. Talon incessantly teases him about this fact that technically he owes him tax, not Zelda, and Time groans every time it comes up. (Talon just pays the Castle directly still.) Malon, when she's especially annoyed at the cows or horses on any given day, will tell him that *his* livestock are acting up, but otherwise politely does not remind him.

Wind = Tetra has never paid a harbour duty tax she could avoid, but she HAS been caught and narrowly escaped several times. There's a few ports they can't legally visit anymore because of this, and Wind finds it hysterical. (I imagine the rest of the Chain is not looking forward to bailing him out of jail if they wind up in one of those cities.)

Twilight = As a resident of Ordon village, he's not really responsible for his own taxes because they're paid by the village as a whole. Mayor Bo handles it, and he hasn't legally established himself in anyone ELSE'S census so he's free of worrying about it. Mayor Bo does bug him for money once in a while, but overall it doesn't come up.

Warriors = He's a conscript who's not really asked if its legal for him to not be a soldier anymore, but hey! He's only paying some taxes which he likes because taxes pay for his food and lodging. He's vaguely complained about it a few times and rapidly realized the others have no idea what he's talking about, so he sticks to the simple stuff: he's a Captain now! He only pays a few nominal taxes. Better than the rest deal with, right?

Legend = His uncle and grandfather both are still around and so he's safe from having to pay his own taxes for a while, although they live elsewhere. That doesn't matter, though, because as a knight's son as long as they claim they're covering him the royal family doesn't much care what he does. Ravio has definitely stated this is fantastic, and Legend has been treated to some exhausting stories about the process to rebuild Lorule. He's holding out hope his uncle lives a very long time so he's not going to be stuck dealing with it himself, thank you VERY much.

Hyrule = He's living in Castletown and working with his Zeldas at this point, so he's paying whatever's normal taxes for the city. He's a nice enough kid he probably pays other people's taxes too, and does his best to keep up with things so his Zeldas have the best chance of rebuilding possible. Definitely ducks out of any labour calls though, so he doesn't draw monsters nearby and they all know why not.

Wild = He's paying Hateno taxes like everyone else, although I imagine he's had a few extended debates with the mayor about what's the most useful thing to pay in. The mayor sometimes has a hard time processing the fact there's options, nevermind what the options ARE. Zelda would mostly like him to stop trying to plant durian in the yard.

[pastorfutureletthembe]

Because of my brain's fucked up chemistry, I bring you bilibili's most hilarious (sarcasm) ploy. This is one of my favorite official artwork. The palette is simple and our beloved characters seem to have fun!

🙂‍↔️ Don't be fooled.

I'll start with the obvious, as always: red stains and apple knives. The pictures are telling enough.

Then we have the number 8. Which, I have my theories on, but nothing significant enough to make a whole post about it yet.

Let's start with the 8 of hearts. If you look carefully, you'll notice there are exactly 8 chandelier arms. 8 strawberries are visible on each cake (one is missing two parts and the other one is partly behind a shadow who must be Li Tianchen). Lastly, but Im not entirely sure of myself here, you can probably count 8 wine glasses (they are rounder than others).

Crossed theory: the missing pieces of the cakes are exactly between IV and VI of a clock. V is hinted yet again 🤌✨ but there are two cakes... making cakes... Yep, you guessed it: one entire Curve, as described in Rick and Morty:

The curve basically walls off the infinite number of universes, in which INSERT IMPORTANT CANONICAL NODE happens, from the rest of the infinite multiverse. A model often used to explain is that the definition of the Central Finite Curve has no set parameters; it's just wholly random and infinite therefore can be represented as a repeating, immeasurable shape modeled with a circle. The Central Finite Curve would then present a finite collection of dimensions.

(Gosh, I do have a lot of meta planned for this show, kill me now // Edit: DONE)

STEPPING AWAY FROM THE LYING CAKE-

For archives purpose, I'll just point out that two Aces of Hearts probably means there are two of the same while there should be one. I don't know if this was a clue already or yet to be resolved. They're both near a candle, a glass and a bottle. It gives the whole table an odd symmetry. Like a mirror you cannot see the frames of. The 8 on cards are also symmetrical + the placement is repeated with both chandeliers. The symmetry of the table implies there is a fourth cake off-screen.

There is one mistake though, I don't know if it was made on purpose or not: none of the hearts are upside down. The 8 of hearts is wrong: there is supposed to be symmetry on the card itself!

Since we already got a tarot reading in the chibisodes, here we go: (a quick google research for this one)

"In divinatory tarot, it could be a mix between the Lovers and the World. Indeed, the ace of hearts relates to the World as it represents the triumph of the individual on the elements that surround him. It also relates to the Lovers thanks to its romantic attributes and consequences."

- latincards

THE DARKER SIDE OF THE ACE OF HEARTS MEANINGS: EXPLORING CONTRASTING While predominantly seen as a symbol of love and positivity, the Ace of Hearts can also have darker or more complex meanings. In some interpretations, it might signify heartbreak, emotional manipulation, or unrequited love. This aspect reminds us that the heart's journey is not always smooth and that love can sometimes lead to challenging or transformative experiences.

- thedopeart

(Sidenote: You should be aware that the LOVERS doesn't exclusively concern romantic aspects of life in our modern world, but life partners in the general sense, people deeply tied to you.)

As for the 8 of Hearts:

The Eight of Hearts is often associated with emotions, love, and relationships. It signifies deep connections, harmony, and positive energy in matters of the heart. When this card appears in a reading, it suggests that love and emotional fulfillment are on the horizon. This card is a symbol of balance and stability in relationships. It indicates that there is a strong foundation of trust and understanding between partners.

Hearts are a recurrent shape used in Qiao Ling's artworks but I'll make another post for shapes/characters related stuff.

For the record, Cheng Xiaoshi isn't drinking red wine on the Halloween poster. Doesn't know where this is going but I've done my share of meta for today 🙂‍↕️

>>> In conclusion,

RED is the real clue here. May it be to indicate the presence of Li Tianchen or VEIN. The same shade of red is all we see, as if a filter was used, and since Li Tianchen's eyes glow red, I guess it's related somehow (metaphorically speaking). The fact everything is the same color was also designed to trick us about the blood on the knife. The aces could be CXS and LG... or LG and Liu Xiao (he seems to be obsessed with him so why not.) In any case, I do see a paradox hidden in plain sight here.

The cards are there as a positive outlook: they are together in this, their friendship is what will thrive on the dark side of the clock! It encourages them to open themselves to others and trust their bond.

[g1ngerbeer]

do you think they noticed a change, the first few loops. i think they did. because how could they not, cheng xiaoshi and qiao ling, the two closest friends lu guang has, seeing him walk out of the room through a camera shutter and re-enter changed. diminished, faded, sad, the worn and cracking face of an old photograph. more and more tired each time he dives, further and further back with each attempt. every time a failure. and even as he lets the tides of time weather him more - render him a ghost, it feels like sometimes - even as lu guang changes more and more from the person he used to be, so too does that moment of disconnect in his friends’ eyes shorten and fade. because they don’t know him anymore. the golden stretch of time he spends by their sides before it all goes wrong is sliced thinner and thinner with every photo he uses, his touch blurring the memory with blood. each time he fails they know him less - the first him, the one unburdened by the terrible knowledge he now holds and the weight of too many failures.

soon they will never have known him at all.

Because you would notice if your best friend time travelled from a horrible future, but not if he travelled back so far he erased the person he once was (the person you knew) (the person you loved, first. before you loved this newer-older transparent version, never knowing a difference.)

(and this too is a loss to be grieved, he thinks sometimes in the dead of night to the sound of soft breathing in the bunk below, selfishly. but it is worth it if cheng xiaoshi lives.)

(the death of everything lu guang ever was is worth it if it means cheng xiaoshi lives.)

[whatyourehungryfor]

Specifically having Travis and Jackie have sex is so interesting because both of them, I feel, are doing it to fulfill something they feel like needs to happen for them to be secure in gender/sexuality. And in the end it has consequences and is iffy at best because neither of them have the proper vocabulary or positive examples needed to navigate that!

With Travis he says yes because he misses Nat and is insecure that she's slept with multiple people while he has been with no one. When it comes to how this might affect his relationship had the night not gone batshit insane, he doesn't think because the ideals he has tell him he NEEDS to have sex to be a better man for Natalie as opposed to just being there for her and communicating normally. Toxic masculinity n all that with him desperately trying to hold onto anything that makes him feel more masculine, more capable, more desirable- but it's an ill fitting role (transfem Trav truthers I see you).

As for Jackie, there's a lot going on there. First up is the fact that she's essentially given up on survival at that point and is preparing for death accordingly in a passively suicidal sort of way (which might I add Travis also experiences. Just later) so she feels the need to Do Things. As for the sex stuff itself, from the scene in the pilot and Shauna's admittedly less reliable meat shed conversations, it's pretty clear that it wasn't comfortable at the best of times and his pressuring sounded like it was pretty consistent. Jackie's view of virginity and sex sounds almost transactional at times; a "he's waited long enough" type deal. Then there's the fact that it was wrapped up in Shauna: telling Shauna while wearing her flannel, looking at Shauna, having sex in Shauna's bed.

Jackie seems to not know how to not involve some pressuring because Jeff always did that, and she's pretty past caring about being nice. Travis doesn't know how to not take what he should want, and later on he's tripping out. Add the emotional detachment of not having negative history, a poor mental state, toxic yuri, and shrooms, and you've got a recipe for vaguely unhealthy casual sex while thinking about other people!

All this to say it was a perfect storm for the two people most insecure in their sexuality/gender presentation to use each other to feel affirmed about it only to face massive consequences (however disproportionate) for something ultimately unfulfilling ("so that was sex?"). Those old standards they live by don't fly out here. It's still a society, they're just still unlearning the rules of the old one.

[thejolteonmastertj]

This is why that little epilogue scene of Link in Oracle Of Ages teaching Ralph the Spin Attack is so impactful to me frfr.

Ralph might be a completely unrelated knight from a foreign country, but Legend finally found someone he felt is worthy & fitting to pass on what’s likely one of his few surviving family traditions.

Speaks volumes to how much Legend respects & values Ralph by the end of OOA, likely one of the first knights he fully trusted since his journeys began.

(Notice, when Legend in LU expresses disdain for knights, he very specifically says “Knights Of Hyrule,” gee, I wonder why. 😆)

Sometimes I'm hit upside the head by remembering that Legend is the last surviving member of his family line, all because Ganon systematically had a friend of the vet's dad hunt down and slaughter everyone else in the family in an effort to stop the hero ever rising to stop evil's return.

I wonder if that weighs on him. If the fact that the Hylian Knights are no more, and the only people who bear the same title now have dirtied it in the eyes of Hyrule and made it something to fear. I wonder if that's why he resents them so much. What if that's why he spurns his own knighthood in favor of being "an average nobody"? Because remembering he's the last one, that he's alone, just hurts too much?

I wonder if there were family traditions or customs that he practices alone, if he practices or acknowledges them at all. I wonder if he grapples with the fact that there's no one to teach him any of them because he was so young when they all died. What was lost with all of them? What stories and memories that were passed down for generations will he never get to know about? Will never know existed? I wonder if he wanders like he does because he's still searching for any lingering traces of what his heritage once was, for those pieces they couldn't give him themselves.

I wonder if he resents Twilight because the rancher can see and touch his own history on Lon Lon, meanwhile he can never. If he hates his brothers for having communities they're ingrained in, traditions and celebrations and memories and customs, all of which were lost in his family before he ever got a chance to know about them.

I wonder if he feels obligated to preserve the family legacy by having kids of his own, even though he's already lost the love of his life. If the fact that his family dies with him weighs on his mind.

What do you think it's like, being the only one left?

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

the THING about Jonah and Amy though is that he's LITERALLY IN LOVE WITH HER FROM DAY ONE. THE ENTIRE TIME. and he's obviously self-aware about it from very early on as well (the lady doth protest too much methinks). he's constantly being like no, she's married, I don't like her like that even though he DOES and he KNOWS IT (and everyone else around them knows it too) but he Knows that it can't happen. there is a lot of extremely poorly disguised yearning that both fades (settles) and grows as their friendship develops. like, he's always looking at her Like That (you know what I mean) and it's SO full of love and longing but always incredibly respectful. he Knows he's in love with her but denies it even after she and Adam split up bc he doesn't want to put that on her. his capital-R Romantic Yearning is his own problem, not hers. he loves her so much and he keeps it to himself, but the most valuable thing is: he DOES show it. he loves her just by being a friend. no strings attached. he expects absolutely nothing in return and yet. and YET.