#NEW ZELDA GAME LETS GO

[chaosfantasmic]

Yall are NOT ready for her

[ganondoodle]

one of the few zelda youtuber guys that seems to actually love totk made a video about it (i guess bc so many talked about why they dont like it) and while i didnt watch it i took a peek into the comments and of course its full of people going "LMAO people only dislike it bc it didnt validate their crazy theories!!" "its always the same when a new zelda comes out lol at first they hate it and then later its a classic haha idiots" "people who dont like it are just caught up in their nostalgia and cant accept anything new being introduced!!"

also thanking him for "speaking up" about loving the game ... which i find kinda mind boggling bc the internet is full of praise and 10/10s for it

i obviously dont want to villainize people that love totk but like .. these kinds of comments are so unecessarily judgemental? how dare someone NOT like an entry in the franchise and voice legit criticism, how dare someone not worship the game just bc it has zelda on it! CLEARLY they are just made delusional by their own fantasy and will realize later just how wrong they were! hah! those fools!

on my rants there were quite a few people who actually said they like the game but agree with alot of my views on it regardless, it is very flawed but i can also see that the good things outweigh the bad stuff for others, even if i legitimately hate it; but i also had to block multiple people bc they got so butthurt about me criticising it

and i dont think its 100% just an opinion thing either, totk, even when i disregard my personal feelings on the matter, has alot of problems, moreso than the other zeldas (each judged for how it was in their time) and in pretty much every part of the game too (story, lore, continuity, gameplay and rewards, UI-) and i think alot of it stems from its conception, they have never done a true direct sequel before and it came from a DLC idea, and it shows (though i still believe even coming from that you could have done something way better..... bc they also made botw, which seemed to prepare fertile ground for more storytelling that was all discarded for NO reason)

BUT that doesnt mean you cant like it anyway! there are some very horribly shitty games out there that are beloved by people anyway! and thats fine! i love ww and botw, both of which HAVE flaws too! and thats okay!

you dont need to be dismissive of any hint of criticism like that, there is no holy honor to defend, it just makes you look like a jerk

[chimera-crimewave]

If I knew how to edit videos at all I would love to make a video essay on BoTW + ToTK and how it helps players process grief.

Both games do an astounding job of capturing why it’s so damn hard to let go of the past, how different people handle loss, and how death of the body doesn’t necessarily mean influence + impact dies with the person.

Doing the final grind for ending ToTK is making me feel and think about a lot of things ;;;

[grooviestsadpapaya]

Omg yippe

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Small Tears of the Kingdom changes that could have done a lot

(at least according to me, the one singular flawed person writing this post)

In my desperate attempt to close off the Tears of the Kingdom season on my side of the internet (failing so far), I wanted to join the proposals of a couple of small restructurations/rewrites I've seen on my dashboard. These wouldn't change much of the game, but enough to boisten some of the themes and make the experience both more open and more streamlined. They try to ignore a lot of my own biases towards what I would have loved to see explored within the game and focus on what already exists (I said try). These changes are not only story-driven but also focus on quest design and narrative reward logic, which puzzled me even more than the story itself.

It's obviously not the end all be all of everything, there's a ton of small things that aren't fully adressed, etc.

Here are the 3 main tenants of this proposal:

We know about Fake Zelda by the end of the tutorial section. We see glimpses of her all the way, even though Rauru doesn't seem to be aware she's here, and most of our obstacles come from us trying to reach and save her. Then, by the end, she tries to kill us in the Temple of Time, and we realize she's fake and a lure (it could be a small mini boss, nothing too severe; just something to prove we understand combat). It could also be an earlier occasion to have Ganondorf shit-talk us using his creepy voice through her body, that could build up a better sense of rivalry going forward and make the betrayal of him using her body sting much more than it does in the current version.

Ganondorf, using Fake Zelda, tries to antagonizes each region of Hyrule towards their princess --and, the very important part, it works. The kingdom is splintering apart as he plans his return and his invasion. The goal in each region is not to vaguely solve the weird local problem, but, using the regional hero that knows and trusts Link, to prove that whatever is happening isn't Zelda's fault. This allows to build some sense of tension and stakes, makes us deeply empathize with an overwhelmed Zelda trying to step up as a leader in the aftermath of the Calamity and isn't here to defend herself (and then when we learn where she is and what she did it hurts so much more). The camp where Purah is could also double-down as the beating heart of Hyrule trying to reconnect with the suspicious regions suffering the turmoil isolated from each other.

The Dragon's Tears questline is overhauled, and that can happen in two simultaneous ways. Some of these memories remain Zelda's, but now only some of them, perhaps those who are connected to Zelda's decision to become a dragon without ever spilling it out (and could even focus more on her insecurities as a young ruler and her relationship to her ancestors), remain sprinkled into the land to reward those who want to understand more about her motivations. But now, each of the secret stones collected along the way also function as tears, and instead of being treated to another delicious serving or The Imprisoning War? The Demon King??? we get to discover a little bit more of the mystery. The way it could work is quite simple: the Sage introduces us briefly to their own perspective into the war outside of a voiced cutscene to give the writing more flexibility regarding what the player already did to avoid repetition ( :) :) ), and then plays a pre-determined cutscene in a linear fashion, which is one of Rauru's memories embedded within the secret stone and tells the story of the fall of his kingdom to Ganondorf. (also bonus: now Zelda's tears don't embody the entire kingdom anymore, which was very strange and never sat right with me)

So what we did is to separate the different stories while intertwining them: Zelda's struggles and sacrifice on one hand, Rauru's regrets and bitterness on the other (lololol sorry), and Ganondorf's attempt to break the kingdom apart --which would feed into both Zelda's anxieties and Rauru's long winded defeat. The bonus to this approach would also be to question Hyrule's legitimacy: the various races would then need to decide, after having actively questioned the young princess, that they actually still believe in Hyrule and a future they all get to live in together.

This would also give a little bit more teeth to Ganondorf's motivation, his deep envy for the power of Hyrule and the fact that his own people chose it over him, let alone everyone else. As for the Link's motivation, trying to have everyone see that Zelda is worth it and stop that evil force from shattering her image while also acknowledging the faults of the past could make the player invested in wanting to bring Zelda back down after everything she went through and all the sacrifices she made to prove herself a worthy ruler (Rauru's forcefulness in assimilating the realm under his banner even though he meant well being his actual character flaw that Mineru could eventually acknowledge, to give her something to do instead of... feeling bad for no clear reason!! Also just *give emotional weight* to that time she holds Rauru's hand again when she swears fealty to Link, this was so simple and obvious how was it not given the time it needed for us to care about what was lost!!! aaa)

Yes, it's still about the power of love and sacrifice over ruthless domination, but now characters have a little bit more agency and we feel a little less like they have a zonai knife under their throats the entire time forcing them to always be happy and enthusiastic about swearing fealty to the immortal kingdom. They find out about the past but get to redefine their future instead of falling over themselves in worship; literally using pieces and bits of the past in the form of zonai tech to rebuild their own kingdom and their future dreams. Together they are stronger; but because they all chose to believe in that mantra instead of having it being imposed by long dead kings and faceless ancestors expecting them to die for a war that shouldn't concern them.

(Also, obviously, the gerudo region has to reckon with the Demon King being particularly angry at them for betraying him, and them deciding to reject his rule a second time and embrace their own path, because in the original TotK Ganondorf being gerudo could be removed entirely without any consequence, which is pretty sad since it's basically an enormous part of what makes him compelling as a villain for a lot of people and keeps him from being a completely generic Nintendo stock villain!!)

And honestly? Beyond a couple of dialogue changes and slightly different setups and reasonings for Link to do certain things, especially in the various regional quests? Most of everything else could stay roughly the same. The bones are here! They're just arranged in a really weird way.

(except for Ganondorf surviving as a big bad dragon in the end through the sacrifice of his mind to immortality because that's just much more interesting than turning him into a supernova --but that's really a bonus honestly)

[griseldabanks]

for the ask game, would you do #23 for link and zelda?

Let Me Count the Ways ask game

Prompt: "I feel like we've met before…."

“You only want to go there because you think she'll be there.”

“I do not!” Link retorted, hanging his helmet on Epona's handlebars while holding his phone to his ear with the other hand. “I'm going to study for midterms, like I said. Not my fault you didn't want to come along.”

“And watch Malon making googly eyes at you the whole time? No thanks.”

Link paused halfway through slinging his backpack over his shoulder. “What? Malon?”

He could practically hear the rolled eyes across the phone line. “Oh brother. She's had her eye on you since orientation!”

“Really? How can you tell?”

“Because I have eyes in my head!”

Suddenly, Link spotted a familiar pink backpack weaving through the tables outside the coffee shop, heading towards the door. “Sorry, Navi, gotta go.”

“Hey! Listen to me—“

He hung up and darted over to the front door, managing to reach it just in time. He grabbed the door and pulled it open.

The girl who'd been reaching for it started at his sudden appearance, then let her extended hand fall back to her side. “Oh...thanks!”

She smiled up at him before stepping inside, and for one glorious moment, their eyes met. Link grinned stupidly, but she'd already passed him.

Heart pounding in his chest, Link followed her into Lon Lon Cafe. He stuffed his hands into the pocket of his green hoodie, trying to act casual as he stepped into line right behind her. He glanced up at the girl behind the cash register, and the pleasant giddiness in his chest deflated somewhat as he remembered what Navi had said. Sure enough, Malon spotted him and immediately shot him a grin, tucking a lock of red hair behind her ear. And she kept glancing at him as she listened to the next customer's order.

Link looked back at the girl in front of him instead. Zelda. So was so pretty, her blonde hair pulled back in a half-ponytail, golden earrings dangling from her ears and catching the light.... And there was an elegance to all of her movements, even simply in the way she pulled her wallet out of her purse. Like a princess...if princesses ever graced college-town coffee shops.

Suddenly, she looked over her shoulder and turned to face him. “Hey, do I know you?”

The bottom dropped out of Link's stomach. “What?”

Zelda cocked her head to one side. “I feel like we've met before....”

Link swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. “Uh...History 101. Professor Rauru.”

Zelda's face brightened with recognition, and somehow she looked even more beautiful that way. “That's it! So are you ready for—“

“Next!”

With a little start, Zelda quickly turned around and stepped up to the front of the line. While she was ordering her drink, Link couldn't help noticing that Malon wasn't smiling anymore, but answering Zelda tersely and stabbing at the register with more force than necessary.

When it was his turn to order, Link was a little nervous at how Malon would receive him, but to his relief, the second her eyes landed on him, a huge smile lit up her face again. He might have been imagining things, but he thought he detected a hint of sharpness in her gaze that wasn't there normally. “What can I get you?”

Link opened his mouth to reply, but she talked over him.

“Pumpkin spice latte, right? As usual?”

He'd actually been thinking of trying out something different this time, but she was already ringing him up, and he did like anything pumpkin spice-flavored, so he remained silent and just handed over a couple blue rupee notes.

Zelda was still waiting for her drink at the other end of the counter, and Link's heart skipped a beat when she glanced up from her phone as he strode over to her to wait as well. “So, what's your major?” she asked, her blue eyes bright and interested.

“Uh...undeclared, so far,” Link admitted, feeling his cheeks go warm. “I came in with an archery scholarship, but I don't know if that's what I want to go with....”

“Well, that's okay,” Zelda said. “You're a freshman, right? You've got plenty of time to figure it out.”

“Wait, are you not a freshman?”

Zelda giggled. “Oh—no, I'm a sophomore. I just didn't get around to history last year. I wanted to take harp lessons, and my schedule didn't work out.”

“So you're a music major?” Link brightened at that. Maybe he should've signed up for singing lessons or something after all.

“For now,” Zelda said with a thoughtful frown. “I love the harp, but I've been thinking about switching to political science instead. Do some real good in the world, you know?”

The more they talked, the more relaxed Link felt, just like he was talking to Navi or Saria—except that every time their eyes met, he felt a glorious swoop in his stomach. “Maybe your harp can usher in world peace,” he said with a grin.

As Zelda laughed, the barista slid their drinks across the counter towards them. “So do you play any instruments?”

“Oh, just the ocarina—“

They both reached for their drinks at the same time. Both froze, staring at the backs of their hands. Link's left, Zelda's right. Like a strangely geometric birthmark, against their pale skin was the clear outline of a triangle divided into four smaller triangles. On Link's hand, the smaller triangle on the bottom right was filled in; on Zelda's, it was the bottom left.

Link stared at their hands, the marks upon them perfect mirrors of each other. For his whole life, his soul mark had been there, as familiar a sight as the moles and freckles on his arms. He knew it was supposed to be a reflection of his soul, and the legends went that somewhere out there, his soulmate bore the mirror image of it. But who that person was, or if he'd ever meet them...that just wasn't something he bothered thinking about too much.

Just like anyone, there had certainly been times when he'd wondered who his soulmate was. Growing up, he'd compared soul marks with his friends—Saria had been extremely disappointed when she realized that the swirly mark on her shoulder was nothing like his soul mark. In idle moments, he would daydream about whether his soulmate would turn out to be someone he married, like his parents, or a really good friend, or maybe even one of his children someday.

But then life got busy, and there was no time to think about something so frivolous when school and archery club ate up so much of his time. If he ever met his soulmate, he would deal with it then.

Then was now.

Slowly, Link's eyes traveled up Zelda's arm to her eyes, which were open wide with shock. “Does this mean...?”

“You're...m-my....”

“Oh my!” Zelda's face instantly grew as red as a tomato, and she whirled away from him, covering her cheeks with her hands. Link's eyes were glued to the back of her right hand. The soul mark was unmistakable.

Without warning, Zelda began speed-walking back through the cafe, almost knocking into several people on her way out.

“Wait—Zelda!” Link grabbed both of their drinks and rushed after her, finally catching up to her where she had collapsed into a chair at one of the tables under an umbrella out front.

Hesitantly, Link set Zelda's drink down in front of her, then slipped his backpack off his shoulder and sank into the chair across the table. He looked over at her staring fixedly at the cast-iron tabletop as if she could melt it with a glance.

Just to have something to do, Link sipped his pumpkin spice latte, but it scalded his tongue, so he set it aside.

She was so pretty, even with the blush extending all the way down her neck. Actually, the blush made her look even prettier, the pink tinge of her skin setting off the pink shirt she wore.

She's my soulmate, he thought numbly. All I wanted was to talk to her, maybe ask her out eventually...and she's my soulmate. The most important person in my life.

“Um...sorry,” Zelda said with a shaky laugh, looking up at last and tucking a strand of golden hair behind her ear. “I didn't mean to run out, I just...that took me completely by surprise!”

“Yeah, uh...m-me too.”

They both realized at the same time that they were staring at each other's hands, and broke into nervous laughter.

“So, we're...soulmates.” Zelda let out a long breath. “No, saying it out loud didn't help. It still doesn't sound real.”

A sudden thought occurred to Link that made his heart sink. “Hey, um...just because of this,” he pointed at the back of his hand, “that doesn't mean we have to...I mean, it's just a legend. You don't have to feel, like, obligated to...to hang out with me or....”

To his relief, she smiled sweetly at him. “You're right. But...I'd still like to get to know you. If...you don't mind.”

“No, of course!” Link said, a little too quickly and too loudly. He cleared his throat, his cheeks burning again. “Can I buy you coffee or something sometime? I-I mean, I know we already got coffee, but....” Crap, he was making such a fool of himself....

But Zelda just giggled, hiding her smile behind the hand that bore the mirror image of his soul mark. “Yes, you can take me on a date sometime. But, um...what's your name, anyway?”

“Oh!” They'd been talking all this time, and he still hadn't introduced himself. “It's Link. Nice to meet you.”

Zelda cocked her head to one side. “Link...strange...it feels somehow familiar....”

Link realized he'd felt the same way, the first time he'd learned Zelda's name. He'd passed it off as merely thinking it was a pretty name, but...maybe it was a sign that their souls were bonded to each other.

Either way, as they sat at the coffee shop and continued to get to know each other, everything felt right with the world in a way it never had before.

[kiddokori]

things i like about totk so far: the depths,

i am going to be so completely honest i thought id be able to think of more. um. this is awkward

[gerudospiriit]

[Me, watching the new trailer for the new Zelda game, being excited that you play as Zelda but they specifically say "NAH we're not going to let her fight! Monsters fight for her! She just does puzzles!"]

[waywardsalt]

Hi! I hope you’re doing good in life.

What do you think of a phantom hourglass remake? Tbh I don’t know how they could remake it without basically remaking it from the ground-up. It would probably play more like windwaker, which I see as a both a good and bad thing. On the one hand, if it was more like windwaker a lot more people would probably play and it would be more popular since I know the touch controls were a turn off for most people for both Spirit Tracks and Phantom hourglass. But on the other hand, remaking it to be more like windwaker would make the game lose some of it’s previous identity. Like, Phantom hourglass was so unique because of the touch controls and the puzzles you can make and solve by having two screens and touch controls. And it was so nifty and handy to be able to write notes on your map. Idk, I still would like it to be remade in general even if it ends up a basically different game, but I wouldn’t change the story or the characters, especially Linebeck. The only other change I would make is the music. Phantom hourglass had rather weak themes, mainly because they re-used the same theme for the islands and the dungeons. The only songs that were really good were the few orginal tracks made for the game, so Linebeck’s theme, Oshus’s theme, both Bellum boss battle themes and the and that music that plays when you first follow the Ghost Ship. But what would you want out of a phantom hourglass remake?

Hey, I’m doing good, and I hope you are too!

I’ve thought a bit about a possible Phantom Hourglass remake, but not too much recently. I don’t really know if I’d want one, since you’d lose a lot of what really makes it special, and you can still play it through other means. I’m personally fond of the graphics and the music- yes, even the dungeon theme has grown on me- so I don’t really want a remake too badly, especially since I fear any additions/changes they might make with story or characters in a remake. The touch controls make it, and playing it on pc recreates that feeling decently well, but I don't think it'll be just the same if you had to control it with joysticks or anything.

Not to mention, there's so much emphasis on having the two screens, too, not just for map stuff, but almost every single boss had a mechanic related to the top screen! I have no fucking clue how you'd replicate that very well on something like the switch without just fucking with the mechanics altogether.

I would kill to hear some of Phantom Hourglasses tracks be orchestrated or otherwise rearranged in a higher quality. I wouldn't want any of the more notable themes altered in any way, no adding or removing of melodies and only very very small changes to the instrumentation, but I think it'd be neat to see what could be done with dungeon themes. I think a while back I had a fleeting desire to write some short tracks for each dungeon, with some ideas like mostly using instruments heard in Bellum's themes for the dungeons while each individual one gets a leading instrument unique to and reflective of the dungeon, while the Ghost Ship maybe gets a song that's a bit of a expanded version of the fog theme, while the Temple of the Ocean King could have slightly different themes the further in you got, starting with instruments more common to Oshus's theme or the great sea theme, while the further in you got the more instruments from Bellum's theme would be heard, plus some harpsichord thrown in for the hell of it.

Leave the original dungeon theme for stuff like the minor pyramids and some larger cave areas, idk. It's grown on me.

I think the only story rearranging I'd want is mayyyyybe unfridging Tetra? You could very easily shuffle some things around with her and just not damsel her for the whole game and honestly it'd still go off perfectly without a hitch. But you'd still have to deal with the World of the Ocean King being a whole other world, so either bring her and her crew in and have them as wandering ship npcs (the better idea) or just leave them out (not a good idea) but either way it's better than what they actually did. I just don't think I'd want it to switch to Tetra being a major reoccurring character tbh, the main character dynamics in PH are good as they are.

I think I like Phantom Hourglass too much as it is to really want a remake at all. I'd rather we get something like an anime adaptation. That's what I think about more. Give me animated Phantom Hourglass with some fun takes on the dungeons and fights and some fun slice of life stuff with the group between the islands what I want is a Phantom Hourglass anime

[confetti-cat]

For some reason I often forget to share with Tumblr that I do, in fact, write things more frequently than I post them here, so here's a piece I still like! A oneshot for Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (and some of the rest of the LoZ series).

time immemorial, remembered - (2k)

If he is a hero of anything, it's of a grown-over wild, a land where grasses spring up in fallen garrisons and every breath of wind carries the scent of old rains and new flowers and ancient wisps of forgotten memories.

He doesn't want to remember others. He doesn't want to recall lives that aren't his own.

(It's strange, when he remembers the wrong things.)

Set post-BotW - feat. friendly adventuring, a little bit of Link/Zelda fluff, and Link just wishing he could remember the pieces to his own puzzle. Written before TotK, so no spoilers for it. Enjoy!

AO3 link here!

—

It's strange, when he remembers the wrong things.

He knows he doesn't remember everything. He knows that, Zelda knows that (unfortunately—he tried, he's still trying; she deserves a knight who truly remembers her), Impa and Purah and Robbie know that, and the spirits of the King and Champions know that. He's working hard to regain his memories, and they all know that's the most he can do.

Still, it's hard not to wish his mind would do more when his sense of déjà vu doesn't always work correctly.

They're at the curl of the beach where Akkala overlooks the ocean, and while Zelda is gushing about her Sheikah Slate picture of a new rhino beetle, he's looking at the sand. Something stirs in his head, as he looks at the waves and the palm trees and thinks—you've been here.

The feeling is bittersweet but painful, like a memory of an odd dream. Yet it was clear—he'd woken up on the beach once and cleared caves for kind people and had walked a strange black dog on a chain. A big dog with big teeth.

"When did I shipwreck at sea?" he asks Zelda, because it doesn't quite fit with what he knows of his life in the past. Perhaps his father had taught him to sail—perhaps he'd gotten a small boat himself. Zelda has a clearer picture of his life than he does at this point.

Yet, she stares at him uncertainly, blinking once or twice.

"When did you... pardon?"

A wave of embarrassment rushes over him, because Zelda usually understands him perfectly, and—sheesh, maybe he hadn't spoken clearly. His voice catches in his throat sometimes. He tries not to look so ashamed as he restates his question. "...Didn't I shipwreck at sea, once?"

Zelda blinks at him, thoughts whirring through her eyes, and then she looks out at the beach and the palm trees and the ocean.

"...Not that I'm aware of," she says carefully, and Link reminds himself that they hadn't truly known each other until they were sixteen. "Perhaps it happened when you were young?"

He doesn't know. Something about it doesn't feel quite right, like it doesn't fit. It's a puzzle piece to the wrong puzzle.

So he shrugs and dismisses it, at least for now, though the images don't leave his mind.

It happens again when they're up at Shatterback Point, just in time for the sunset. The Zora reservoir glistens like molten sapphire below, and the mountain peaks all around them have a golden-purple sheen in the late afternoon light.

It's not that, though—it's the way it feels to have the world so far below, and to see wing feathers as eagles make lofty circles in the sky, and he has the silly thought of how maybe this is Hyrule, and everything else so far below is really just Lorule.

It doesn't really hit him until Zelda has found an excuse to poke fun at him, in a playful, friendly way that ends with her smirking at him and his back to the open air, stuck in the few inches between a princess and a freefall that would last ages.

He can't lean forward for balance because she's right there, and he certainly is not leaning backward, so there's really no other option than to cling to balance and try to stand rigidly.

His heart skips a beat, because he suddenly remembers this—staring nervously into the face of a blonde princess who has far too much fun spending time with him, and he knows what will happen. She's going to push him off, like she did when they were in the sky kingdom and he liked wearing tan and she looked a bit different.

But she doesn't push him. Zelda shrinks back a little and laughs in embarrassment at her actions—she was more sure of herself a hundred years ago in the sky, wasn't she? Or was it a hundred thousand?—and allows him to step away from the edge and toward the danger: high dive at your own risk! sign a safer distance from the open air.

(He thinks—and this is really him, the normal him—that if it didn't take so long to get back up here from the water far below, he would show her a swan dive.)

(Maybe they could both—no, no. It isn't called Shatterback Point for nothing. He somehow doubts that she shares his ideas of entertainment out here, anyway.)

"I apologize," this Zelda says in embarrassment, looking away so that he can only see the tips of her ears turning pink. "I don't know what came over me."

His brain is too bewildered by all the déjà vu to mind. He tells her it's fine, because it is—some part of him thinks it feels nice to recognize that they have something friendly and familiar. Even if it is a bit teasing, and even if it does make adrenaline shoot through his veins and his heart pump hard enough to ready him for a freefall.

It happens again at twilight, late after a long day in Hyrule Field. The sky is tinted purple, and flecks of grass and dust float by in the strong breeze.

A wolf is there, in a place Link doesn't usually see any. It's on the next hillside, and it stares at him, eyes reflecting yellow in the dim light of the receding day.

Link's limbs twitch as it turns and leaves, as if reenacting the gait of the wolf—as if feeling the sensation of controlling a wolf's movement, with four limbs pacing and a head turning to and fro. With a sturdy gait and mind set fast on a goal.

When Zelda mutters something nearly irritable at the cooking pot, he half expects to turn his head and see someone who's not Zelda.

It is Zelda, though; of course. He doesn't think he knows anyone else who talks half to him, half to herself. She looks quite frustrated with whatever she's trying to do to improve their meal, and by her muttering, you'd think she was trying to blame him for what he'd put in as the necessary base ingredients.

Well, excuuuse me, Princess, he almost teases to throw her sarcasm back at her, but his mind is suddenly giving him a wildly different case of déjà vu and he vows never to think of saying that again.

They're at a stable, and one of the travelers who loiter by the cooking-fire pulls a little round instrument out of his pack and begins to play a flutelike tune. Something in Link's chest jolts a bit, as if he's only just awoken suddenly, even though the melody doesn't quite feel right. Is it strange that the sound of the little wind instrument feels as though it sends him back to another time?

He tries to ignore the fact that all these nagging lapses in memories ever occur—but they happen again, and again, and again. Always with something strange, something he feels connected to, something he's sure he's never seen before.

He sees things like the Hyrule Forest—a towering, vast area of woods that he knows, even though he's barely been there before. He knows it well enough, at least, to sense that the path isn't the same anymore. Right, left, right, left, forward, left, right—

(He sees the view of Saria's Lake from a patch of grey land hidden deep in a dark forest, shrouded with mist and drained of all color. The lack of pleasant sound here seems stark and wrong to him, and amidst the gaping maws of dying trees, he wonders what's missing from the hollow space that's suddenly prominent in his own chest.)

He sees Zelda sitting cross-legged next to Impa, learning from her, and thinks about how this mentorship feels like something that's been in place for a long time.

He looks at the massive skeleton of a creature called leviathan, and his mind says Jabú-Jabú and Wind Fish and wait—did they die?

He loves the Zora people. He only remembers so much, but it's enough to know he grew up thinking of them like a second family—with King Dorephan as almost a non-Hylian grandfather, and all the young ones as his cousins and friends.

Yet still, when those same Zoras pop out of the river with wide grins to surprise him, there's moments where his heart skips a beat and he's drawn his sword and shield, ready to deflect their attacks.

Enemies! his instincts shout at him—and it hurts, because his heart and mind say friends.

Koroks are strange to him, somehow, and not because they're little plant creatures who can vanish into the wind with ease. He just really feels like one of them should have a fiddle. Hestu's maracas don't quite carry the same emotion in their tune. He finds himself looking twice at the smaller, rounder ones, but none of them quite look right.

(He finds himself standing on a tiny lump of land his slate calls Mekar Island, staring at the piles of bones and the lone dead tree in the middle and wondering why it gives him a vague sense of dread.)

He half expects Beedle to set up shop on a boat in Laurelin, for some reason. Melody comes to mind in Rito Village, when Kass's daughters all come together to sing. (Except melody doesn't sound quite right. Perhaps he's trying to think of something similar?) When he's helping Zelda organize the old library, he can't help but get an odd mental picture when he rereads the chancellor's recipe for monster cake—of a tiny castle official with two horns like a monster. (But how would he hide them while working at the castle? By wearing two hats? Wouldn't that look too silly?)

Except when Zelda is there to study, he avoids the castle's archives like a plague, somehow wary of what he might find there if he gives in and looks for answers to his blurry memories. Perhaps the old rumors of the heroes being the first one reincarnate are true. Or perhaps the physical rigor of fighting through so much malice has messed with his mind. He isn't sure which would be worse.

His memories are... muddled, still; at least where they're not as clear as daylight or so fuzzy they feel nonexistent. The Princess knows this. She tries to help jog his mind, holding the same hope he does that perhaps some of these things will be like a well-placed kick to Robbie's machinery, jostling something back into place that will return it to working order.

But she's left it to him, lately, seeming to perceive that the things returning to him are leaving him uncertain and unsettled. Or at least, she's tried to. Her inquisitive nature seems to eat at her for a week before she finally gives in, looking to him in clear interest.

"Have you remembered much more?" Zelda asks, the curiosity in her bright eyes shadowed only by a faint hint of apology.

Are her eyes blue? Or brown? Were they ever blue or brown? Her emerald-green gaze is making him hesitate, because no, of course they were never another color. The idea is absurd, and he doesn't like that it lingers in his mind for so long.

He doesn't want a wrong sense of déjà vu with her. This is Zelda, the Zelda of now, the princess of a broken Hyrule and the survivor of a calamity. This is a Zelda long removed from the days of Hylia and the first hero. If he is a hero of anything, it's of a grown-over wild, a land where grasses spring up in fallen garrisons and every breath of wind carries the scent of old rains and new flowers and ancient wisps of forgotten memories.

He doesn't want to remember others. He doesn't want to recall lives that aren't his own. The Zelda here is her own, and he is his own—their world may be old, but to them it is something new, and he wants desperately to see it through the eyes of someone who has never lived before.

He can't really answer her question. So he gives her a thin smile, and hopes she can see the look in his eyes and understand.

Perhaps he's clinging too fast to hope, but she seems to.

When he hands her the cooking ladle and the long-awaited meal he's prepared after a long and hungry day, a funny little smile crosses her face, like she's remembering something, too.

"Thanks, Link," she says, and her voice is only a little bit teasing. His heart tugs oddly in his chest, but somehow, he can tell that she feels it too. "You are the hero of Hyrule."

[landofgay]

what else do you do with money you didn't want except spend it on stupid shit

[twixtandshout]

You know. At first I was like "I get why people would say that Nintendo should get the Disney treatment and be taken out back and shot already but idk if I'm ready to go That far, like yeah they need better labor protections and better games made by people who actually want to work on them and have the appropriate time and resources for it but I think if you bonked them with the anti-monopoly stick a little I'd be fine with them still existing as a company and continuing to do what they do best. The new Pokémon games suck but they could be good if Nintendo just. Put The Good in it." But after TotK and EoW I think I'm with it. This sick dog isn't gonna get any better. I'd rather it died before it can churn out any more $100 sludge to ruin the legacy of its own masterpieces.

[windsofcourage]

FRUITY HC PROMPTS / @hypnoticallycaucasian / ACCEPTING .

🍎  :    how stable is my muse’s mental health?  have they been diagnosed with any mental illnesses and  /  or conditions?  do they have any undiagnosed mental illnesses and  /  or conditions?  do they or should they attend therapy?  

||. WELL , Link sure does have retrograde amnesia. . . . I'm not kidding about that diagnosis , and he definitely should go to therapy,but to actually answer the question : Link ...exists on a perpetual on a scale, and it always depends on "what time period of Link are you asking about", because the answer will change depending on what he does and doesn't remember.

Link before the Calamity (specifically: before the sword) would have been relatively stable. Outside of being a teenage boy with an extreme sense of duty and pressure to perform, he wouldn't have to contend with much. Healthy home, healthy mindsets, healthy life. It's when he pulled the sword and began to shut his emotions down to be a "reliable hero" that some problems would have begun to manifest. In my headcanon : dissociative episodes (+dissociative amneisa &. subsequent fugue) run congruently with his rising stress levels , and are a related but separate issue to his originally-self-imposed selective mutism.

Link is a slow emotional processor. He thinks through his emotions and takes time to sort them out. (Mostly because he really doesn't get bothered by a whole lot.) But when he's "on duty" or otherwise needed... he doesn't feel himself allowed to take the time to sort it out. Not during, and often not afterwards until well later, either. And then only when he's on his own. In Link's world, it's act first, think (and feel) later. ESPECIALLY when all eyes are on him.

At some point in his development into "Knight Link" (which imo was cemented well before he was actually appointed as Zelda's personal knight), Link's solution to a wealth of emotion without any time to process it all was to focus solely on the physical task at hand, whatever that may be. It ... doesn't shut down the emotion spurring the stress... but he can act. He can do something to stave it all off or fix it while it's happening. Face it head on, and quickly. Unfortunately ... even this isn't always possible in his profession. And this mind vs. heart endeavor is a taxing one. As such, if Link is unable to tackle the issue and fix it, he will rapidly begin to deteriorate into a dissociative episode. Specifically dealing with depersonalization. If the stress continues, Link has a tendency to completely emotionally/mentally black out during these periods. (aka: dissociative amnesia). He'll either seem to be completely spacing out, or completely zeroed in on a task from the outside looking in. (It's caused problems and some serious one-sided arguments with his mother before.)

In some conjunction with this, canonically, Link has been known to voice his inner thoughts and feelings less and less over time. By the time he was appointed to Zelda, it's noted that he barely spoke at all. While he is entirely capable of speech, when he undergoes high stress levels, it can become difficult for him to find the words to voice himself freely. (Now, it is worth nothing that Link is naturally a pretty quiet individual (imo even his voice is on the naturally softer side anyways). Link not talking does not automatically mean he's stressed out. But sometimes there is an inherent inability to speak even if he wanted to.)

All of this is true of Amnesia/Post!Calamity Link, although the triggers are different. Post!Calamity Link struggles a lot more often with depersonalization, derealization and dissociative amnesia + fugue, especially the more he comes to remember his/Hyrule's past. Part of that is due to stress, part of is trauma, and part of it is from just barely cheating death/the reincarnation cycle through the Shrine of Resurrection.

[dravidious]

You're good and cool and epicc

Finally started playing Pseudoregalia today, and got stuck for like an hour backtracking through the same areas over and over because I only had 1 ability, which was just enough to get into lots of places that had lots of dead ends that require other abilities. The perils of open-ended world design

[chaos-hand]

A dive into the forest to strengthen our sword! - Legend of Zelda Skywar...

Swimming is fun, and only a bit awkward with the motion controls

[ravenwolfie97]

did i foolishly watch an entire edited but complete let's play of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom before playing it myself? yes

will i remember anything from it after i finish Breath of the Wild, which i have not even begun yet? hopefully not