#WW link and his seagulls

[fourthcupofrice]

@rebornofstars

Hey reborn! Wind finding a dead clam in his bag during the chapter made me think about all those gulls that help on his adventure, so i made a silly comic about it. uncropped version under the cut

[choco-court]

I played just past the (first?) Forsaken fortress section with a friend and this game has Vibes lemme tell ya

[darlingillustrations]

PRIDE is timeless

sources for photographs:

Bluebirds - Kitty Ely class of 1887 (left) and Helen Emory class of 1889, Mount Holyoke students, via vintagephoto.livejournal.com. Source for image.

Cats - Nusch Éluard and Sonia Mossé. Paris. 1935 Photographer: Man Ray. Source for image.

Chipmunks - Source for image.

Deer - Source for image.

Dogs - Source for image.

Foxes, dancing - Photograph by Thurston Hopkins, Tango in the East End, London, 1954. Source for image.

Foxes, dapper - Source for image.

Frogs - Photograph from a collection called “Hidden in the Open,” curated by Trent Kelley. Source for image.

Giraffes - “Tough Threads.” Ken Russell photographed Teddy Girls in London -1950s. Source for image.

Hedgehogs - Chuck Rowland & Harry Hay (Apr. 7, 1912 – Oct. 24, 2002), 1983. © Stephen Stewart, via @onearchives. Harry Hay was the visionary behind the queer liberation movement in the U.S. With his background in leftist politics, Hay merged the revolutionary idea of homosexuals as an “oppressed cultural minority” with the fundamentals of organizing. (verbiage by lgbt_history… read more here).

Lions - I found this image on the internet in 2017 and have not been able to relocate it since.

Octopus - Circa 1970 by Donna Gottschalk. Source for image.

Otters - Source for image.

Polar Bears - Source for image.

Rabbits, mm - Source for image.

Rabbits, ww - Source for image.

Raccoons - Photographed by Kay Tobin, circa 1977. Source for image.

Red Pandas - Mariana Romo Carmona and June Chan (b. June 6, 1956), New York City, 1988. Photo © Robert Giard Foundation. (read more about these activists here)

Seagulls - Source for image.

Skunks - Photograph from the etsy shop The Vintage Image Boutique.

Sloths - Castro Street Fair, San Francisco, California, August 17, 1980. Photo © Paul Fusco. (read more about this street fair here)

Snow Leopards - Gay Pride Day, NYC 1980 / © Stanley Stellar.

The Affectionate Animal series is a project I have worked on for years, illustrating vintage photographs of queer couples. All paintings are by me, Erin Darling. Here is a link to the series on my site.

[yashahimewasamistake]

Links and prophetic dreams/visions.

LoZ/AoL. Hyrule. He doesn't have visions or prophetic dreams.

ALTTP. Legend. He doesn't have visions or prophetic dreams. Like his uncle, he can receive telepathic messages made by the princess in her time of need.

OoT/MM. Time. He has pretty accurate prophetic dreams. He gets glimpses of scenes in the future and with the aid of Gossip Stones he can get visions of where to go. The Deku Tree and Princess Zelda also get prophetic dreams but theirs are more in the realm of symbolism than scenes taken from the future.

WW. Wind. He doesn't get visions or prophetic dreams. But he can control a seagull, so, who is the winner here?

TP. Twilight. He is the winner. He wins because he can control cuccos, also, when aided by a fortuneteller, he can get visions about where to find things like hearts.

SS. Sky. He gets prophetic dreams which mix related facts about the future. He also gets visions when awake by using a Gossip Stone. And he either got a vision or was psychically attacked by the Imprisoned when standing close to his premises.

BoTW/ToTK. Wild. He doesn't get prophetic visions but he can get visions and see other people's memories.

MC/FSA. Four. No data available.

[multicolour-ink]

I'm curious now about your ideas for the post WW/PH AU where Linebeck meets Link's family 👀

Ah ok ^^ I'm happy to do that!

Ok, so I will stress that I'm not planning to create an entire AU on this idea; this is just stuff I came up with as a kid (I was about 9 or 10 at the time).

On the surface, there wasn't really much to it. Just ideas on how the characters would interact with each other and who would be the most fun to team up ^^.

(my favourite was Linebeck and Aryll, because the former would act as the reluctant teacher/uncle figure who tries not to care, but is secretly won over by the charm of this little kid. Meanwhile Aryll is much more chipper and more capable than Linebeck claims he is - see his character in PH - so trying to imagine how these two would navigate out of certain situations together was always funny to me 🤭)

However, there is another idea I had back then - an idea that I now realise was an AU before I even knew what an AU was! 😆

Do you any of you remember a show called W.I.T.C.H? I won't go too much into the plot (because there's a lot to go over!) but for those who don't know, essentially it's about five friends (all teen girls) who are able to be granted magical girl powers thanks to a mystical amulet. Four of the five girls get elemental powers respectively - air, water, fire, earth - while the fifth girl becomes the "leader" (later energy).

At the time I was playing WW and PH, I also got very interested in this show. And for some reason my dumb kid brain thought to just combine both these two things into - what I thought was - a pretty cool idea!

- So Link would be "energy" (Will). - Medli would be "earth" (Cornelia) - since she is sage of the Earth Temple. - Makar would be "wind" (Hay Lin) - since he is sage of the Wind Temple. - Aryll would be "water" (Irma) - purely due to her affiliation with anything connected to the ocean - like seagulls. - And Tetra would be "fire" (Taranee) - honestly just because she has a fiery personality and there was no other character left!

Meanwhile Linebeck would be like the "Caleb" (a recurring non magic character from the show) who reluctantly gets dragged along on the adventures 🤭.

Also Link's Grandma is there too, I guess. She acts as the role of Hay Lin's grandma from the show, and explains to Link and his friends about the powers they have been bestowed.

[thunderpetal]

Reward for getting 10 and 15 stamps respectively: you get the shield from PH and THEN you get to wear the engineer clothes from the start of the game!

I love any reference niko makes to WW Link, it’s clear he misses his friend so much😭

Also? Doves being the mark of a true engineer? That’s interesting! I assume it’s to do with the fact doves fly with you while you ride the train, but tbh I was assuming those were seagulls. Doves have never been pointed out as important until this exact line, but I guess in universe they’re like, the symbol of trains lol

[humming-fly]

for your consideration: ed as ww link trying to save his liddol seagull-loving sib. the size fits the boi

personally i always found phantom hourglass to be the ideal loz crossover :P

[dahniwitchoflight]

One more thing to add onto the whole Rito = Transformed Gerudo post I made to make this whole symbolic Idea come full circle

So, for the third instrument that would have been for the Rito Earth Sage if it was meant to be a Zora Water Sage using a Harp and a Wind Kokiri Sage using a Violin.

The Gerudo > Rito Earth Sage most likely would have been singing as the instrument, especially since the song of the earth sage in WW is called “Earth God’s Lyric” meaning lyrics to sing

this is mostly likely because of the symbolism connection between gerudo to singing and singing to birds throughout the different games in the series

1) Rito are connected to the idea of singing, especially moreso in BOTW. and Gerudo were noted in OoT to be birdlike in appearance with large eyes and longer noses. 

2) in OoT, Malon daughter of Talon is actually a daughter of a Gerudo as well, if Link wears the Gerudo Mask in MM and speaks to Talon, he will say it reminds him of his wife, meaning Malon’s mother, that explains Malon’s connection to horses in OoT as the Gerudo were famously horseriders as well. And connection here Malon is famously singing in various places as well

3) In Link’s Awakening (like the OG game from the GB), Marin is a girl who loves animals but especially Cuccoos, and also sings a famous tune and has a Dad named Tarin, and their design was reused to make the idea of Malon and Talon. So Marin is tangentially connected to the idea of Gerudo in design, and Marin expresses her wish to remain real and fly freely like a seagull once its revealed this is all the wind fish’s dream. and In the special ending, she appears with wings attached to her in a unique spite flying around and making a seagull noise. 

Later iterations of the game have her symbolically fade in the sky as an actual seagull appears.This game also takes place on an island in the ocean, so symbolically similar to Wind Waker in general as well. 

So, I can see that all of this symbolism could have meant to have been bring together in the idea of Wind Waker’s Rito

(interesting to note though, I don’t think the Rito in BOTW had the same origins as the Rito in Wind Waker, like they’re not exactly the same race.

I think WW!Rito were magically transformed Gerudo escaping disaster, and BOTW!Rito I think are more likely descendants of LoftWings from SS that became a more humanoid race of people over the millenia.

It’s interesting to think that BOTW!Rito evolved entirely seperately from WW!Rito that all the history/lore/stories/culture of WW!Rito were recorded and then became dissociated from the Gerudo/Rito once they stopped needing wings to survive and became just Gerudo again

Remember the WW!Rito needed to see Valoo to keep gaining wings over and over, so it wasn’t a permanent change technically, they could absolutely go back to being Gerudo if they wanted/no longer needed to be bird people

So the BOTW!Loftwing!Rito evolved, got their own culture, and then they could come across the ancient culture and lore and history of “winged race of bird people called the Rito” from way back in the day and think “Ah, this is obviously our ancestors most ancient lore as we are the only bird race to exist”. and absorb it into their own culture, also naming themselves “Rito” in the process.)

So for WW we got Rito, descendant of Gerudo, who Sings the Earth God’s Lyric

Zora, descendant of Zora, who plays the Ocean God’s Tune (Get it because Tune a Fish, also the Oracle games had Tunes associated with Nayru’s Harp)

and Korok, Descendant of Kokiri, who plays the Wing God’s Aria

this older unused texture showing the unused melody from Wind Waker likely was describing this beta version of an Ocean God’s Tune:

What we hear now in Wind Waker as the "Earth God’s Lyric” was probably meant to be Sung instead of played on the Harp

That tune plus the tune that the Aria makes up makes most of the Title theme used in WW put together

what the Harp would have played ingame was likely the longer slower harp strums in groups of 4 that play in the background of the entire title theme throughout both halves, connecting each half of the song together, you can hear them the clearest at the very beginning of the song, and then if you continue to focus on them you’ll notice they continue throughout the entire song

https://youtu.be/o78T9-I4OGA

[sharktoraptor]

Linkeduniverse Daemon AU

So uhh I posted it on the Discord and thought I may as well share here too. I put a lot of work into this one, beware that there’s a LOT of text beneath the cut!

If you’re unfamiliar with daemon AUs (referring to daemons from the His Dark Materials series), the basic concept is that your soul lives outside your body in the form of an animal that represents your personality. There’s a whole lot of character exploration involved in making a daemon AU!

If you’re unfamiliar with Linkeduniverse, it’s a Legend of Zelda AU where all the different incarnations of the hero meet and are on a quest. This daemon AU should be understandable with just a basic working knowledge of what the Legend of Zelda franchise is, this is all character/daemon stuff and no plot!

Again, a whole lot of text incoming. You might want to get comfortable. Enjoy!

Time: Wolf (white/gold)- Faekuri [fay-KYU-ree] (Kuri)

From Farore, fairy, Deku, and Kokiri.

Hyrule: Wolf (brown)- Fernwai [FURHN-why] (Fern, or just Fernwai)

From ‘fernweh’ (German for wanderlust) and fairy.

Twilight: Wolf (dark grey)- Aiyvona [eye-VOE-nuh] (Vona)

From ‘ayna’ (Turkish for mirror), Navi, Fai (Fi), and Ordona.

Warriors: Wolf (light grey)- Audelfi [awe-DEHL-fee]

From ‘audax’ (Latin for bold/reckless), ‘bellum’ (Latin for war), and Fi.

Wild: Field Mouse- Firielore [FEE-ree-uh-lore] (Firi)

From Farore, Fi, and Ciela.

Four: Field Mouse- Emper [EHM-purr] (no nickname, sometimes Em)

From temper, as in to temper a sword.

Sky: Blessed Butterfly- Lydivia [lih-DIH-vee-uh] (Lydi)

From Hylia and ‘divum’ (Latin for heaven/sky/open air).

Legend: Hare- Faistina [FY-stih-nuh] (Fais, rhyms with ‘vice’)

From Farore, ‘aisling’ (Irish for dream), and ‘obstino’ (Latin for persist).

Wind: Seagull- Marumi [mah-ROO-mee] (no nickname, sometimes Umi or Rumi)

From ‘mar/mare’ (Latin for sea), Ruto, and ‘umi’ (Japanese for sea).

The heroes traditionally settle when they first are draw/touch the Master Sword. This is true for Time, Legend, Wild, Warriors, Wind, and Sky (when the sword was completed). It doesn’t matter how old they are when they get the sword- Wild and Wind were both quite young, and Time technically settled when he was 9 years old, just before going into his seven year sleep. The exceptions are:

Twilight- Was already settled when his adventure began, he and his daemon merged upon entering the Twilight realm to create their wolf form.

Hyrule- Settled upon receiving the Triforce of Courage. Of the Links, Hyrule settled the latest in his journey.

Four- Officially settled upon restoring the Four Sword; however his daemon was already close to settling and was a mouse for the vast majority of his first adventure.

~Form Explanations~

A lot of the forms here aren’t necessarily exemplative of the Link’s personalities like a real daemon is, rather more of a symbolic representation of the character.

...Or something I thought would be cute because my city now.

The Wolf Pack (Time, Twilight, Hyrule, and Warriors)

All of these together, because the forms are the same. Because “Link” is the spirit/soul of the hero reborn again and again, it makes sense that there would be some overlap with forms. Each Link is their own person, but having legends of the hero with the wolf daemon as one of the most common depictions of the hero sounds cool and makes sense lore-wise. Right off the bat we have Time as the Heros Shade as the Golden Wolf, and Twilight following him with Wolf Link, the divine beast of the Twili.

Analysis/personality-wise, the form doesn’t fit all four of them as well as I’d like it to, but aspects of it do and like I said, we’re going more Pullman form/lore/symbolic here (not Pullman’s ‘wolves = evil’ though, that sucks). Wolves are hierarchical (Warriors), cooperative (all), social (Twilight, Warriors, the others to lesser extents), hard working and loyal (all), etc. All traits that would fit most of the Links well enough, but I like it for these four especially.

Important note, though: though all of their daemons share the same form, they’re still incredibly different. The differences in color is the first thing they all noticed, but their personalities are their own- not just the “soul of the hero.” That goes for all of them, of course, but it’s especially important for these four.

Mouse Friends (Four and Wild)

My reasons for picking mice for Wild and Four are so, so superficial. The analytic form actually fits both of them somewhat (again in different ways)- some of the core traits are things like independent, adaptable, observant/aware, defensive (physically and emotionally), but here are the real reasons.

Picture this okay. Four shrinks down to the size of a Minish, but his daemon doesn’t (or maybe she does but just a little bit). Now they’re like the same size. He can ride on his daemon and it’s adorable what’s not to like?

I made a big post about my botw daemon AU already here (disregard stuff about the other Links, I made this post before I’d really gotten into LU or any of the other games). Part of it that I don’t think I mentioned is logistics of the way Wild gets around, climbing and paragliding and swimming and stuff. He needs a daemon that is small enough to cling to him and stay safe when he’s doing stunts and shit.

Pink Bunny (Legend)

The Dark World in ALttP picked Legend’s daemon for me… I can’t give him a literal pink bunny though, so I took liberties. He’s much more of a hare personality than a rabbit, with hares being bigger and wilder, more independent, and having coats that change in the winter (get it? Oracle of Seasons, get it?). Not much else to say here, again more so picking a form to match the existing lore rather than doing an in-depth character study for it.

Butterfly in the Sky (Sky)

Alrighty, Sky was kind of hard because of his setting. What I chose eventually for him is the (fictional) Blessed Butterfly from SS, for a few reasons. It makes sense to me that daemons of people in Skyloft have to fit a couple of criteria: 1) small or fast enough at flying to ride a loftwing and 2) only take forms native to the sky, because it’s all they know about. Blessed Butterflies are one of the only animals in the game (according to the wiki- I’ve never played it myself) that are found on the ground and in the sky, so it works symbolically for his character.

I used the Monarch butterfly analysis as reference to make sure it wasn't totally off base, and it works for Sky surprisingly well from what I know about him. They're adaptable and adventurous (as a migrating species), and value group cohesion and teamwork (again because of the migration swarms). Lots of liberties being taken here, but the Blessed Butterflies in game apparently appear mostly in groups, so I'm willing to roll with it.

*Inhale* (Wind)

Wind has a seagull daemon because look. Have you seen Wind. Have you seen a seagull. Yes.

In all seriousness, there are some obvious reasons. Most of Wind’s adventure(s) take place on the ocean, so he needs a form that’s either adapted for that or small enough to fit on a boat, or both. You can literally take control of a seagull in WW.  Plus she can nest on his head like the doves do in Spirit Tracks!

Personality-wise, I’m going to just copy from the ring-billed gull analysis because this one probably fits the best of all the Link’s, analytically. The form is listed as chaotic neutral (I’d say Wind is probably chaotic good but it’s the chaotic here that counts). Seagull souls value social interaction, cooperation, courage, confidence, and duty, and are stressed by lack of control, boredom, lack of purpose, and dishonesty.

~Individual Links and their Daes~

Time and Faekuri

Faekuri settled when Time drew the master sword as a child. He settled the youngest of all the heroes at 9 years old, and she was still settled even when they traveled back in time. Time is bitter about that; another aspect of the childhood he never had, stolen from him.

Before settling, Kuri mostly took forms traditional of the Kokiri ( small woodland creatures and fairies, though fairies are still separate entities). When they set out on their first adventure her repertoire expanded and she took bigger forms, but never left her forest shapes for long. Settling as a wolf was unexpected and jarring for both of them, especially the experience of waking up in an unfamiliar, war torn world in shapes that neither of them knew how to deal with. Going back in time to be a child again didn’t help- Kuri never changed again, and Time had to live with that.

Kuri isn’t quiet, exactly, but she’s not generally conversational. She’s fairly blunt with scolding or encouragement if it’s needed, but if something is important enough for her to talk about, the others listen. However, she’s the most physically affectionate of all the wolf daemons, often nosing at, walking alongside, or even playing/rubbing up against the other wolves. She and Time are usually touching during downtime, but not as openly cuddly with one another as some of the others. With age comes a deep understanding of one another, and that’s enough for them.

Hyrule and Fernwai

Hyrule, by contrast, has one of the oldest settling ages of the Links at around 16. Fernwai’s settled form (which she took when they received the Triforce of Courage) was somewhat of a surprise to them both, but not as shockingly out of left field as it was for Time. It was a form they had taken before, just infrequently. They settled towards the end of their adventures as the Hero, and because they didn’t have to navigate their journey in unfamiliar skin, it feels wholly right and natural to them now. Before she settled, Fernwai preferred bird forms over landbound ones. They knew that the Hero of Time had a wolf form, so they’d tried it before, just in case, but the Hero of Legend didn’t, so maybe it was a one time thing…

Fernwai is a little more pragmatic and cautious than Hyrule, but aside from that, they’re basically the same. She doesn’t often initiate conversation with the others, but is very chatty to Hyrule.  She’s less touchy with the other wolf daemons, though she’s become the most popular perch for the smaller ones while traveling, but she and Hyrule are the most openly affectionate with one another. It’s common to see them sleeping on top of each other, not just next to or touching like most of the others do. Their tight bond comes in part from the lucky timing of their settling; they had time to work through it without much distraction after, while most of the others weren’t so lucky.

Twilight and Aiyvona

Twilight was the only Hero to be settled at the start of his adventure, which he’s sometimes hyperaware of. Aiyvona settled when he turned 15, about a year and a half before meeting Midna. People in Ordon village joked about his being the ‘lone wolf’ of the village, but he was a member of a pack then (the village and the children), and he’s a member of a pack now. It’s always suited them, and it had the bonus of being a good, mobile form for herding.

The Twili don’t have daemons, and the spirit people in the twilight realm don’t either, which is horrifying from Twilight’s perspective. But that’s why when they were taken into the twilight realm, Twilight and Vona’s forms merged into Wolf Link, a combination of both of them. Both of their minds are in Wolf Link and they can both control the form, but they’ve only ever fought for control once, when Vona tried to stop Zelda from sacrificing herself for Midna and Twilight won out, holding her back.

Despite the obvious similarities between Vona and “Wolfie,” the Links that don’t know about their secret haven’t figure it out. It’s a pretty big leap of logic- besides, Wolfie has all those strange markings, and a shackle around their paw. Wolfie doesn’t mind if the others touch them, even if Vona is in there too- it’s a magical form unique to them both, and it’s neither of theirs completely. Vona is as mature as Kuri is, but more talkative with the others, less touchy, and far more willing to tease and rile the younger daemons up. She doesn’t actually talk to Kuri much- the two wolves recognized each other as soon as they met, and they have an unspoken understanding. She talks to Twilight the regular amount, but they don’t need physical contact as much as the others do- they can share a body whenever they want, and nothing feels as close anymore.

Warriors and Audelfi

Audelfi settled when Warriors drew the Master Sword, but she’d been taking a wolf form on and off for some time before that. It was a noble form to take and common among the unsettled soldiers; the legendary form of the Hero. They were both quite happy with the form, though settling in the middle of a conflict is never easy.

Despite her name, Delfi is absolutely Warriors’ voice of reason and caution. It’s not a mostly even split like it is with Hyrule and Fernwai, she got just about all of it and he got almost none. She’s the one to talk him down from his most reckless decisions, or to sit by exasperatedly when she can’t. It’s sometimes caused noticeable friction between them; every rare once in a while it gets so bad that they flat out won’t speak to one another, and Delfi has actually pulled at their bond to try and drag him away from a dangerous situation before. They (obviously) always apologize and make up, but it’s a cycle that keeps repeating.

Delfi sees herself partly as her Hylian’s protector (she’s not entirely wrong), so it took her a while to relax around the other daemons and interact with them instead of Warriors, who was the exact opposite and warmed up to the other Links very quickly. She’s the only daemon that will talk to the other Hylians uninvited, which they don’t mind, exactly, but find a little bit… forward. Her ego is definitely smaller than Warriors, but Delfi was the Greek center of the world, after all.

Wild and Firielore

Wild settled young,  drawing the Master Sword when he was 13. Firi settled as a field mouse, which was a cause for concern at first. Scholars quickly reassured the King that everything was fine; the Hero’s daemon was most often a wolf, yes, but there was at least one other in the ancient texts that took the shape of a mouse.

Wild and Firi have the longest bond distance of all of the Links, because of the painful pulling that they frequently put themselves through as a knight and as Zelda’s guard. Every once in a while she’ll climb a rock or something and Wild will go carefully still, automatically pretending not to be fazed- old habits die hard. Everyone has noticed, but no one brings it up. It’s none of their business, even when any one of them would be doubled over with the pain of the distance while Wild stands outwardly unaffected. Twilight tried talking to him about it once, and Wild didn’t respond but ignored him for the rest of the day, Firi like a statue of a mouse on his shoulder.

Firi is and always has been a quiet daemon, but she got even quieter as the weight of her and Wild’s responsibilities settled over them Pre-Calamity. She never speaks except to Wild, and even then, only softly and occasionally. She’s opened up considerably since their awakening in the Shrine of Resurrection in that she’ll leave Wild’s shoulder and interact with the other daemons for longer and longer periods of time, often riding with Emper on Fernwai’s back during long days of uneventful travel. The others have only heard her voice once or twice, and she always pretends that they haven’t in case they make it a big deal.

(More on Firi pre-LU here)

Four and Emper

Emper settled when Four drew the completed Four Sword during his first journey, but she was taking the mouse form long before that. It was just always who she had been, and it was really a relief to settle, because they’d been wondering why they hadn’t already. Four loves her form for a multitude of reasons- he’s small, and she’s small. She can’t really help in the forge, but she can fit into lots of places that he can’t (when he’s big). She can ride on his shoulder, and when he’s the size of a Minish, he can ride on her back. They’re perfect for one another!

Emper doesn’t shrink when Four does, but she does change when he splits. It’s kind of complicated. There’s not four Empers the same way there’s four Fours, but they each have an aspect of her the same way they do of him. What form that takes I’m unsure of- there aren’t four mouse daemons, though.

Emper is one of the calmer social daemons, just like her Hylian. She's very friendly with all the other daemons, and she was a big part of helping Firi to feel at home in the group (meeting Four and having their form validated was actually very important for her and Wild). It's hard to be super cuddly with a mouse, but she and Four manage. They prefer to communicate silently rather than openly, but they have a healthy combination of both.

Sky and Lydivia

Sky and Lydivia settled later in their journey as well, when Hylia’s blessing completed the transformation of the Master Sword. The people of Skyloft didn’t have as much form variance as they would as the people of Hyrule, because of how deeply ingrained the loftwings were to their culture. Daemons only took shapes that were small enough to ride on a loftwing, be carried, or fly quickly enough to keep up with one; though only the the Goddesses themselves (and by extension all Zeldas) could settle as one of the sacred birds. Lydi always favored the butterfly form, and it was fitting that she settled as something found both in the Sky and on the land beneath the clouds.

Lydi is quiet, because even though her wingspan makes her larger than Firi and Emper, it’s hard for a butterfly to be loud. She does speak sometimes, just very softly, and mostly lets Sky voice her thoughts if she needs him to. It’s not uncommon to see her settled on one of the other’s daemons, either listening to them talk or just being near them for comfort or camaraderie. She’s content to just be, listening to the other Hylians and daemons (who learn what the different movements of her wings mean and include her in conversations when they can) and talking silently to Sky.

Legend and Faistina

Faistina settled when Legend drew the Master Sword, like most of the others, but they already sort of knew. The Dark World reveals your true self, and they had been a rabbit- he feels unspeakably lucky they didn’t settle that way, though he’d never admit it out loud. A hare is a better form, faster, bigger, and more capable. He is not a defenseless rabbit.

When they’re forced into the rabbit form in the Dark World, it’s sort of the same experience that Twilight and Vona have when becoming Wolf Link, except that it’s a weakening and incomplete merging and not an advantage. It’s more like Fais- all of Fais, not just the parts that they always share- is forced into Legend’s mind all at once, and he takes on her base physical traits, but softened; the ears, the fur, the face… it sucks for both of them. He’s so glad they didn’t settle as a rabbit.

Like Hyrule and Fernwai, Legend and Fais have similar base personalities- they just don’t get along as well as they maybe should. It’s not like Warriors, where he and his daemon have spats and then reconcile, more like they have some unresolved things they probably should have talked about long ago but most likely never will. Her form still makes him uncomfortable and self doubtful, and she knows it, though she’s long accepted it herself. Fais interacts with the other daemons in the same way that Legend interacts with the other Links; a little bit needling at times, kind of aloof, but able to see when she’s needed to be serious or kind. Despite their differences she and Legend do love each other, of course they do, but they don’t show their affection as outwardly, instead verbally sparring with one another or sharing exasperated looks at someone else’s expense.

Wind and Marumi

Wind settled when he drew the Master Sword at age 12, young even for a Hero. He’s never had any issue with Marumi’s form; seagull daemons are pretty common on the Great Sea, and he’s happy to represent that. It’s a good form for a sailor and a pirate, as long as she’s perched when the King of Red Lions goes fast, and she can even glide from traincar to traincar to check on passengers and cargo if they’re careful about it. They aren’t upset at how early they were forced to settle, either, except maybe for the fact that Marumi didn’t get to play with forms as much as most kids. Time is bitter about it on Wind’s behalf.

Wind and Marumi are young and have an innocent, open daemon-Hylian bond despite their mature experiences. They’re used to silent communication, because she’s in the air whenever possible and it’s hard for her voice to carry over the roar of the sea and the wind. Marumi helps to serve as the group’s navigator if they’re lost and she and Wind can get up high enough to not stretch their bond too badly (they have a larger than average bond distance, which is helpful for avian forms, but it’s natural and not forced like Wild’s is). She has a good sense of direction and the flight power that Lydi lacks to get a good view of their surroundings.

Marumi loves to talk to the other daemons, and she and Wind have reacclimated fairly well to talking to each other verbally. Sometimes Wind will still yell out non sequiturs to her, though, because they’re used to the one way communicating. She’s not flying that high, and he does not need to yell so loud and startle all eight of his fully armed travel companions, thank you very much. Marumi stays in the air most of the time during the day, but nests in Wind’s lap or hair at night.

~Other Stuff~

- All of the daemons call their Link ‘Link,’ and all the other Links by their title. It’s not as confusing as one would think. Everyone learns the other daemons’ voices very quickly, so that if one shouts out in the heat of battle they can identify who needs help.

- Listening to the daemons talk about their Hylians can be confusing. Not for the daemons themselves, though.

- Most of them know on some level that Legend is unhappy with Fais’ form, they just don’t know why. Sky, Wind, Four, and Wild have tried pep talking him about not having a wolf form, thinking maybe that’s the problem. It’s not.

- They all worry about the extremes to which Wild and Firi push their bond, and how often they do it.

- If they need to split up, the wolf daemons communicate long distance with an agreed upon system of howls. Most of the group is impressed with how quickly Wolfie picks it up too.

[gascon-en-exil]

The Not Really Definitive Ranking of the Zelda Series: #17

#19 - Four Swords

#18 - The Adventure of Link

#17 - The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

Time has not been kind to the DS games, I think. Their scope is ambitious - carrying on the story of The Wind Waker, i.e. where Hyrule is drowned, Ganon is a rock, the Triforce has flown off to parts unknown, and the Master Sword is lost forever at the bottom of the sea - and like the 3D games released on either side of them (er, the Wii version of Twilight Princess, anyway) they experiment with a creative new control scheme that takes advantage of what was at the time revolutionary gaming hardware. Unfortunately, they’re now greatly overshadowed by the aforementioned 3D games, and the controls turned out to be annoying and the very opposite of immersive. Seriously, whose bright idea was it to make even something as simple as walking dependent on touch screen controls? Or to tie swordplay to pointing or drawing shapes with the stylus? You get used to it after a while, but it never fails to throw me off whenever I revisit either of these titles.

Phantom Hourglass in particular feels like an unpolished experience that recycles the main gameplay mechanic of The Wind Waker for its overworld exploration (but now with a steamship, so screw the wind!) on a smaller, more contained scale. It does a similar scaling down job with WW’s graphical style, but the results aren’t quite as charming, particularly for cutscenes.

There are a few creative applications for the hardware, most notably the ability to draw and make notes on any map in the game and the increased functionality of ranged items like the boomerang and bombchus. It also allows for one or two clever puzzles, like one that requires you to close the DS to “copy” a symbol from the top screen onto the bottom. The gameplay of PH is bound up in neat little moments like that tied together with, as mentioned before, a heavy dose of The Wind Waker Lite. You’re still sailing around a collection of islands, gathering plot coupons according to the most well-tested of the series’ formulas (do three dungeons for plot coupons - midgame turning point - do a variable amount of other dungeons for a different set of plot coupons - finale), and stumbling upon an assortment of sidequests, minigames, and optional islands along the way. I would like to point out that PH is the first handheld Zelda to adhere so closely to the gameplay formula that was at this time so set in stone for the console games, even to the point that it’s the first one where I could make a list of the obligatory “minigames that are an absolute pain in my ass” because I’m an obsessive completionist and those are a persistent feature of 3D Zeldas. For PH it’s the archery and fishing minigames, and probably also the one island where you have to dig up no fewer than four treasure charts randomly buried in the sand. I hate RNG-dependent minigames.

But the real annoyance of this game, and the one that its critics will emphasize above everything else, is this place:

There may be shortcuts here and there, but the hard fact remains that you’re required to slog through the Temple of the Ocean King something like half a dozen times over the course of the game, repeating many of the same puzzles and dealing with stealth segments, unkillable enemies, and a time limit on each visit. That’s not even mentioning the chore of having to return to this location after each dungeon, a pace-breaking design choice that would go on to be replicated in Spirit Tracks and Skyward Sword. The monotonous shrine aesthetics and music from Breath of the Wild have nothing on this game, which even manages to fall short of the NES titles in having just one music track for every single dungeon in the game. What’s more, apart from the Ghost Ship the dungeons of PH stand out very little from each other. They’re so unmemorable that I had to watch a run of the Temple of Ice (generally one of my favorite dungeon themes) on YouTube just to recall if it offered anything notable. Answer: not really - some slippery patches of ice, annoying enemies that freeze you, ice walls that melt when you press switches (huh?), incredibly obvious uses for the dungeon item, and a redesigned Gleeok fight that requires extensive use of said item. *yawns*

So what merits placing this game above The Adventure of Link, aside from the near-complete absence of frustrating difficulty once you figure out the controls? This is the only Zelda game for which this may be said, but believe it or not it’s the companion characters that save this game.

It took me some time to see it myself, but knockoff Navi and knockoff Jack Sparrow from The Pirates of the Caribbean movies basically make this game. It helps that Ciela and Linebeck have some fairly amusing banter and character arcs of their own that, while basic, do feel like genuine development (you know, that thing Link can’t have much of because he’s a silent protagonist). They’re no Midna, but fleeing the cannons of Linebeck’s overzealous pirate ex or helping Ciela discover she’s a plot coupon or even facing a possessed Linebeck as the final boss all make for memorable moments in an otherwise unmemorable game. Even if Link is as usual doing all the heavy lifting, this time he’s got a fun little group of friends with him as they sail the high seas and have wacky adventures and repetitive dungeon-crawling escapades on their way to rescue Tetra...who’s also in this game, just barely.

It’s actually because of that companionable feeling that I have to raise an eyebrow at the ending, which takes an abrupt hard right at Link’s Awakening after the final boss. In summary, the old man Link meets at the start of game who Ciela calls her grandfather is in fact a flying whale deity with his own world in a separate dimension or something from the one that Link and Tetra (and possibly Linebeck, the game’s not really clear) inhabit. When Link destroys the demon Bellum this Ocean King is able to resume his true form and return Link and Tetra to their own world and to the company of Tetra’s none-the-wiser crew, who’ve apparently been staring at the empty Ghost Ship the whole time they’ve been gone.

I’m going to get into why LA’s story resonates so well on an emotional level when I talk about that game, but the nod it receives here in PH is such an utter flop that it hurts. The ending of LA is profoundly bittersweet, with Link alone and adrift in the ocean and forced to confront the reality that Koholint Island was all a dream, with the Wind Fish and possibly seagull!Marin making appearances as uplifting reminders that his experiences were not empty or meaningless just because they happened in the world of the subconscious. Here, Link leaves the World of the Ocean King alongside Tetra and - as he witnesses in the game’s final shot - Linebeck as well, and the parting with Ciela comes from her role as a guardian of her extradimensional world, not because she never existed in the same reality that Link does. As an ending it feels nowhere near as final or as isolating, and as such lacks the punch of LA. Link and Tetra leave behind PH as little more than a weird acid trip on their way to founding New Hyrule...but hey, at least their new country will feature a lot more of the same, right?

Next time: taking another swing at Zelda multiplayer...nah, just kidding, I’m only doing the single player version.

[gottagobuycheese]

Part 2 or 3 or something in the “I could have used this four-day weekend to start investing in my future and stop sabotaging myself needlessly, but nahhhh let’s get nostalgic about old games instead” series