#i like him. i like thinking about different dynamics he could have with linebeck

[waywardsalt]

im gonna elaborate on bellum being a friend a lil more bc im thinking abt it and i like it (drawing coming. at some point)

i already go into post-phantom hourglass stuff specifically with the idea that the whole bellumbeck thing, while obviously intensely uncomfortable and traumatic, managed to clear some things up for linebeck and actually ended up being the final nail in the coffin for a lot of things he’d been struggling with. plus i go with the idea that he has some kind of internal confrontation with bellum during the whole thing, so theyre actually a bit familiar with each other by the time that whole thing is over

with post-ph specifically, bellum survives and is sealed away in the phantom sword (i mean. he turned into sand and that sand was absorbed by the phantom sword. i think of it as smth like. he cant really be killed just sealed away) and as punishment for the, uh, *checks notes* murder and kidnapping and abduction and manipulation and likely attempted genocide and very likely war crimes he is sent by oshus into the world of the great sea, extremely weak (as a result of being sealed away) and essentially forced to help link n linebeck (hes basically mega-grounded idk) and begrudgingly has to use his little human form half of the time

he and linebeck kind of understand each other after the whole bellumbeck thing and after an (obviously) rough patch (mostly with linebeck being paranoid around him) they end up trusting each other to the point where they’re just friends. bellum is linebecks pet evil demon squid. hes a member of the crew. one of the boys. not allowed to cook because he prefers live meat over seasonings in general.

i enjoy the idea of bellum having your general sort of… learning to actually appreciate life instead of approaching it with the attitude to either consume it or eradicate it arc. mucking around with stupid little mortals arc. making actual friends and not just being a violent warmonger arc. trying something outside of fulfilling what he assumed he was made to be good at and finding some new kind of purpose arc. hes fun as a chaotic and malicious villain but i like to build off of that and i like this direction. funneling that violent chaos into him letting linebeck throw him like a dodgeball at something he wants to kill

he still gets his usual scrappy and opportunistic moments and all of that but it is a lot of fun to just take a step out of that and just imagine him n linebeck working past the initial hostility and discomfort and being able to enjoy each other enough to the point where bellum can drape himself around linebecks neck like a pet snake

link and bellum probably never become close friends tho. doesnt help that bellum’s human form lets him convincingly pass as a family member of link’s

thinking about linebeck and bellum being friends or smth hang on. small bellum wrapped around linebeck’s neck like hes a snake or smth

[gascon-en-exil]

@eldraftsman and @zeldassmile

You guys got off into quite the discussion in replies and I’m a little late to getting back to them, so just a couple of disconnected points:

To reiterate, I don’t actually ship Urbosa/Zelda or personally have trans Link headcanons. I’m just acknowledging that they exist and that some people like them, and I think that diversity in fan interpretation is rarely a bad thing. Also, as eldraftsman points out it’s fallacious to dismiss Urbosa/Zelda because it’s “pedophilia” when A) Zelda is most definitely past puberty so it would actually be ephebophilia, B) age of consent varies by jurisdiction, and it’s impossible to say with any accuracy how it would be regarded in a fictional setting that never addresses the subject, and C) I seriously doubt it’s a major concern for the developers; recall that in Ocarina of Time an almost definitely prepubescent Link is duped into an engagement and the whole thing is played for comedy, or that in BotW itself there’s a Zora who appears to be a child yet gets involved in some fashion with an adult Hylian man.

The question of Link as a self-insert is a very old conundrum that’s even baked into his name (he’s the link between the player and the game world - someone in 1986 was feeling clever). There have been times when the games allow for the player’s input on certain story scenes, but most of the time that’s either not an option or the choices are irrelevant. BotW is notable in that almost nothing in the game is actually mandatory to complete it, including the flashbacks that showcase the development of Link’s character and his relationship with Zelda or anyone else. Of course these shouldn’t be discounted if we’re talking about Link as a discrete character, but the fact remains that the player can choose to ignore them and craft their own adventure to a degree not seen since the NES days. BotW Link’s not a full-on blank slate PC like those from MMOs, but he comes damn close. I’d compare him to death knight PCs from World of Warcraft, who like him come pre-packaged with a heroic backstory that was brutally cut short by tragedy, after which they are reawakened under strange and ominous circumstances.

On a related note, I never bought into that most outdated of gaming carrots on a stick, rescuing damsels in distress, specifically because it  (and the inferred promise of heterosexual love/romance/sex for the protagonist) never appealed to me. Clearly there are players who get personally invested in those scenarios - look at the recent outcry over Peach’s behavior at the of Super Mario Odyssey, for an immediate example - but since I’m outside that assumed straight male demographic it doesn’t do a thing for my sense of immersion. Certainly Zelink and some of the secondary M/F pairings like Malink and Midlink can play into that dynamic, but I prefer to pull different ideas from those interactions even if I’m not treating Link as a self-insert just because doing otherwise would be really boring. (Note that there are exceptions - I admit that the Zelink dynamic in Spirit Tracks is pretty fun, and at least one-sided Midlink can play into Midna’s broader development well enough.)

Kind of a humorous last note, but I’ve gleaned from a little research that many vocal anti-Sidlink fans are specifically bothered by how the ship’s fanbase plays up the size difference and, er, rough logistics that would probably be involved. To this I should point out that Sidlink is just the latest in a long line of M/M ships that pair Link with a man who is much larger, more dominant, and/or just outright evil. Whether that’s Ganondorf, Dark Link, Ghirahim, Groose, Demise, Linebeck, more Dom versions of himself with Four Swords selfcest...to paraphrase a gay friend of mine who’s also a fan of the series, Link is just a big ol’ bottom in fandom. As a bottom myself I could suggest that this trend reflects how physically demanding bottoming is and how it requires a fair bit of courage (heh), but I may be giving the fanbase a little too much credit with that reading. In any case, giant shark dicks is old hat at this point, with the only thing surprising being that Sidlink has become so wildly popular. Positivity + size kink = fandom gold, apparently.