#i ship a lot of zelink just not this one

[infjarts]

hot take, zelda and link in echoes of wisdom aren't in love and probably feel a whole lot more awkward around each other. no shame to people who ship them, i just dont see it. here's why.

link found zelda because he was following his rift sense, and maybe he knew ganon was there too. he enters the room, sees the princess of hyrule trapped in a crystal, goes "that's wild bro, anyways" and fights ganon. rescuing the princess wasn't part of the plan, but he regularly saves random people so it's just another tuesday.

and then he gets sucked in the rift. he goes, "wuh oh" and as a quick thinker, shoots a single arrow at zelda's crystal, hoping she could get out before the rift expanded.

luckily she did, and went home only to watch her father and his retainers fall into a rift, getting replaced by imposters who throw her in prison and order her execution. then she gets rescued by a weird glowy thing and escapes to find impa coming to get her. she has to hide her identity and leave her nursemaid behind to get captured in order to escape. that all happened in a SINGLE DAY. she's too focused on surviving to be thinking about the guy who saved her too hard.

she then goes to the still world to seal the rift, and encounters the swordsman again. but now he's trying to kill her. and will do this again before she puts the pieces together that this isn't actually link, it's an echo.

so by the end of the game, these two have actually interacted like three times. the other times zelda saw link, it was a copy of him that was dead-set on her death.

so as she stands before the real link near the end, being told to rearm the guy by tri, she hesitates. she grips her rod tightly. she doesn't feel safe giving the weapons of might to him, because how can she be sure this isn't another trick? any second his eyes could turn red and he could strike with the weapons she upgraded. She was barely able to hold him off when using just one of his weapons on her. He would be a nightmare to face with all three.

and as they go through null's body, she keeps looking at him ahead of her, expecting him to turn around and charge at any moment. the fact that she feels significantly less powerful without the weapons of might doesn't help. She fends off the monsters with only the rod, feeling like her chances of winning any battle on her own have been halved. She keeps watching Link tear through the enemies like a beast, effortlessly fighting three times better than she ever had in swordfighter form.

but despite what her paranoia kept screaming in her ear, link never turned on her. they won the battle against null and saved the day. they returned to hyrule, and life picked up more or less where it left off. link visited from time to time, and he and zelda properly got to know each other. and after a long time, link finally gained her trust as a friend.

but with everything that happened, i just can't see them being more than friends or siblings. but maybe somebody who reads this atrociously long post can change my mind? idk, tell me what ya'll think.

[jullbnt]

Yay Sheik!!

I have already drawn Sheik in my ballet AU and Link and Sheik playing music together in my Linktober style, I don't know if you’ve seen these!

I love them though so it's a pleasure drawing them again ^^

I tried combining both your requests in one drawing @batrogers and @shork-puppi. They were playing music together, but now Link just wants to relax ^^

You can see this as Shink if you want (I do ship them cause it’s still Zelink). What I had in mind though was more like Link still being a child at heart and showing his affection for his friend in a very innocent way (if that makes any sense haha)

I’ve been so tired this took me forever, it’s not even a very complicated piece and I kept the coloring and background really simple 😆

Hope you like it!!

———————

I won’t accept more requests at the moment! These are requests I received for my 500 followers celebration and I still have a lot to do :)

Answered art requests

[cooking-with-hailstones]

The Legend of Zelda: stats of the kingdom

A Statistical Analysis of Popular Fanfiction in the Legend of Zelda Fandom on AO3

I like numbers and stats and for some unfathomable reason I find it calming. So over the past couple weeks, I’ve been making this spreadsheet!

DISCLAIMER: This is not a judgement of the quality, value, or merits of any of the fics on this list. It's just me being curious about what's popular with the Legend of Zelda fandom on AO3.

Feel free to go explore the spreadsheet. My own observations and analysis under the cut.

TL:DR, Link has a lot of kinky sex. Sidlink and Zelink are vying for who’s the most popular ship. Also, this fandom has a shit ton of sub categories that are truly islands unto themselves and have their own conventions.

Methodology: I'm including all fics from the first page of AO3 results (20 fics per page) sorted by:

Hits

Kudos

Comments

Bookmarks

Anything tagged under the Legend of Zelda and Related Fandoms tag that was in the top 20 most hits, kudos, comments, or bookmarks made it into the spreadsheet. This ended up including 51 fics in total.

I put all the fics into one single spreadsheet in order to compare the differences between fics that are really high on the kudos count but not the hit count, or what has a lot of comments but fewer hits. Basically, I'm throwing a lot of things together to observe what gets engagement and looking at patterns that emerge!

Popular fandom subcategories:

Botw (41 fics tagged as such)

Linked Universe (9, including one mostly set in the world of BOTW)

OoT (2)

(I do wonder what it would be like to run these numbers on other fanfic sites, given the popularity boom of ao3 over the last 15 years or so. But also, Botw was an insanely popular game even by Zelda standards, so… who knows?)

Tags:

Character tags: Obviously, Link was by far the most popular character, but here are the characters that had a minimum of 3 appearances per category. Yay champions!

Zelda

Sidon

Mipha

Urbosa

Revali

Daruk

Story tags: Again, just going by sheer numbers, here are the story tags that appeared at least 3 times in every category:

Slowburn

AU – canon divergence

With honorable mentions to fluff, angst, double penetration, anal sex, amnesia/memory loss, and mute or selectively mute Link, who all cracked above 3 instances in 2 separate categories.

Relationships:

This was a tight race, but shoutout to Sidlink for eking out the win for the most highly rated ship in the Zelda fandom with 13 fics qualifying in my ranking. Zelink is close behind at 10 fics. (That being said, Zelink takes it by volume: 7,797 fics tagged as Zelink vs Sidlink’s 2,193)

Other popular ships:

Revalink (8) (this one surprised me! I didn’t realize my beloved birb was so popular)

Miphlink (3)

Link/Monsters (2)

Sidon/Reader (2)

Ganzelink, Ganlink, Malink, Miphzelink, and Miphzel all made single appearances.

(Pls don’t start ship war discourse in the notes kthanx)

All right, let’s deep dive into the numbers!

Fics in all 4 categories:

Interim - starkraving

Sands of time -tirsynni

Congrats you are officially the most popular Loz fics across all of ao3! at least according to my particular scope of analysis.

Fics in 3 categories:

Displaced - socksock

Drown In Me - bacchanalia

Alone We Fight - SilvermistAnimeLover

Blood Moon Rising - MarquesGillette

Popular authors (people who show up more than once in multiple categories sorry comments georg)

MarquesGillette

MaryDragon

SilvermistAnimeLover

ObakeAri

Hits:

Top 5 most popular fics by hit count:

Displaced - socksock

Interim - starkraving

To Save Hyrule - orphan_account

Sands of time - tirsynni

Drown In Me - bacchanalia

First page by hits:

Min: 117,917 – Sidon’s Epic Pining Adventure (ObakeAri)  

Max:  189,622 – Displaced (socksock)

Average: 145,385

Average wordcount for fics with the most hits:

140,909

Kudos:

Top 5 most popular fics by kudos count:

Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy - Icka M Chif

Interim - starkraving

To My Dearest Friend - surveycorpsjean

26 Minutes and 42 Seconds - T_5Seconds

Blood Moon Rising - MarquesGillette

First page by kudos:

Min: 4917 – Finding Link (Umbreonix)

Max:  10321 – Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy (Icka M Chif)

Average: 6981

Average wordcount for fics with the most kudos:

41,136

Comments:

Top 5 most popular fics by comment count:

Carlos from MarvelandZeldaFan's Children of the Heroes - KR5

This is an Adjuration - notfreyja

My Art - KR5

Sidon's Epic Pining Adventure - ObakeAri

Priestess of War - KR5

Woohoo! You all get to meet KR5 aka Comments Georg. Comments Georg has long conversations and RPs in the comments of their ao3 posts, which are usually fanart. TO BE CLEAR, THIS IS TOTALLY FINE AND COOL! I think it’s quite delightful! However, it does completely bork my ranking system because outside of comments, these posts do not have a lot of engagement (like, less than 100 hits and less than 20 kudos) and I don’t think they count towards my analysis of “what is popular in the Zelda fandom writ large”. But they qualified based on my criteria. Which I think speaks to the weakness of my criteria more than anything else tbh…

Anyways, shoutout to Comments Georg for truly showing off what it means to be a statistical outlier.

First page by comments:

Min: 1568 – The Quiet River Rages (MaryDragon)

Max:  43808 - Carlos from MarvelandZeldaFan's Children of the Heroes (KR5)

Average: 4131 (which goes down to 2042 if we exclude KR5’s impressive max, which is a full order of magnitude more than notfreyja in second place with 3470 comments. Very much demonstrating the power of a statistical outlier!)

Average wordcount for fics with the most comments:

275,593

Bookmarks:

Top 5 most popular fics by bookmarks count:

Interim - starkraving

Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy - Icka M Chif

Sands of time - tirsynni

To My Dearest Friend - surveycorpsjean

Alone We Fight - SilvermistAnimeLover

First page by bookmarks:

Min: 973 – Expatriate (thehoyden)

Max:  2984 – Interim (starkraving)

Average: 1468

Average wordcount for fics with the most bookmarks:

70,027

Fic Ratings:

G: 3 (literally all fanart from KR5)

T: 22

M: 8

E: 17

Unrated: 1

Observations:

I ran this twice. Once including crossovers, and once excluding crossovers. This filtered out a lot of large drabbles and things like “flash fiction fuckings” which, no judgment, you do you, they just weren’t super relevant for what I was looking for. If you wanna see these stats including all the multifandom stuff that shows up, here’s the link for that:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DXDKXutIzVC-Iac93fFSDohAkphrn67yV-DmRt9xXmU/edit?usp=sharing

(I’m going to break academic professional analysis here and get on my soapbox for a sec – please don’t post big multifandom one shots where you tag like 20 different fandoms and every single kink that gets written about across 103 different chapters. This is literally what series are for. These kinds of things just clog up the tags, and it also makes it harder for people to find the things you’ve written that they want to read! I know this was a convention on ff.net, but this is not ff.net! We can make authors' lives and readers' lives easier!)

There were 38,427 fics in the tag “Legend of Zelda and Related Fandoms” (including crossovers, that goes up to 41,634). I manually added one back in though because it was entirely a botw story, just loosely inspired by another game.

Linked Universe fans comment a LOT. Strong correlation between high comment and Linked Universe fandom subsection. Y’all are very involved and active, and you show support to your authors. I salute you!

Sidlinkers, y'all are horny and I respect it.

Zelinkers, dear god we do love a slowburn.

All the most highly kudos’d fics are very low in the comment count. It’s almost an inverse correlation.

Excluding crossovers increased the correlation between hits and kudos quite dramatically.

There were not very many au’s other than canon divergence. Only one modern au as far as I could tell from a cursory examination of tags.

Lots more clustering, far less disparity between min and max numbers than when I ran this with A:TLA numbers.

Far less consensus on a vibe. Way fewer big writers, but lots of little writers doing their own thing.

Truly a lot of E fics. We are horny bastards.

We need more stuff written for games other than BOTW!!

There aren’t as many fics that are like “oh everyone in the fandom has read these fics”. There are probably those fics in each subcategory of the fandom, or within the specific ships, but there aren’t as many general fics that have entire fandom-wide appeal.

Thank you for reading! This was a lot of fun, and I hope you found it interesting. Shoutout to the Hateno Hangout discord for helping me refine this mess :P

Further shoutout to my partner who helped with writing some SQL to help with tag analysis. Truly partner of the year.

If you want more of this kind of egregious nerdiness, I did this with the top fics in the A:TLA fandom a couple weeks ago: https://www.tumblr.com/cooking-with-hailstones/751749202663669760/statistical-analysis-of-the-most-popular-atla

[dragongirlie56]

02-Suitors

This one’s a lot longer than my first Zelink oneshot! Hope you enjoy!

Happy Halloween everyone :)

Here’s the link to my other oneshots ——> Zelink masterlist

Ship: Zelink

Warnings? None!

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Link was a hair away from smacking the stuck up prince with the pommel of his sword. How he has kept his cool through countless suitors he didn't know. (That's a lie. He's been counting, and it's been twelve suitors.)

Prince Caro , with his brown hair and blue eyes, droned on and on for so long Link counted seven times since Zelda had zoned out completely disinterested with what the prince had to say. She normally never did that, she loved to listen to people as much as she loved talking. But the prince didn't even give her any space to get in a word. He didn't once ask about what she liked to do or where she went in her free time or what her favorite dessert was?

She glanced over her shoulder and met Link's gaze with knitted brows. He gave her a smile of pity that probably looked more like a grimace. He could tell she was hating this just as much as he was. No, definitely more than he was. He didn't have to talk to the guy.

"Does he have to follow us? You're perfectly safe with me. See we have guards stationed everywhere." The prince turned halfway to frown at the blonde hero. 

Link kept his expression level as the prince stared. He seriously considered jumping him. That would be truly reckless. Though he thought Zelda might be happy if he did and they could make their grand escape.

"But you know, there's a fine line between courage and recklessness! As brave as you are, that does not make you immortal." Link chuckled inwardly at the memory of him and Zelda—of course there was a difference between facing multiple lynels, lizafos, and bokoblins compared to one prince but he thought it would've been worth it. Though he would upset an entire kingdom and the King of Hyrule.

"Yes," she replied, glancing at a picture on the wall. "Link is always by my side."

"I didn't ask for his name, Zelda." Caro shook his head.

Zelda's eyebrows rose and she turned her head towards him. "You will respect my knight who is, in fact, the Hero of Hyrule. Without him and I, the calamity would've taken over your kingdom as well," she replied, her tone firm. "And we aren't on a first name basis. So that is Princess to you."

Link bit his cheek. He noticed it has been a lot harder to hide his emotions (especially smiles) ever since he'd grown closer with the blonde haired girl. 

Caro matched her raised brows, obviously not expecting a retort to put him in his place. The prince waved his hand and continued through the gardens. Link noticed Zelda's clenched fists and her apparent frown.

He flicked his eyes back to the prince and watched him walk down the hall. The brunette prince reminded him of a moblin: tall and stupid. Resembling the royal to a snout-nosed blue monster was being generous. Extremely generous. 

"You'll see here is my favorite part of the hall." Caro steeped his arm in an arc.

Of course it would be. Trophies were individually displayed in glass cases, many engraved with a bow and quiver of arrows. He only found one that said the prince's name, and it read, 'Participation award.'

Hylia, spare me. Link looked momentarily towards the ceiling.

"I'm an incredible archer so as you can see here I've won many, many contests." His smug smile almost made Link roll his eyes. Almost, Link wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

I could beat him, Link found himself thinking. Was it a bit prideful? Yes. But it was also humble because he said 'could' which gave the prince a slight chance against him. Link thought he was doing okay at balancing his jealousy.

Zelda, much to Link's delight, didn't really react much except for a "Very nice."

"Why thank you." The prince put a hand to his chest and continued on.

"Do you have a library?" Zelda asked, glancing down a neighboring hall.

"... yeah I think so?" Caro’s eyebrows furrowed.

"You think?" One of Zelda's golden brows quirked upwards.

"Why would you want to go to one anyways?"

Zelda let out a light sigh as she gestured forward with her hand. "Nevermind. Please continue, Prince Caro."

—————————————————

Orange and pink tinted clouds ribboned the tiring sky. Link and Zelda stood side by side as they took in the beauty of the setting sun. It has been a good hour since their agonizing tour with the trivial prince.

Link's blue eyes flicked to Zelda and he watched the way the fading golden rays framed her face. She was absolutely breathtaking. If Link had paint and an easel he could only dream of capturing her essence in this moment. 

He quickly noticed the shift in her eyes, an underlying thought she's held back.

"Link."

He hummed in acknowledgment and tilted his head.

"What would you do in my situation?"

Link cast his eyes toward the horizon. That was a difficult question considering he had an unspoken irritation regarding the princess meeting with suitors who could be potential husbands for her. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth and opened a new door to a fear of his. He didn't want to stop being her knight. He didn't trust another man to protect her like he would—-like he does.

Instead of voicing any of his internal thoughts, naturally, he replied with, "I don't know." Because really what could she do? Deny the King's orders, her father, and run away? Abandon her duties as the future queen of Hyrule? He didn't know what he would do if he was forced into this situation of an arranged marriage.

Zelda nodded. "I don't know either. But I can't... I can't do this... None of them care about me. Or desire to get to know me. The feeling is mutual, don't get me wrong, but... I don't want to have to marry a... a ... mindless buffoon who only cares about his looks and the union for power. He'll take control over my kingdom and I will have no say in it. I'm sure he would forbid me from pursuing my studies."

I wouldn't. I would let you talk about them all day long. Link imagined them in Hyrule Field—like that one day where she showed him the Silent Princess—laying in the grass as she told him everything new she's read and discovered. Her green eyes would light up like they always did. He would be completely content hearing her voice from the waking hours of dawn to the darkening hours of the twilight.

His heart stuttered when she met his eyes. "Can you take me back, Link? Please? I- I can't stay here anymore. My father can't force me to love him or any of them. Not when I..."

Link's heart now pounded frantically against his chest, he was seriously going to have a heart attack someday because of her.

She didn't finish, much to Link's disappointment. "You don't have to-"

"Whatever you wish, I'll abide Z-" His pointy ears twitched as he heard footsteps against stone. "Princess."

Zelda raised an eyebrow but followed his gaze towards the cobblestone path. She let out a sigh and turned to greet the prince.

"Princess. It saddens me to say but this won't work out." The prince shook his head.

Link didn't miss the way the side of Zelda's lip twitched as she fought a smile.

"I must apologize for such a heartbreaking rejection but it had to be done." The prince put a hand to his head.

"I'll forgive you someday." Zelda sighed and started to walk away.

"Should I walk you...?" He trailed off, clearly uncomfortable and reluctant to do so. 

"I'm alright. I have Link," she replied simply.

"Right... you said that before. Anyways, farewell. I had a...lovely? Yes lovely... tour with you in the garden."

"Ah... yes... lovely." She gave him a small smile.

The pair watched him walk away until he disappeared around the corner.

"I would've taken you back either way, Zel." Link glanced at her sideways.

"I know. Thank you." 

"Always."

They sat in comfortable silence, watching as the last traces of golden light sank into the horizon.

"I'm going to talk to my father," Zelda announced and Link glanced at her.

"About stopping this." She gestured behind her towards the looming castle. "Stopping all of it."

"I'm with you." Link nodded once.

Zelda's eyes softened. "Thank you Link. Your support means more than you know."

He gave her a light smile and held out his hand. "Shall we head home?"

"We shall." Zelda nodded and accepted his hand with a smile that reached her eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Link noticed the way Zelda's arms trembled as she stared solemnly at the oak door of her fathers study. She inhaled shakily.

"You can do it, Princess." The blonde knight laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Zelda tore her gaze from the looming door and met his gaze. He could see the fear in her eyes.

"He'll be furious."

"You don't have to do this."

"No." Her eyes flashed with determination. "I have to." She raised her hand and knocked.

"Enter." The King's voice carried through the wooden oak.

Zelda took a deep breath. With one last glance at Link she turned the handle.

He followed in behind her and bowed before the King. Rhoam stood from his chair and walked around his desk that was filled with documents and empty ink bottles.

"Rise Link."

Link did.

"Leave us please. I must speak to my daughter alone. I'll send her for you once we are finished." 

Link briefly looked at Zelda, watching the way her face fell slightly. Zelda turned towards him and they shared a look.

He gave the King a curt nod and with one last glance at his princess, he exited the study.

——————————————-

Rhoam stayed silent until Link shut the door. His eyes flitted to Zelda and he raised his eyebrows. "Why is it that I've just heard of how difficult you were with Prince Caro? There's no chance of union between us and the Wiln Kingdom."

Difficult?

"I don't care." Zelda's words came out before her brain could process their meaning. Though she didn't regret them.

"Pardon?"

"I said I don't care," she repeated.

"Zelda," her father started, his tone stern. "I know you are having a hard time with this suitor situation. But it is my duty as King and your duty as princess to do what's best for the kingdom of Hyrule. Which is why I have promised you to the Prince Elok of Lon." 

Zelda's stomach dropped. "Promised? How could you?" Her voice broke. "What about your duty as a father? As my father? Do you not want your only daughter to marry for love? To be married to someone she trusts fully? Why do you want to marry me off to some random prince who doesn't care about me?!" She shouted with tears burning the edges of her eyes like wildfires. "I did what you asked. I trained relentlessly. You already took my childhood away from me... you can't take this away too. It should be my choice. I'm who I decide to marry."

"You are a princess-"

"Who sealed the calamity away! Don't I get points for that? I don't want to marry if it isn't for love!"

The king scoffed and shook his head. "What do you know of love, Zelda? You're eighteen years old."

"I'm in it! I'm in love with someone! Not with any of the suitors and I certainly won't be with this new one. Someone who wouldn't suppress my interests and who I am!"

"Who could you possibly-"

"Link."

Rhoam stared at her, stunned. 

"...Link? I thought you despised him."

Zelda's ears burned as she reminisced about her childish actions. Link and her did have a rocky start, much to her accusations and misunderstandings. But she apologized and they ended up growing closer. 

She wanted to say, 'If you had paid any attention at all then you would've realized I don't hate him.'

But instead she said, "No."

"Why didn't you come and talk to me about this?"

Zelda's hands shook at her sides. "You never gave me the space or safety to do so. All you do is lecture me."

"I-" Rhoam's hand covered his mouth as he stared out the window. He was silent for a long time.

Zelda's eyes fell to the floor.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I was so harsh on you."

In time she would find it in herself to forgive him. She knew that. But now, it wasn't the right time.

"I know it was what you believed was best for me," she replied instead.

"Yes, but I should've thought of you. You're my daughter and I didn't protect you."

She didn't disagree with that. 

They were both quiet for a while.

"How did your powers awaken?" Her father broke the heavy silence.

Zelda's mind flashed back to the rush of guardians, the gleaming fires, the harsh rain, and the anxiety that grew in her chest.

But none of that mattered when the guardian aimed at Link. Her stomach dropped to the floor and she felt this overwhelming urge to save him without any fear for her own life. She couldn't let him die, not when she...

Not when she loved him.

She remembered thinking of every moment she shared with her blonde haired knight. Every smile, conversation, and burden they shared.

When she pushed him back to stand in front of him, her hand grew warm and a blinding light erupted from her palm.

"I let Link in," Zelda paused. "...and there wasn't anything more important in that moment than saving him."

Rhoam nodded. "I see... You have my blessing."

Zelda's eyes snapped to him. "What?" she found herself blurting, unsure if she heard her fathers words right.

"No more suitors. If you want to marry Link and if he accepts, I shall accept your wishes. I'll discard the letter I've started for giving your hand to Prince Elok."

She couldn't help the happy tears that sprung to her eyes and the glowing smile that overtook her lips.

"Thank you, Father."

He smiled and shooed her. "Go to him."

Zelda didn't need to be told twice. She threw the doors open and ran down the corridor. She rounded the corner and nearly ran into one of the maids.

"Princess?!" The maid exclaimed, holding her white bandana in place.

"So sorry Ronda!"

Zelda's only thought was to get to her knight. 

——————————————

Link's ears twitched at the rapidly approaching steps. He tensed as he reached for the handle of his sword and whipped his head towards the possible threat. 

His eyes locked onto golden hair and he lowered his hand slowly as he realized it was Zelda. He scanned her expression and his shoulders relaxed when he realized she wasn't in danger.

Though his brain did short circuit when she ran into his arms and hugged him around the waist. The tips of his ears turned pink and his face went slack. She's hugging me. She's hugging me?

He tentatively wrapped his arms around her shoulders. His heart thundered in his chest and he wondered if she could hear it.

She pulled away—much to Link's dismay—and stood in front of him with a bright smile, one that could light the night sky—-his favorite smile of hers. 

Though he was very confused, she never came back from a talk with the King in good spirits. She always sulked and not even her research could pull her out of it.

"Link, you won't believe it!" 

He raised his brows as he waited for her to continue, praying his face wasn't as red as it felt.

"No more suitors! No more awful tours!"

"Wh-what made him change his mind?" Link found himself asking.

"Well..." Zelda's eyes shied away from him. He was surprised he was waiting for her to look at him rather than the other way around.

"I told him I was in love with another. And if it wasn't him I would marry. I didn't want it."

"Oh... who?" A small sliver of hope shone through the doubts crushing his stomach. 

Zelda took in a breath and released it before meeting his gaze. "You Link. I'm in love with you."

The world seemed to tilt beneath the blonde hero's feet as he stared at her with his mouth slightly agape. He was surprised he didn't pass out or wake up from this insane dream. Because it had to be a dream, right?

"B-but don't feel the need to reciprocate my feelings because I'm a princess. Rejection is a part of life. The last thing I would want is to pressure you especially when you don't feel the same way. What I'm trying to say is you don't have to accept my- my proposal. I know the duty alone would be a huge step and a life change, naturally, but-"

"I- Can you say that again?" Link fell deaf to the rest of her ramble, his brain zeroing in on the fact she declared her love. For him. A mere knight.

"What?" Her hands fell to her side.

"What you said before- are you really in... love with..." His eyes flitted from the side to her. "Me?"

Zelda's eyes softened. "I am in love with you, Link."

He definitely wasn't dreaming.

"I'm in love with you, Zelda. I always have been." He felt like a weight had been lifted off of his chest. 

"Really?"

"Really." He held out his arm. When she carefully placed her hand in his, he boldly kissed the back of it. A sly smile twitched at the corner of his mouth.

"You missed." Mirth twinkled in her emerald eyes.

"Did I?" He raised a brow at her.

"Mhm." A chuckle escaped her chest. Sliding her other hand behind his neck, she gently placed her lips on his.

He kissed her back and slid an arm around her waist, pulling her closer.

"I love you." Zelda said once they broke away and she started to cry. 

Link tucked a stray piece of hair behind her pointed ears. He wiped away her tears with his thumbs before pulling her in for a hug. "And I love you."

[ladyhoneydee]

AO3 Wrapped 2024

As a notorious fanfiction fanatic, once I learned of the wondrous AO3 Wrapped earlier this year, I just knew I would have to run my stats! It's taken me a few extra days since December 31, but here they are!

I'll be putting the cool basic graphics first! For people who are curious about more detailed tag breakdowns (more relationships, genres, fun niche tropes, etc) of what I read, look under the cut!

Here is the link to make an AO3 Wrapped of your own! My friend @minimum-underdrive spent hours improving upon the lovely coding made by soupbanana on github, and we would love for as many people to use it as possible!

Graphic Breakdown:

Slide 1: Pretty sure I audibly gasped and maybe yelled when I saw that word count for the first time! Yep, I sure do read a lot of fic, lmao. Ironically, I didn't actually read Delicious in Wilds in 2024—I was briefly checking something in it. But since the AO3 Wrapped code uses everything that appears in your history, here it is! My actual longest fic read in 2024 was Rage Against the Calamity by BCWill (@bugcatcherwill), which is currently ongoing at 626,657 words.

Slide 2: To quote my friend @louwhose: "wow I am so surprised that Dee, great reader of all things loz, got those fandoms and that character", lmfao. The order is also not surprising given which LoZ game duology has the most fics written for them!

Slide 3: Zelink...zelink...then—WAH! Hehe, sorry to jumpscare you with a Parks & Recreation ship. I had a...phase...after rewatching much of the show this summer. And for anyone curious, the AO3 Wrapped code decides your top authors not by how many words you've read by one author, but by how many fics you've read by one author. As a result, all of my top authors write lots of oneshots: Mistress_Lrigtar (@mistresslrigtar), Fyreflare (@wouldyoustilllovemeifiwasawyrm, and ZeldaElmo (@zeldaelmo) are pillars for zelink, spitecentral (@marinsawakening) wrote a lot of gen oneshots this year, and nocturne-of-forest (@nocturne-of-forest) is the current mvp for midlink oneshots.

Slide 4: This slide—with one very notable exception—was not too surprising to me! Fluff, angst, and hurt/comfort are genres and therefore get tagged for lots of different premises. Now Selectively Mute Link, on the other hand, was not something I expected to appear in my top 4 AO3 tags, and did in fact make me cackle upon reading it. I was somewhat surprised to see that my top rating was GA, as I would have expected T, but I'm certainly content with it, lol.

Detailed Breakdown!

The coding behind this basic graphic is wonderful and concise. However, I wanted to learn much more about my reading habits than just this brief takeaway could show me. Fortunately, as long as you (or a friend of yours, in my case, since I know zilch about coding) know how to run specific commands, almost every detail you want to know about your reading stats is findable.

As such, instead of just my number one fella Link, here are my...

Top Characters

Link (Legend of Zelda): 1307

Zelda (Legend of Zelda): 1071

Impa (Legend of Zelda): 196

Ganondorf (Legend of Zelda): 136

Purah (Legend of Zelda): 130

Midna (Legend of Zelda): 129

Mipha (Legend of Zelda): 121

Urbosa (Legend of Zelda): 119

King Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule: 114

Revali (Legend of Zelda): 101

My top characters definitely reinforce the fact that BotW/TotK were my top games within the LoZ structure! Everyone but Midna appears in one or both of those games. However, Link and Zelda (who appear in many games and AUs) have an almost ridiculous lead on everyone else, and the characters who only appear in BotW/TotK all share very similar numbers (between 101 and 130). As a result, I'd surmise that several hundred of the fics contributing to Link and Zelda's numbers come from other LoZ games or AUs that aren't game-specific, and several hundred are BotW/TotK fics (or BotW/TotK-specific AUs) that focus specifically or solely on zelink.

Top Relationships (both romantic and platonic)

Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda): 840

Link & Zelda (Legend of Zelda): 287

Leslie Knope/Ben Wyatt: 87

Link/Midna (Legend of Zelda): 60

Midna/Zelda (Legend of Zelda): 29

Impa & Zelda (Legend of Zelda): 28

Link & Midna (Legend of Zelda): 27

Link/Sheik (Legend of Zelda): 27

Aryll & Link (Legend of Zelda): 20

Link & Mipha (Legend of Zelda): 19

More big differences here! Zelink is clearly my OTP, and you can tell that I click on a big proportion of everything written for them (1880 zelink fics were posted or updated in 2024), and that they are the most popular ship in the LoZ archive. Midlink is a substantial jump down, but since I also read a very high proportion of all posted midlink fics (113 fics posted in 2024), this is largely due to the paucity of the ship within the archive. Same and worse for Midna/Zelda, which being f/f (on AO3, a notably m/m site, and in the primarily f/m LoZ fandom) has unsurprisingly low numbers.

Fun fact: Link/Tetra is my 14th place ship at 16 fics, which means that if you count all possible incarnations of Zelda, my grand total of romantic zelink and zelink-adjacent works is 883!

Now onto Tags. I knew immediately that I would want to split tags into more categories, since AO3's system of "Additional Tags" containing everything from genres to warnings to author musings means that everything under the sun is lumped indiscriminately. As a result, any fun niche tag (enemies to lovers, for example) gets buried under the mass of Fluff and Angst that almost every AO3 user would have populating their top stats (especially if they read as widely as I do). As a result, I have split my top 50 tags (minus tags like "zelink", "Other Additional Tags to Be Added, and spoiler tags), into three kinds: Genre, Setting, and Fun!

Top Genre Tags

Fluff: 324

Angst: 286

Hurt/Comfort: 226

Romance: 130

Fluff and Angst: 105

Emotional Hurt/Comfort: 97

Angst with a Happy Ending: 89

Character Study: 73

Domestic Fluff: 67

Light Angst: 67

Smut: 66

Humor: 64

Friendship: 60

Angst and Hurt/Comfort: 36

Fluff and Smut: 33

Tooth-Rotting Fluff: 33

Romantic Fluff: 29

Found Family: 27

Fluff and Humor: 27

Slice of Life: 27

Hurt No Comfort: 26

Being an FFN transplant to AO3 at heart, I decided Genre tags were those similar to FFN's genre tagging system. I decided to keep in specific genres, like "Tooth-Rotting Fluff" or "Light Angst", to show the deviations within wider genres, and the kinds of angst or fluff that I'm most likely to read. When all tags are lumped together, the overall lumpable categories are Fluff: 618, Angst: 609, Hurt/Comfort: 359, Romance: 226, Smut: 99, Humor: 91. With that math done, I interestingly am almost balanced when it comes to fluff and angst! Personally I'm quite pleased to see Character Study as #5 on the list when you lump the overalls—I do love a good character study, and they never get as much attention as shipfic, so I'm happy to have contributed!

Top Setting Tags

Post-Canon: 111

Alternate Universe - Modern Setting: 97

Canon Compliant: 97

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence: 96

Pre-Calamity (Legend of Zelda): 85

Alternate Universe: 52

Post-Breath of the Wild: 44

Post-Game: Tears of the Kingdom (Legend of Zelda): 41

Alternate Universe - College/University: 33

Post-Calamity Ganon: 29

Post-Twilight Princess: 27

Setting tags refer to when or where a fic takes place. Of course, most fics, especially oneshots, that fall within a certain game will not include tags about that, and not every fic set Pre-Calamity or Post-Canon will tag such. Not all Alternate Universes will tag the plain Alternate Universe tag, and may skip straight to "Sci-Fi AU" or such. However, I think this is still pretty interesting! Most of what I read revolves around canon, and I'm basically just as likely to read things that are explicitly canon-compliant as are specifically canon-divergent. Yet, unsurprisingly to anyone that knows me, AUs form a strong contingency of settings! Modern AU being so high makes me laugh, but if you combine all 3 AU tags that appear on this list, I have 182 AU works--meaning that around 10% of everything I read this year was some flavor of AU!

Top Relationship Trope Tags

Slow Burn: 123

Established Relationship: 96

Mutual Pining: 77

Pining: 71

Friends to Lovers: 59

Love Confessions: 38

Enemies to Lovers: 31

Idiots in Love: 31

Eventual Romance: 29

Pre-Relationship: 28

First Time: 28

When I tell you I chortled at there being two separate pining tags, and them being right next to each other! It heartens me that the pining is more often explicitly requited, hehe. Otherwise, I think this is really interesting! Despite most romance works in both fanfiction and published media being about getting together (which is reflected here), my number of Established Relationship fics is also quite high. Which honestly makes sense, because I love a good established relationship where characters have to face an issue together. When it comes to the Big Three of romance tropes—Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, and Idiots in Love—I think these fell right where they belong. Friends to Lovers is my preference of these, Enemies to Lovers is common among BotW fics, and Idiots in Love is my special little guy.

Top Fun Tags (including romantic tropes)

Selectively Mute Link (Legend of Zelda): 133

Slow Burn: 123

Established Relationship: 96

Talking Link (Legend of Zelda): 94

Zelda (Legend of Zelda) Needs A Hug: 85

Link (Legend of Zelda) Needs a Hug: 79

Mutual Pining: 77

Pining: 71

Link (Legend of Zelda) Uses Sign Language: 70

Oral Sex: 68

Grief/Mourning: 64

First Kiss: 60

POV Zelda (Legend of Zelda): 59

Friends to Lovers: 59

Canon-Typical Violence: 58

Vaginal Sex: 52

Mute Link (Legend of Zelda): 43

Happy Ending: 40

Cunnilingus: 40

Falling In Love: 39

Vaginal Fingering: 39

Love Confessions: 38

POV Link (Legend of Zelda): 36

Blood and Injury: 33

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD: 33

Explicit Sexual Content: 33

Masturbation: 32

Enemies to Lovers: 31

Idiots in Love: 31

Eventual Smut: 30

Trauma: 30

Nightmares: 30

Trans Link (Legend of Zelda): 30

Eventual Romance: 29

Pre-Relationship: 28

First Time: 28

Worldbuilding: 27

Kissing: 27

Anal Sex: 26

My favorite highlights from this:

Four of these tags (a total of 340 tags!) are about how Link communicates, and that's not even including the tag I myself tend to use for a non-talking Link (Nonverbal Link)! I love the diversity in how he communicates and how we as writers convey that fact, lol.

Apparently, I've read more Oral Sex fics (68) than Smut fics (66). I love what that says about how people tag.

I literally have only 4 more fics in my biggest smut-related category (68, Oral Sex) than I do for Grief/Mourning (64). Guess I'm nearly as sad as I am horny??

Zelda needs more hugs than Link, despite appearing less often in fics. I wonder if it's because of BotW, and many Pre-Calamity fics would be more likely to hug Zelda than Link?

There are more POV: Zelda tags than POV: Link tags, even though Link is in 300 more fics than Zelda overall. I have a feeling that's because Link is seen as the default, so people are less likely to tag for his POV specifically.

Nightmares and Trauma having the same value is hilarious to me. Did it just so happen that all fics with Nightmares also tagged for Trauma and they are the exact same fics? Were some fics with Nightmares lacking Trauma, but the math ended up matching regardless?

Trans Link ended up on there!

Worldbuilding ended up on there! Hell yes!

Bonus Info

I forgot to save this data and I've already read too many fics in 2025 to run it again, but my Rating stats for 2024 went General Audiences (711) -> Teen (in the 600s) -> Explicit (~275) -> Mature (~158) -> Not Rated (<50)!

Three of my top 50 tags were related to events! Zelink Week 2024: 40, Whumptober 2024: 37, Zelinktines: 37

In conclusion...I read a LOT this year! I already knew that, but it's one thing to know it, and one thing to see your data all written out. And now that I have this information, I'll be able to compare 2024 to 2025 when December rolls around once again!

If you want to find your own AO3 Wrapped stats, once again, here is the link! Unfortunately I can provide no advice on how to get the program to provide more tag details the way I got into for my Detailed Breakdown, but if enough people want to find that information and can't figure it out, my friend and I might post some sort of guide!

If you got this far, thanks for reading—I hope you enjoyed this deep dive into my LoZ fanfiction obsession!

[keep-looking-to-the-sky-me]

The zelda fandom and homophobia and sexism to shippers

Before you read I'm not trying to say ALL yona defenders, zelink shippers or people who dislike sidlink are homophobic/sexist. This is a 'if the shoe fits' type post but I encourage everyone to read.

A type of homophobia I've seen in the fandom which isn't new to fandom spaces is the idea of wlw vs mlm. Presenting wlw as pure, more genuine and sexless well mlm is just sex and can't be deeper than that. No mlm ships are inherently unpure or immoral, even if they do have a lot of sexual content. spending so much time calling mlm shippers freaks does nothing to support wlw ships. you don't have the right to go on and on about how zelink and sidyona are 'really lesbian relationships' or 'straight ships for gay people' or just gay in general and actively try to push out actual gay ships and gay fans.

Whenever an anti sidlink post or tweet gets popular we see in the comments and likes, hard line conservatives and homophobes agreeing with y'all. I know this is unintentional but with the constant focus of proving why ships between two men are disgusting, you invite those type of people into fandom spaces and making them more unsafe for queer people as a whole.

Me and many others don't like sidlink just for sex. We like them because we like them. The idea that someone has to have a dark alterier motive for liking something is also deeply flawed.

if you can't defend yona from misogyny without resorting to misogyny yourself and demeaning others than your not getting rid of sexism in fandom spaces but adding to it. You don't get points for demanding woman for their personal interests. You're not helping the character by calling people who dislike her or ship sidlink bitches, slut, fujos, coomers,fetishist,groomers, cum-for-brains,cumdumpsters, dickriders or literal slurs(all things that I've seen). inorder to be a good feminist you have to care about the feelings of real life people more than a cartoon stingray and realize misogyny affects every one in fandom, including people who ship things that you dislike.

[wild-dagon]

TOTK Role-reversal (part 2)

I know I’m late to the party but this idea has been floating around in my head for months. (Also spoilers for the game)

The classic role-reversal with Link and Zelda in TOTK.

Finally my last idea. Link gets the Spirit stone.

I don’t know about you but it bothered me at the end of the game that there wasn’t a new Spirit Sage. They brought Purah up there and then didn’t give it to her? (I was also expecting Paya to get it as all the other Sages were leaders (or the child of the leader) of their respective races. I really wanted to see Paya go from being unsure how to lead her village to an amazing warrior surrounded by other leaders for support but thats a rant for another post)

Anyhow Link.

Let’s tie this to BOTW. Link can see the Koroks (spirits of the forest) he can see the dragons (not everyone can) and in BOTW he talks to multiple ghosts. Heck even in TOTK he is able to interact with the ghosts of solders in the Depths to get weapons.

What if when Link goes back in time, his stone just won’t settle on a specific power. This is weird to Rauru and Sonia as they have never seen some one with so many different kinds of magic. Link is super confused as he doesn’t have magic. The other champions and Zelda have mystic abilities. He doesn’t.

You can stretch this confusion out to them going back to the castle and or you can make the next part happen on the way to the castle.

The one day they get attacked and Link goes to fight (he’s used to protecting people.) but he’s weak from the interaction with Ganondorf.

He’s about to get crushed when his stone turns red and a familiar crystal shield forms around him. “I gotta little buddy” He turns over his shoulder and sees Daruk. He’s in spirit form but he’s here, talking and fighting with Link.

Then the stone turns green. Air burst forth and Revali is up in the air shooting down the foe.

The stone turns orange and a bolt of lightning rains down on the remaining enemies as Urbosa steps forward.

Finally it turns blue as Mipha appears and heals Links wounds.

They are here. All of the champions are here. Link’s stone finally settles on purple.

Mineru explains that Link’s stone couldn’t settle on a color because it was sensing the remains of the champion abilities inside him. But now that the champions spirits have been released his stone has settled on his powers.

This leads to a lot of Mineru and Link bonding as she helps him master his powers. Maybe he can make the other champions corporeal if he focuses hard enough or if he masters his powers. Maybe he can give them a second chance at life. (Here’s where you could have some fun with shipping making it zelink, miphlink, or revalink)

Anyhow. Mineru is Link’s mentor. They both are a little crazy about building questionable contraptions. She starts to view him as her’s. Rauru was always going to have kids, she never expected to have one but Link is precious to her. As is he to Sonia and Rauru. They love hearing about their descendent Zelda.

Maybe Link and the champions are able to save Sonia from Gannon but he still gets his hands on a stone. Either stealing Sonia’s (without the murder) or by killing Rauru or Mineru. Or you could go super angst and have him get Link’s stone cutting him off from the champions (once again Ganon has taken them from Link)

In the final battle Rauru/Mineru/Sonia (who ever is alive) traps Gannon. Link either swallows his stone or stone give to him by another survivor.

Personally I like the idea that Gannon gets Links stone, Sonia seals him promising her descendant will come to stop him (I think Sonia’s faith in future Zelda could be super sweet) Rauru realizing his wife is gone and there is nothing he can do, gives Link his stone allowing Link to become the dragon and heal the sword. Mineru still builds her contraption knowing that Zelda will need a sage of spirit as Link will be preoccupied being a dragon.

Zelda gets guidance from Sonia and Rauru.

When it’s all said and done and Mineru is ready to leave, her stone goes to Zelda becoming the time/light stone. Meaning Link has a spirit stone Zelda covers time and light. The other sages are still around and the champions are back.

Zelda’s journey

You can also make this really fun by having the spirits of the champions guide the sages on their journey.

Maybe while spirit dragon Link is hanging out in the clouds that champion spirits hang out with him. When it’s time for the new sages to awaken they go to their home villages and appear to the new sages. So instead of just hearing a strange voice they see the champion of old.

When Tulin is out on his own he is struggling with a enemy that is suddenly shot from behind. When he tracks the shoot Revali is flying there. Their eyes lock before Revali flies off. Zelda arrives right after this moment, Tulin to tell her about the strange Rito that flew off. Tulin feels like they need to follow him and they do, all the way up to the sky arc. (Picture the Zelda chase scene in the castle but with Revali and sky boats.) Once Tulin gets his sacred stone Revali appears again (allowing for a sweet reunion scene between Zelda and Revali) and offers to stay near and train Tulin on how to use his powers as Revali had trained with the sage of old.

When Zelda arrives in Goron city it’s weird. Why are people talking about Link giving Yunobo a mask. Then she sees Link and chases after him only to find an enraged Yunobo. After getting the mask off of him the two talk about Link before seeing Daruk’s Spirit. Once again they chase him to the fire temple. Things play out much the same with Daruk as it did with Revali.

Arriving at the Zora domain Sidon doesn’t see Mipha until he fights the first sludge monster with Zelda. Mipha had tried to appear earlier but Sidon thought he was just seeing things from over working himself. It isn’t until he lets Yona help him and fights along side Zelda that he finally is open to seeing Mipha’s spirit. She leads them to the underwater cavern and to the water temple proper. Again always just out of reach never a word is spoken until after the sage is fully awaken and the boss is beaten. Once Sidon has his sacred stone Mipha is able to appear and have her reunion with her brother.

In the desert Urbosa is seen many times by other warriors but she cannot directly help them. Once Zelda arrives she appears to both Zelda and Ruji before disappearing. She appears again after they successfully defend the town. After they defend the bazar they see Link walking into the storm. Both girls go to chase after him but Urbosa appears and shakes her head No before disappearing without a word. Urbosa leads Zelda through the sand storm to the different light pillars, and lead them to the light temple. She doesn’t appear again until after they defeat queen gibdo and Riju awakens as a sage.

This build trust between the reader and Zelda and the spirits that are appearing. Which means when Zelda sees Link up on Hyrule castle she rushes to him. He’s leading her through the castle the same way the champions did. It’s unnerving as the champions moved like that because they were spirits and Link should be alive but Zelda is going to ignore that tidbit for now.

She follows Link to the throne room where it is revealed that he is Ganondorf’s puppet.

As they fight the sages and champions appear to help Zelda defeat the phantom Ganondorfs

After this they got to find the fifth sage. Mineru tells Zelda about the Dragon tears and how to view them using the purah pad. This is when Zelda does the dragon tear quest. Up until this point they were just weird geoglyphs but know she can view Link’s memories. She realizes that Link is the Spirit Dragon.

(You can also have a moment where she yells at the champions for not telling her. But how do you tell someone that new?)

She needs to find the Master Sword so she returns to the lost woods hoping Link returned it there in the past. She doesn’t know if the blade will let her pull it but she has to try.

After freeing the lost woods she realizes the sword is with Link. Maybe she goes to get it maybe she leaves it but either way she will be able to use it. It’s with Link and if he’s going to let anyone wield his sacred blade it would be Zelda.

[zeldaelmo]

PSA for all zelinkers here on Tumblr:

We do not engage in ship wars.

Look, I'm happy that TotK brought a lot of fans (back) into the fandom. I love seeing new people discover my stories and I'm sure a lot of long-term fandom creatives feel the same.

What gets heavily on my nerves, however, are zelink stans who flood the tags with posts that put other ships down or try to prove how superior zelink is.

We zelinkers don't behave like that here on Tumblr.

We have built a welcoming and overall friendly space for our ship over the years on this platform that refrains from putting other ships down. I don't care about other platforms, but here on Tumblr, we behave decently. Yes, we see the occasional anti-zelink posts in our tag and we chose to ignore them or ask (friendly!) to remove the zelink tag.

We keep our posts in our own tags and don't tag other ships to start something. That includes tags like '#never understood miphlink' where the ship name is part of the tag. Tumblr will shove this post into the face of the people who scroll the 'miphlink' tag and we don't want that. (this was just an example and goes for all ships!)

Use the filter function if a certain ships rubs you the wrong way! That's what it's for. Same goes for blocking! I have a few people blocked over the years who just can't leave it be and I don't want to be triggered to answer again and again, so I blocked them and poof, gone like a Yiga Blademaster.

If you need a space to gush about our ship, join one of the numerous zelink discord servers. They are all a bit different but very useful for exactly this purpose. If you see an anti-zelink post that makes you mad, yell about it to a friend. But do not do it here on Tumblr!!!

Tldr: Don't engage in ship wars. Ever.

[docexe-mx]

Looking back, Skyward Sword turned me into, as the kids say these days, “Zelink trash for life”. The scene of the big reveal regarding Zelda’s connection to the goddess Hylia and her subsequent sacrifice to contain the Imprisoned, followed by Link’s reaction to seeing her sealing herself away… it all just hit me with the right amount of emotional torque.

Add that the revelations of that game retroactively added a potential dash of both “reincarnated romance” and “soulmates destined to meet by fate” to their relationship to make it more interesting/spicy.

Of course, I’m also realistic and objective enough to recognize that:

Nintendo is never going to explicitly confirm any romantic relationship between Link and Zelda (even Skyward Sword doesn’t explicitly confirm they are actually in love with each other, even if it comes within spitting distance of outright stating it).

Every Link and Zelda are clearly their own individuals and the relationship between them doesn’t necessarily imply romance in every game. Indeed, only a handful of games even hint at the possibility of any romantic affection between them.

In that sense, I see little point in treating them as “my OTP whose sanctity I will defend on a hill” (like say, the way I treat NaruHina) and even less reason for getting involved into any shipping argument related to them, especially as Link is also one of the few characters in fiction that I multi-ship.

Indeed, I think any shipping war involving the Zelda franchise is an even bigger waste of time than your usual shipping war, given that as I said above, Nintendo is just never going to make anything explicitly canon.

So, ultimately, what I mean to say is: I just think Zelink is very neat, and I certainly like them more than other Nintendo related ships, which is why I reblog them a lot, but I’m not interested in participating in any kind of online drama regarding it.

[lil-tottie]

Sidon in Totk and why it's a problem

Let's talk about this. Spoilers for TOTK. This is an off-brand, slightly more serious post.

Here's a TLDR:

1. Sidon fills a niche few other characters in LoZ fill

2. Nobody expected SidLink to be canon

3. Sidon's fiancé felt shoehorned in and served no purpose other than pissing people off.

First of all: As someone who has been playing LoZ games for a long time, there have been very, very few options for attractive male-presenting/male characters. And before you say that LoZ is not a romance game or meant for people to be thirsty, please understand that there is an obscene amount of explicit content for nearly every attractive female/female-presenting character. Ffs, there's a Zelda for all the season. There's Midna, Din, Ilia, Ruta, Mipha. When players were into these characters- and believe me, doesn't matter if the game isn't a dating sim, they were- they weren't shamed for them. Sidon gave players this option, but since Sidon is a guy and the part of the Fandom that likes him is predominantly female or queer, it's suddenly a problem. And yes, maybe the fans are more fiesty than the rest, but can you blame us? How long have we waited?

Secondly, I see the Fandom split with one side in mourning and the other side celebrating in news of Sidon's fiancé. I've seen quite a few posts- some here, but a lot on reddit- shaming Sidon fans and Sidlink fans. Considering that we live in the world that we do, I'm pretty sure everyone knew that Sidlink would never be canon. It was still fun and gave players something to look forward to and attach themselves to. You can take your puritanical high ground that Sidlink is "annoying" and never call yourself homophobic or fragile, but there's no reason to hate a whole subgroup like that. We can just pretend that Zelda wasn't a bunch of people's sexual awakenings. Imagine your ship being canon (ZeLink) and still bashing on non-canon ships. Fuck right off.

Lastly, Sidon getting a fiancé served no purpose. She has never existed before in any game and has virtually no connection except for the shoehorned exposition dump in Sidon's diary. Even from a game development standpoint, why would you slit the throat of your cash cow? You had to put in so little in like a few lines of dialogue and 1 or 2 cutscenes, and you cultivated a massive following. So, is this your version of slash-and-burn because the "wrong" people liked LoZ for the "wrong" reasons?

[hyde-nseek]

My headcanon is that every Link and every Zelda falls in love. But it gets a little more complicated than that because I don't think they get together every time. So... Here is how I would justify every Zelink in the Legend of Zelda franchise:

(please note that I'm not saying other ships aren't cool. I personally like a lot of them.)

Skyward Sword: This one is probably as canon as Zelink has gotten so far. I don't know anyone that says that they don't have feelings for each other. These two probably founded Hyrule together. Maybe as a kingdom, maybe just as a small village below the clouds. Either way, the Royal Family traces their lineage back to this couple.

Minish Cap: This Zelink is very cute. I think they dated, and maybe even married. From what I understand about the timeline, though, this Link abandons Hyrule and lives the rest of his life cursed by the mind-shattering properties of the Four Sword. So, it was a relationship for a while, but they didn't grow old together.

Four Swords: There actually isn't a lot of information about this Zelda, but I like to think that they got together after Link saves her. They're cute.

Ocarina of Time: The way Zelda looks at Link at the end of the game is full of remorse. She doesn't want to send Link away from her, but she knows it's the right thing to do for his sake and Hyrule's. Also, the way Sheik looks at Link can't go unnoticed. That ninja isn't good at hiding his feelings.

Majora's Mask: The same as Ocarina of Time, but it's much more brief. I don't think Link ever returns to Hyrule Castle, but it's possible. It's more likely that he founded Ordon with Malon. That means that Malon and Link end up together, but Link's true love was the princess he saved in another time.

Twilight Princess: Zelda and Link barely talk in the game, and when they interact, it's only because Midna put them together. But with Midna out of the picture, I think they would still bond. Ilia gets friendzoned. Sorry.

Four Swords Adventures: I think I'll have to put this one with Four Swords as well. These games are a little weird in that the Links are so affected by the Four Sword that it's hard to picture them in a situation without it. If anyone else has thoughts on this Zelink, please lmk.

Wind Waker/Phantom Hourglass: Tetra and Link get together and found New Hyrule. This one is pretty self explanatory and difficult to argue against. Very cute and I love it.

Spirit Tracks: They were made for each other. They have so much of a connection because of their adventure together. Whether Link becomes an adventurer or an engineer, I think the princess has feelings for the Hero of Spirit.

A Link to the Past/Link's Awakening/Oracles: The cryptic uncle wants you to know that Zelda is your responsibility. Now that we've covered that, I think Link would have been with Zelda if it weren't for Marin. After Koholint, I don't think he really has it in him to have a relationship with anyone.

A Link Between Worlds/Tri Force Heroes: I think that after saving Hytopia, Link returns to Hyrule and asks for Zelda's hand. There's no reason why not to, and I don't think Link would have wanted to stay in Hytopia for the rest of his life. As cool as it is, it's a vacation spot. And Styla isn't the princess for Link.

Hyrule Fantasy/Adventure of Link: Two Zeldas, one Link. This one's kind of weird, but I think he'd rather be with the Zelda from his first adventure. Zelda the First only kisses him as a reward, probably the only reward she can give.

Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom: I mean, they live together. They hugged at the end of both games. What else do you want me to say?

[shadowsageingempress]

Before I collapse and fall asleep, I'm pulling up with Twilight Princess for the ask game hehe

❤️, 💛, 💚, 💖, 💕 and 🏳️‍🌈?

Thanks for the ask!

Either Link or Midna. For Midna, I’ll get more into her later, but for now I’ll say that she isn’t a tsundere, but she does have similar traits. As for Link, I’ve seen some people depict him as being somehow edgy or emo. This couldn’t be further from the truth, because just by playing the game you can clearly see that he is the nicest, sweetest, goodest boy of all the good boys. To give this idea some credit, I think it’s fair to say that post-canon stories where he’s depicted as a sad boy do seem accurate, since he was devastated by Midna leaving. But he would find ways to heal and healthily live on before deciding to look for her.

I’ve seen that a lot of people ship MidZel or ZeLink, and I can’t really see either of those. I’ve talked about how Link and Zelda don’t have any chemistry in the three interactions that they do have. As for Zelda and Midna, they do have more interactions and are acquainted, especially in the manga, but I don’t see any romantic connection between them. The best I can see is that it’s a one-sided crush that Zelda has, but nothing more.

Something I see often is people showing Midna as being cruel or even abusive toward Link. Even the manga shows this on occasion, but this just isn’t the case. While she does mock Link and his world a lot when they first meet, she isn’t downright mean and would never physically hurt him. She’s not a jerk or a violent person, especially not toward someone she’s trying to get to trust and help her.

My biggest unpopular opinion is that Zelda shouldn’t have been revived. I can see why she was, I don’t think Nintendo would kill off their titular character, but it doesn’t make sense to me and it kind of makes her sacrifice seem pointless. If I could change things as little as possible, I would still have the Puppet Zelda fight, but after that, she disappears for good.

I don’t know if I have any unpopular ships. I mostly focus on MidLink, and that could not accurately be described as unpopular.

I see a lot of people imagine that Zelda is gay and ship her with other female characters. I don’t really understand any of those. I do see the appeal behind some of them, such as Zelda with Ashei, but I don’t know where the idea of Zelda being a lesbian comes from. And to be fair, I also don’t really ship her with any male characters because I can’t see that either, but the main reason behind that is her lack of chemistry with anyone and having a personality equivalent to a wet end slice of white bread. Okay, I may have gotten a bit carried away, but my point still stands.

[ofstormsandfire]

Do you have any good BotW/TotK fic recs? Yours or other people’s!

Boy howdy DO I.

Going to preface this by saying that I have preferences, and those preferences tend to veer towards gay shit and people who don't initially get along ending up ride or die, and as such a high proportion of these are going to be Revalink.

Anyway. The fic that got me into that ship, changed my brain chemistry, and is a large part of why I go !!!! about ghosts (literal and nonliteral) haunting the narrative, characters with amnesia who are supposed to be dead, and the Rito as a whole, is Pinesong by aperplexingpuzzle and that is the fic that makes me go "if you read NOTHING else in this fandom read THIS holy fuck."

(But also you should be reading other things too, because there is so much good shit and I adore it greatly I go back to reread my favorites regularly. Also check out the authors I mention apart from just the fics I link there is so much good fic I'm forcing myself to just pick one per author or else I will be here literally all day.)

Next up: Moonlight (every single night) by Heleentje. Do you like time loops? Do you like characters slowly, painstakingly figuring out how to get it right? Did you get very attached to Revalink from the last fic? how about some ~queerplatonic Zelink~ in this trying time?

Frankly, it is very hard to pick just one fic by Ginneke, they've got so many good ones but I'm going to have to settle on Flowers from your Beloathed, which is another Revalink fic set before the Calamity where, y'know, Revali is getting flowers from a secret admirer. Except he's Revali. Hilarity ensues and I enjoyed the hell out of this one ^-^

Also also. Come Morning Light by misscoconi. Post-Calamity, they are both idiots (affectionate) and I am starting to realize that I have a bit of a pattern in my taste in Revalink fics. Huh. I'll unpack that later actually.

Skybound Wishes by Baddrummer is unfinished (unlike most of the fics I've recommended here) but y'all. Y'all it makes me lose my shit in so many ways because I am a SLUT for creative fix-it fics and gratuitous weaving-in of references to other games in ways that still respect the established canon but respect all of it, y'know, not just doing the TOTK thing of "actually nothing pre-BOTW matters anymore and neither does BOTW lol."

...I am starting to realize there may be a reason why I don't have a lot of TOTK recs. Also if this post is starting to sound unhinged and disconnected that's probably because I'm bouncing between Tumblr and studying for one of my finals like a ping pong ball.

But I do have one really, really big fic rec for TOTK. Y'all should check out Show Me the World Outside by IllusionOfDeath. The Sages get to do things, the Divine Beasts don't just vanish without a word, the Champions get actual recognition, and you can tell that the author is the Linguistics Georg (affectionate) of the fanfic world.

Anyway I think I will shill myself a bit too since you gave me permission to anon! If you read no other Zelda fics by me, may I recommend no one ever mentions fear, a fic that... it really was, in a lot of ways, a love letter to the fics in the fandom that I'd read and loved before. You've got the Champions getting to live and have nice things, you've got Revali being a dumbass (affectionate), you've got gay shit, you've got Problems Being Caused by the Yiga Clan in the background.

...Oh god this post is getting. A little longer than I meant for it to I've realized. Um. I love fanfic and tbh if you end up reading everything I've recced and still want more, my bookmarks on AO3 are public and I tend to bookmark just about everything I've read and liked enough to want to find again.

......I should probably get back to studying now but thank you for the ask! I like rambling lol

[maddrumsticks2]

Just beat Echoes of Wisdom! Which means time for a post based on my thoughts. I'll start with nonspoiler things, like mechanics, UI, design and gameplay. Then I'll move onto spoilers, which will be under the cut.

I quite like the echo mechanic! It's very different from a normal Zelda game and so I have to actually think. Though the menus for choosing echoes sucks. They pulled a TotK again with that one which leads to annoying, endless scrolling.

They definitely copied most of the menus and such from BotW, which ig I don't mind too much, but it would've been fun to have a fresher design with some of that.

Also, I never once talked to Dampé, so idk what that's like, so I can't talk about that.

NOW. On to the spoilers! Mainly just all story stuff.

First, the whole fugitive Zelda thing was really fun. The game starts and Tri's just like "YOU GONNA DIE!!!!" Which is hilarious, btw. I wish there were more people who knew about Zelda's imprisonment throughout the journey. It would've upped the stakes a lot if word had spread and you're not sure where is safe. Oh well, missed opportunity.

Then, I just loved all the characters in this game. They all have distinct personalities and problems, it's fun watching them build character and learn more about their issues. I especially love that they brought back yetis with Condé.

Quick ship talk bc that's where my brain is taking me. Idk which ship I like more: Zelink or Zelda X Dohna in this game. Or Zelda is an independent woman who don't need romance. (Hi, I'm aroace, I always leave room for that possibility.)

Anyways, Null was a pleasant surprise! I love the lore we got surrounding them and then how clear their motive was. Null was a villain in the sense that they are very selfishly motivated. Nintendo really cooked with this villain, ngl. The fact that they aren't remotely humanoid (except the hands) is very nice, love the distinction. Null isn't redeemable because of how twisted they are. So yeah, I like Null.

Link is so interesting in this game! And he has a known personality, I love it. I'll also take his gesturing at the end of the game as him signing, instead of talking. I know that's what they were implying, but I prefer it if he just was signing. Things like that don't just randomly fix themselves. (Even if the rifts are all gone. And Null is gone. Idc pffff)

I do like the return to the traditional Zelda formula. They didn't diverge from said formula too much, but it was still open world. It kinda felt like A Link Between Worlds. That means it does suffer from the lack of a difficulty curve as you go on.

Also, Zelda is so cute in this game. Adorable outfits and I just love her model, it makes me happy.

But yeah, I love that Zelda got her chance to be a menace this time. (The amount of times I've committed arson is insane.)

[dragongirlie56]

03- Crying in the Rain

Ship: Zelink

Modern AU!

I started to write this YEARS and i mean years ago. I decided to continue where my younger self left off and fix up a lot of things! :)

Warnings: Zelda gets in a verbal fight with her father Right at the get go. So that might be triggering! But it’s very short!

Not a warning: lots of zelink fluff and hugging because I love hugs. And the both of them need hugs.

(Also… I apologize if there are random ‘I’ and ‘my’’s in there. I changed the perspective from first person to third halfway through but I hope I got everything!)

If you liked this one-shot here’s more ———> Zelink Master list

////////////////////////

“Well I’m not my mother!” Zelda’s clenched fists shook at her sides. “She wasn’t a failure! She. She-“

“That’s enough Zelda!” Her fathers words cut through her own, automatically making her eyes fill with unwanted tears. “You will continue your studies. That. Is. Final. Do I make myself clear?”

Zelda clenched her jaw until her teeth hurt. She swallowed a forceful sob and nodded once.

“You may go.”

His tone was light but the words were cruel. Zelda turned her back on him and grasped the golden knob. The door clicked behind her and she wasted no time breaking into a sprint. She weaved through the vast, tiled hallways of her father’s abode. Her blue converse squeaked against the slick flooring as she avoided cleaning staff members and potted plants. A bubbling need to escape the confines of the house nearly ate her alive.

She ripped the front door open and slammed it behind her. Cool air rushed through her nose and a shudder tore through her chest. Her emerald eyes landed on the cloudy sky. It mirrored exactly what she felt at the moment: a gloomy storm cloud with a chance of rain at any second.

She needed someone to talk to. She needed a safe place.

Link. Her shaky fingers grasped her phone from her jean pocket. Only a few taps away. He’s only a few taps away. His name popped onto the black screen and Zelda raised her phone to her pointed ear as she walked away from the annoyingly perfect grass, the disgustingly perfect flower beds, the outrageously perfect image her father created. All of it made her want to cry.

It was too much. His expectations were drowning her.

“Please pick up. Please pick up.” Zelda’s short breaths were dangerously close to falling into sobs. She stared at the sidewalk, distracting herself with the lines and cracks as she walked.

Voicemail.

The blonde girl’s stomach sank.

“No. No. No.” He always picks up, always. Unless he’s at work or in the middle of a soccer/football game… or he’s sleeping.

Zelda shook her head. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Just call… Urbosa.”

Voicemail.

“Mipha.”

Voicemail.

“Aunt Sonia.”

Voicemail.

“Revail? No, he wouldn’t be great for this… and Daruk is on a cruise. Yona and Sidon are on their honeymoon.”

Zelda scrolled through her limited contacts, finding no one. She let her screen turn black. She was alone, she couldn’t talk to anyone, and she didn’t feel safe. Link was her safe space.

Her legs seemed to move on their own, trailing a familiar path as she started to run. Her pace lined up with the beats of her thundering heart. He didn’t live that far away right? She didn’t stop running. Not when her lungs gasped for air or when her knees started to hurt. Raindrops fell from the clouds, batting her forehead and peppering her clothes.

Normally, she drove to Link’s. But it was just her luck that her car broke down yesterday. Something about the engine.

Zelda skidded to a stop, nearly slipping on the slick sidewalk, when she felt a repetitive buzz in her back pocket. She fumbled for her phone and her eyes snapped to the caller.

White lettering glowed against the new water droplets on her screen. Link. Oh thank Hylia.

She pressed the green icon and held the phone to her ear. “H-hello?”

”Zelda?” Aryll’s voice rang through the speaker. Zelda’s eyes blinked in surprise, she was not expecting to hear from her boyfriend's younger sister.

“A-Aryll! Hello.” Zelda swallowed a lump in her throat, attempting to sound happy.

”What’s up?”

”Nothing. Everything’s fine.”

“Oh Zelda what’s wrong? You sound sad. Wait, Wait. Let me grab Link. The idiot fell asleep on his math papers.”

”Okay, okay.” She nodded along as she felt her breath hitch in her throat. Everything was going to be fine.

”Ew and he’s drooling. Your professor is not going to want your work now, Big Brother.” That caused Zelda to chuckle a bit. Leave it up to Aryll to calm the growing pit in my stomach.

“Link. Liiiiiiink. Wake up. For the love of- he sleeps like a rock. Link-“ Zelda’s ears picked up on a low groan. “Oh thank Hylia! Link, now that you're out of what seemed like a 100 year nap… the love of your life is on the phone! This is urgent and you can resume your beauty sleep later….. which you definitely need.”

Oh she really had no filter sometimes.

“Thanks Aryll.” Zelda heard her boyfriend mumble. To which Aryll responded with a ‘Duh’.

“Zel? Hey, what’s up?”

The sound of his voice made her throat close up and brought tears to her eyes. “Link, hey,” Zelda managed to croak out.

“Zelda.“ She could picture the immediate crease of his eyebrows. “What’s wrong?”

No, I don’t want to say it now. I can’t.

“Is it… is it okay if I come over?” Zelda replied instead, barely able to voice her words.

“What? Of course, you’re always welcome over-“ A truck siren blew over his sentence and she whipped her head towards it. A small red car decided it was a smart idea to swerve in front of a huge truck… while it was raining. Some people really shouldn’t have licenses.

”Zelda? Are you outside?” Her eyes snapped back to her phone. “Where are you?”

“Hyrule Park. I’m at Hyrule Park.” A gust of wind shot past her, ruffling her long golden hair and sending a shiver up her arms. She couldn’t tell if her sniffles were caused by the freezing rain or her own tears.

“Hyrule Park?! That’s far from your house and it’s going to… it is raining! You’re going to get sick.” He paused. “….Zelda, did something happen with your dad?”

She sucked in a sharp breath, the sting stabbing at her lungs. “Yeah.”

She could hear the wooden creak of his old stairs and the jingle of car keys. “Stay where you are, Zel. I’m coming to get you.”

“Link you don’t-“ she started to say. “I’m not too far from your house-“

“It’s a 15 minute walk. I’m not letting you do that.”

“I-“ Zelda stop it. she chided herself. “Okay.” A sniffle escaped her reddening nose. “Thank you, Link.”

“Always.”

“Can… can you stay on the phone too?”

“Of course.”

———————-

“I’m just around the corner.”

“Okay.” Zelda leaned against a tree trunk. Rain pattered onto her skin and into her hair, every drop sent prickles of cold into her veins. She had found a nice spot under the tree but it didn't stop the rain from finding its way to her. Her damp clothes made her tremble slightly, it probably wasn’t good for her to stay outside.

The rumble of Link’s truck made Zelda’s head turn. Wow. That was fast… Almost too fast. She pushed herself off of the tree trunk and waved at him.

His truck came to a stop and he immediately hopped out of the driver's side.

Zelda knew she was lucky. Of course Link was handsome with his beautiful ocean eyes, his dirty blonde hair, and his light smiles. She knew, everyone knew. (they did not hesitate to tell her and she couldn’t help but agree.) But she really loved his soul and his heart. He was a sweet, genuine, selfless guy who had loyalty and compassion for his friends and loved ones. She just couldn’t fathom how someone like him could exist.

“Hey,” he breathed out once he reached her. He hugged her against him and she wrapped her arms around his waist. ”Zel, you’re shivering.”

She sniffled and hid her face in his chest, leaning into his warmth. ”And you’re warm.” Yeah, I’m so lucky.

”C’mon, I already have your seat heater on.”

“Oh you’re the best. Thank you.” Zelda smiled at him as she allowed him to lead her away.

“You got here pretty fast…”

He shrugged.

“Link, did you speed?”

“What? Zel. Of course not.” His eyes crinkled in mirth and an easygoing smirk tilted his lips.

“Liar.” Zelda rubbed her eyes and let out a laugh. He squeezed her shoulder and let out a chuckle as he led her to the passenger side of his truck.

Zelda didn’t realize how cold she actually was until she found herself sinking into the heat of the chair. Bless Link and his thoughtfulness.

“Here, I brought you a blanket.” Seriously bless him. Zelda would fight anyone who tried to hurt him.

Link signaled to pull away from the curb and they were on their way. Zelda watched the trees zip by as they drove and snuggled into the soft fabric of his green blanket.

“Aryll put some hot cider on the stove.” He glanced in the rear view mirror before switching lanes.

Zelda perked up at this. “Aw really? You guys are too good to me.”

“She insisted.” He shrugged.

“She’s so sweet.”

“Yeah. To you.” A smirk tilted his lips.

Zelda laughed. “She loves you a lot, you know.”

“Deep down.”

“No, I can see it plain as day.” She placed her elbow on the center console and rested her head in her palm.

Link chuckled and shook his head.

He held out his hand and she placed hers in his.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Zelda sighed, her conversation with her father left a bitter taste in her mouth. “…I told him I didn’t want to go to school for a business degree any longer and instead I wanted to pursue a degree in engineering. Which I argue is just as good! I get to create things and research! I wanted to even take a minor in biology! But he blew up at me. I’m the one supposed to inherit the company. To be the CEO… I sound so ungrateful. I know. Anyone would love to inherit such a thing but I just… I don’t have a choice and that makes me angry.” Her eyes dropped to the keys lightly rattling in the cup holder. “I know my mothers death was hard on him and raising a young child alone is no easy feat. Especially one so strong willed as I am. I get it. But her death was hard on me too. I had to grow up without a mother for Hylia’s sake. But I know she would have wanted me to pursue anything I want. I just wish she were here to tell him.”

Link squeezed her hand.

“It’s so… it’s so silly. I’m an adult yet I’m still afraid to stand up for my father.”

“I don’t think it’s silly. It can be scary to stand up for yourself.”

Zelda nodded as he turned into his neighborhood. She didn’t know how else to ‘stand up’ to her father. She could get another job and tell him she’ll pay for her schooling instead. It would be a lot but she didn’t shy away from hard work.

Link pulled into his driveway and turned off the engine. He hopped out of the truck and walked around the front to her side. He opened her door and she met his eyes, water droplets glittered on his blonde bangs though he didn’t seem to care. His eyebrows were creased and a light frown tugged down at his lips.

“You can do anything you want to do, Zel.” He placed his hand on her cheek and she covered it with one of her own. “It’s your life you should be able to pursue anything…But, that being said, I know that has to be hard when you don’t have his support.”

Her breath hitched in her throat and she nodded as tears clouded her vision. He said it perfectly. She covered her face with her free hand and let out a sob.

Link’s hand fell from her face. His arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her out of the seat. Once he set her on the ground, she hugged him around his neck and hid her face in his collarbone.

The only thing that filled the silence was Zelda’s muffled sobs and the rain pattering against the cement.

“I’ll support whatever you decide to do. I’m here.” His hand slid into her wet hair as he pulled her closer.

She nodded.

“C’mon, let’s get you dried off and into warmer clothes, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Zelda wiped her nose with her sleeve.

She let him guide her away from the truck and her shoulders relaxed as she turned her attention to his house. The familiar clinking melody of the wind chime reached Zelda’s ears. The chime had metal silent princesses dangling from the chains, her favorite flower. Potted plants with various flowers lined the walkway.

Warmth and cinnamon hit her nose when Link opened the front door.

“Aryll?” Link called out. “I’m back.”

“Coming!” Aryll yelled. “Zelda!” Zelda watched as she raced down the stairs and crashed into her.

“Woah! Hey Aryll!” She returned Aryll’s bone crushing hug.

Aryll pulled back and grinned up at her. Her blonde hair was up in her signature pigtails and she wore a blue shirt that made her sea blue eyes pop. She looked so much like Link it still baffled Zelda.

“I’m so glad you’re here! Aw, I knew you were sad.” Aryll pointed at Zelda’s eyes and frowned, her eyebrows falling. “Wait here.”

Zelda raised her eyebrows at Link and he shrugged before taking off his shoes. Zelda followed suit.

Aryll sprinted down the hall with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. “This is my favorite blanket.” The fabric had mini seagulls and pirate ships scattered around the blue fluffy sea. “You can use it while you’re here. I hope it makes you feel better.”

”Thank you Aryll. I feel better already.” Zelda accepted the gift with a warm smile.

“Oh! And the cider! Come.” Aryll ran down the tiled hallway and slid with her socks at the last second, almost tripping.

“Be careful, Aryll!” Link’s eyes widened.

“Ah!” She caught herself on the doorframe and looked back with a thumbs up. “I’m okay!”

Link let out a sigh and laughed lightly, tugging Zelda down the hall and into the kitchen.

They didn’t even make it through the doorway before Aryll was shoving a steaming mug in Zelda’s hands.

“Oh! Thank you!” The warmth of the mug immediately combated the ice of Zelda’s fingertips.

“You bet! I hope you like it!” Aryll’s giddy smile made Zelda grin back. She took a sip of the honey-colored liquid and her mouth dropped.

“Wow! What did you put in here? This is amazing!” It really was, there was just enough cinnamon and apple and it was sweet but not too sweet.

Aryll puffed out her chest and put her hands on her hips. “Secret recipe. You can know it when you’re officially part of the family.” She winked.

Zelda choked on her cider and coughed. She didn’t oppose the idea of her and Link getting married, she knew there was no one else for her, but they were both too young. Though she was happy to have the young girl’s approval.

“A-Aryll!” Link stuttered out. His ears were tinged red.

“What? Did I say something?” She tilted her head and gave him an innocent smile. Zelda knew it was far from innocent.

“N-nothing. Nothing. Zel, I left some of my clothes on my bed that you can use. Did you want to get changed?”

Zelda nodded, her face still hot. She set the mug on the counter and briskly walked away from the siblings.

—————

After Zelda dried out her soaked hair with a towel she tied it into a loose braid. She placed her hands on the counter as she observed herself in the mirror. Link’s green hoodie looked as comfortable as it felt (she really needed to know where he bought his sweatshirts.) Her eyes were still puffy and her cheeks were still pink. I’m okay.

And she would be. Eventually. Once she set a plan for her future and stood up for herself she would be. But that was for another day. Today she wanted to spend the rest of it with her favorite person.

She nodded at herself and grasped the door handle. Her footsteps were light as she ambled down the hall. She turned into the kitchen and grabbed her abandoned cider. Her eyes flicked to Link—-who sat at the counter with his phone in hand. She walked toward him and he glanced up at her and smiled, pocketing the device.

“Hey. Nice hoodie, where’d you get it?” He wiggled his eyebrows.

Zelda chuckled, stopping beside him, and shook her head. “It’s my boyfriend’s.”

“No.” His jaw dropped. “You’re taken?!”

“Happily taken.” She grinned and sipped at her cider.

Link sighed. “Just when I was about to profess my undying love for you.”

“I fear you’re too late. My heart belongs to another.” She rested her hand against her forehead.

They stared at each other before erupting into giggles.

“That. Right there,” Link said suddenly.

“What?”

“That’s my favorite smile of yours.”

She looked between his eyes and raised her eyebrows. “What smile?”

“When you’re just being you.” He rested his head in his palm as he stared at her.

“Well…” Heat crept up her cheeks and she placed her mug on the counter. “…it’s easy to be myself with you.

“I’m happy to hear that.”

Zelda smiled again and moved to wrap her arms around his neck. He hugged her waist and pulled her close.

“Thank you, Link.”

He hugged her tighter. “I’d do anything for you, Zel… I love you.”

Her heart never failed to speed up at those three words. “I love you more.”

“No way.”

She shook her head and a chuckle escaped her. “Yes way.”

“I definitely love you more.” His breath tickled her ear.

The blonde laughed again and rolled her eyes. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He pulled away and swiftly kissed her lips to which she smiled in response. “Want to watch a show?”

“I’d love that… wait where’s Aryll?”

“She’s playing her game she’s been talking about. Something about a hero and a princess? I need to ask her about it.” He grasped her hand and walked toward the couch. Zelda noticed there was a stack of neatly folded blankets sitting on top of the ottoman.

Link picked up two of the blankets and tossed them on the cushions before grabbing a few pillows and creating—-what Zelda could describe it as—-a makeshift pillow throne.

Link hopped into the mountain of blankets and held out both of his arms toward her. He raised his eyebrows as if to say, ‘What are you waiting for?’ “Snuggles await, Your Highness.”

“Oh my Hylia. Link, you didn’t just say that.” Zelda giggled into her hand.

“What?” He grinned.

Zelda shook her head and laid on top of him. She nestled into his warmth and rested her head on his chest. His heartbeat softly thumped against her ear and she slowly dozed off into a peaceful slumber.

——————

Link lightly massaged Zelda’s back as he flipped through the TV channels. Her breathing evened and she passed out. It didn’t surprise him that she did, especially with all the stress her dad put her through.

He didn’t hate the guy. He was just frustrated with him. Very frustrated. She clearly had a passion for something else so let her do it. It wasn’t that hard of a concept, at least that’s what Link thought.

“Well excuuuuuuuuuse me princess.” He flinched at the sudden voice. He had completely forgotten about this show. He also forgot that he and the protagonist shared the same name. Nope, he did not want to remember anything else. The whole series felt like a fever dream.

He flipped to a baking channel. The contestants each had to create a dessert based on the different regions of Hyrule. I could get behind this.

The front door opened and Link flicked his eyes away from the dimmed TV screen. His mom was hanging up her keys.

“Hey honey! Oh!” She glanced at the sleeping blonde in his arms. “Zelda’s here!” she whispered excitedly.

Link returned her smile. “Hey Ma. How was work?”

”It was great.” His mom motioned toward Zelda. ”Is she okay?” She tilted her head, worry lacing her frown.

“I think she’s okay now.” Link ran a hand up and down Zelda’s back. “She’s had a long day. I’m just trying to make it better.”

”Aw. Poor girl.” She shook her head and placed her bag on the counter. “Do you think she’d like it if I made fruitcake? I thought I heard you mention something about that.”

“Yes, that's her favorite. I think she’d love it if you did that, Mom.”

”Alright, I’ll hop to it.”

“Thank you.” Link heard the oven beep behind him

”You know…” He looked over his shoulder to meet his mom’s gaze. “I’m proud of the man you’ve turned out to be Link. You’re just like your father.”

His eyes softened. ”Thanks Ma. That means a lot coming from you.“

She sent him a smile and dropped her gaze to the worn out recipe on the counter. “Just so you know, Zelda’s welcome to stay the night, anytime. For as long as she needs. Don’t let her forget that. She’s basically family.”

It made Link’s heart warm that his family loved being around Zelda. “I won’t.”

He returned his gaze to the tv. Apparently, he missed a lot since the contestants were already being judged.

The next round was based on the three goddesses, and halfway through Link felt Zelda stir.

She lifted her head and sniffed. “Is that fruitcake I smell?” she asked, her voice sleepy. Link laughed lightly.

“It is!” His mom’s voice rang through the kitchen.

“Oh! Ms. Hero! You’re home.” Zelda blinked in surprise.

“That’s Nayra to you, Zelda. I thought since Link mentioned it was your favorite and I do make a good fruitcake I wanted to make you some.”

Link watched as Zelda’s lips quirked upward.

“Oh! That’s so sweet, you didn’t have to.”

“It’s my pleasure.”

Zelda moved to get up but Link held her tighter.

“No.” He pouted and she rolled her eyes.

“Link, I'll cuddle more with you after.”

“But the cake needs to cool down… right?”

She raised an eyebrow and he sighed.

“You promise we will?”

“Yes. Of course.” She held out a pinky and he twisted theirs together.

“….fine.” He watched as she walked away from the living room and into the kitchen. She gave his mom a hug.

“Honey, are you okay?” His mom asked, holding the sides of her face.

“Yeah.” Zelda nodded once. “I’m okay now. I have your son to thank for that.”

Link pushed away from the couch and walked towards the two.

“Ah yes, he’s behaving I hope?” His mom asked behind her hand.

“Ma.” Link raised an eyebrow which made Zelda giggle.

“Oh honey I’m just teasing.” She reached up to ruffle his hair. His mom handed Zelda a plate with a slice of the fruit delicacy. “I hope you enjoy!”

“Thank you.” Zelda sat beside Link and took a bite of the colorful treat. “Mm! It’s very delicious, Nayra.”

“Glad to hear it! You two can have as much as you want.” Link didn’t need to be told twice.

He flicked his eyes between his cake and Zelda’s expression, his eyebrows creasing slightly. He studied the way she nudged her cake pieces around with her fork and the way she breathed in to speak but she never did. Something was either bothering her or she was working up the courage to ask something.

“Zelda. What’s up?” Link set down his fork and pivoted toward her.

She turned her head to him. “What?”

“I know you. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, it's just… Can I stay? I’m not… I’m not ready to go back there yet.”

Link raised his eyebrows. She didn’t even have to ask of course the answer was going to be yes. “Yes, Zel. You can stay as long as you want.”

“Longer than that,” his mom chimed in. “Just move in at this point!”

Link’s ears burned and Zelda giggled lightly. That was two comments from both Aryll and his mother. Hylia spare me.

“Thank you, Nayra,” Zelda responded.

“Of course, honey. You’re always welcome here. And I mean it.” She pointed a wooden spoon in their direction.

Link resumed eating and wolfed down his two pieces of cake before going for a third piece.

“I forget how fast you eat.” Zelda raised her eyebrows.

“It’s my talent.” He grinned.

Zelda snorted and finished off her last piece.

“Back to cuddles?” Link clasped his hands together.

Zelda laughed through her nose and placed her fork on her plate. She reached up to wipe the stray crumbs from his cheek. “Yes. Back to cuddles.”

[verflares]

this all being said about the light dragon and how it is definitely the biggest highlight of totk (for me at least), i Do think a lot of the reaction to it Is dependent on botw and zelda's characterisation from that game... a lot of which is kind of lacking in totk because of her more passive role (e.g. you are told about her + see her actions after they have already happened)

like. if you didn't already really like zelda and were sold on her relationship with link (and not even just from a shipping zelink perspective, like. just UNDERSTANDING they have a strong bond from everything they've gone through together) then i'm not sure if any of that stuff in totk would've hit as hard as it did. the game does very little to build on what we already know about them, which i think is both a letdown to new players (which. i am not sure why they are playing the sequel before botw, but that is how totk acts most of the time lmao) and returning ones, and as time goes on it's become harder for me to blame people for not caring for it as much.

what a truly odd game