#jokes on you my linksona is already in CTB

[wutheringmights]

Since you wanted some asks, I figured this would be a good time to ask... why did you pick Spirit for CTB? The way you write him is great, but it's still kinda an interesting choice. I'm just curious if you had a larger reason for it.

I went overboard with this answer because I am so bored lol

I've talked a bit before about how CTB started as a MidLink romcom that spiraled out of control.

While writing the rom com, I had a scene during the war that I wanted to feature Warriors's friend group. I knew Mask was going to be a part of that group, but I also wanted Toon Link to be featured. However, Wind being in the war was never an idea I vibed with, so when I realized that Toon Link had moves based on Spirit Tracks, I saw my opportunity to add Spirit in instead.

Sure enough, the dynamics of these three being friend was what turned me away from the rom com and towards a political intrigue war story.

But here's the thing: when I realized I wanted to change stories, I tried to see if I could do it without Spirit. I knew Spirit was an interesting choice, and I was worried that including him would be a major determent to anyone who would want to read it. I knew that people who aren't fans of ST may not want to read a story with Spirit in it, and fans of ST wouldn't be too happy with what I was doing.

So I experimented with a few ideas.

First, I tried to see if I could make Wind work instead. The most immediate problem was the time paradox this would create. If an older Wind experienced the war, then a younger Wind would have to be with the Chain. But if Warriors was awful to older Wind, then he would take the opportunity to warn younger Wind of his future self and tell him what to do to avoid anything bad happening to him.

Which would mean for this story to still happen, Wind and Warriors's fates would have to be set in stone no matter what either did to prevent it.

I'm not going to say that's not an interesting story (because it's actually kinda metal), but that's dark. It's really dark. And it feels far too cynical to give Wind the tools to protect himself in the future, only to have those tools inevitably enable Warriors's abuse and lead to Wind's suffering. That's not the story I want to tell.

(I also played around with every member of the Chain having their memories wiped of their LU adventure once it's over, which would free Wind up from the burden of having to avert his own fate. But that would have been really lame. Imagine reading a story where there's this big mystery as to how Wind could possibly fail to protect himself in the future, only to learn that Warriors's efforts didn't matter since Wind forgot all of his warnings anyways. You would all kill me).

Once I exhausted the idea of using Wind, I tried to see if I could do this story with only Mask.

The first problem was that by making Mask the victim, it erased the role of the "witness" that Time currently plays in CTB. It changes the dynamics of the story a lot, and the conflict of Time and Warriors reuniting after all that would reasonably start and finish within a few weeks of the Chain meeting each other, avoiding the political intrigue plot entirely.

The second problem is that Mask is, like, a literal child. He's a baby. Warriors being cruel to a child is unforgivable. Warriors becomes way less sympathetic if the power dynamic is that skewed. His victim needed to be closer in age to him, especially so that they could reasonably have enough power to start fighting back. A child wouldn't be able to do that.

So after that, I looked into other incarnations of Link who were not already in LU, but were more popular than Spirit.

The two top choices were AOC Link and the First Hero. They both had the same problem: they're already military men. Warriors wouldn't have a reason to pressure them to fight in the war when they have done so no problem. With them, there's no conflict.

That just left the Hero of Cadence, which I quickly ruled out for two reasons: a) I have never played Cadence of Hyrule and b) there's not enough lore to justify why he would be a better pick than Spirit.

Which brings us back to where I started: Spirit.

The funny thing is that after all that experimenting, I walked away more sure than ever that Spirit was the right pick for CTB. His game lends him to be philosophically different from Warriors to cause conflict. Unlike the other Links, he's not a fighter first. But he would still fight back if need be. Plus, because he's not in the Chain, there is no burden for him to stop his own fate via weird time travel shenanigans.

Is he an interesting choice? Yup! But I don't think he's the wrong choice. CTB's story will only work if he's in it. And that's pretty cool.