#sarcastic Zelda

[magicalmatriarch]

Today is a double celebration! Not only is it Halloween, but it's also Sabrina's birthday. I can tell you that even the worlds have chosen a pretty fitting date for this little rebel to be born.

Sabrina, in honor of your birthday, we've even agreed to decorations and sweets (though I seem to still find confetti all over the house). I wish you courage and a little common sense (especially when you're planning your next adventure!). And I promise not to nag too much... at least today.

Also, in case you feel like this day is missing something... Lilith has a special surprise for you. Spoiler: she has a spell up her sleeve that will definitely make this day memorable. Happy Birthday, Sabrina!

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Сегодня у нас двойной праздник! Не только Хэллоуин, но и день рождения Сабрины. Могу сказать, что даже миры выбрали весьма подходящую дату для рождения этой маленькой бунтарки.

Сабрина, в честь твоего праздника мы даже согласились на украшения и сладости (хотя я, кажется, всё ещё нахожу конфетти по всему дому). Желаю тебе храбрости и немного благоразумия (особенно, когда ты задумаешь очередное приключение!). А я обещаю не ворчать слишком сильно… по крайней мере сегодня.

А ещё, на случай, если тебе покажется, что в этот день чего-то не хватает… Лилит приготовила для тебя особый сюрприз. Спойлер: у неё запасено заклинание, которое точно сделает этот день запоминающимся. С Днём Рождения, Сабрина!

[the-mountain-flower]

People really seemed to like these the last time I posted them, should I share more? Let me know if you want more :) @comicaurora

[phoenixcatch7]

Okay you know what actually yeah. I was tired but I had a point.

Why. On earth. In zelda fics. Do people not shut up about everything being hylia's fault forever and ever.

Like, the one deity out of a dozen odd who got cursed into this right alongside Link. All the focus on one great all being power who then gets blamed or blessed for everything that ever happens. It's just... I don't know, it just seems like a culturally Christian thing. Not even that - American catholic.

Especially Legend omg when people write him he never shuts up about how everything bad that's ever happened to him is all hylia's fault and she's doing it on purpose with no thought to her poor beleagured hero. He sounds like someone who grew up in an American conservative household who turned out to be queer and never bothered to unpack any of it and acts like he's now atheist.

But even then you could do something interesting with that!! The common headcanon that Legend is hylian royalty - of course that family would put immense worth and worship on hylia as her descendants, she who founded their kingdom. And maybe legend could feel bitter about not inheriting the magic, or the throne, or whatever meant he grew up away from the castle. Give him some unexamined religious trauma! Heck, he could bond with Flora over disappointing your family's expectations or something! They could work on unpacking it together! If you must make it part of his character at least think about why!

Because that belief is wrong, because hylia is literally the one deity we can pretty safely understand is not all seeing, all knowing, all being.

Every time she has a voice, a role, we see her make mistakes or be tricked and have regrets.

Skyward sword, she's literally zelda. She's a young protective warrior goddess (she used a sword and lead armies to battle against demise) who was created by the Three to guard the triforce and keep watch over hyrules lands. By the time ss starts she's already made several tough calls, not limited to yoinking hylians into the sky. When she was zelda she hated every second of leading Link around and even then!! It all hinged on him being completely willing! He was never forced to do anything, she didn't even have her memories with the plan until after she'd fallen to the surface! Their relationship was entirely genuine and she very nearly overestimated her own willingness to go through with the plan! And even then she still managed to get kidnapped lmao. That's not what happens when you're in charge of fate.

And in botw and totk - she's in her full divine form, her full divine powers, she's ancient and magic and worshipped in every corner of the kingdom. And (spoilers!) she loses contact with one of her own mf statues. Not just any ten apples high chibi statue you see in the towns, no, it's The Big One. She's got no idea what happened to it, but she's (rightfully) worried, and asks Link to check it out. And in an entirely separate instance, her OTHER big statue in the ToT gets overridden!! By a triangle head! And ol creep in the deep is the one who releases the statue! It's been what 20k years of power and worship - if she's not all powerful then she never will be.

Hyrule - every hyrule - is very, very polytheistic. She's not even a goddess of time to be in charge of stuff like that! There's multiple of them: Naryu, Cia (and Lana), Farosh to an extent, and many artifacts that can cause time travel, like the harp of ages, the ocarina, the big portal in ss, those time shift stones in the same game, the statue in wind waker. Please stop treating her like the magic elf equivalent of Monotheistic American Christianity God.

She was introduced in skyward sword. The game that came out before botw. She did not exist in any of the games that came before that. There was a lake hylia! In the kingdom hyrule! That's it! Her name or even existence wasn't even hinted at before that. It's actually canonically pretty unlikely any of the chain (cough cough legend) have even heard of her! And her assigned job is protector of the triforce. That's it. And she can't even use the thing. She can very explicitly as a main driving force of the ss plot not use the triforce she protects. And the triforce, shockingly, is not even in every game.

Cases that hylia often gets the most flack for (links awakening and all the trauma from that, Link failing in botw, the events of totk) hylia has absolutely zero part in. Hilariously. And she has zero power over wishes made to the triforce or who makes those wishes or what the triforce does about it.

She even gets all the blame for the cycle of the hero, the reincarnation! Which? We know exactly how that happened. Blaming her for a curse she herself is a victim to?? Demise, in skyward sword, explicitly, on screen, doing it ON PURPOSE, cursing the spirit of the hero and the blood of the goddess.

Hylia, I don't know if you've noticed, also has her own blood. Whether or not she lost that blood upon return to her divine form, she still couldn't break the curse. Link, spirit now tied to whatever demise had cooking up, is basically to reincarnate in time for whenever the Interesting Times happen. And it's demise's fault, who, again, did it on screen, on purpose, explicitly, pointing at the camera with text bolded and everything.

So why do people even blame her? I think it comes down to this:

Her name matches the kingdom. Whatever her connection to the people with the same name, I don't know, but she did found the surface kingdom as a mortal. Being named zelda at the time I wonder who chose the name XD!

Her worship in botk as a high ranking deity. Again, not monotheistic, there's temples to the Three and there's Malanya and Satori and the great fairies and the yiga worship ganon, but hylia is the most widespread for all she's basically a side character working for the new heart piece situation. Again, this is only the case in ss/botk, she doesn't appear in even aoc.

A misguided belief spread in fanfiction that in linked universe, hylia is the one opening and controlling the portals. To my knowledge, lu canon is that the portals are opened by dark link, or at least that's the working theory. I think it's assumed that hylia is the one who gathered the heroes together to combat it? If that's true? Congratulations! We have one (very plot necessary) act of hers in a fan comic. That is not canon to The Legend Of Zelda series.

An american Christian (I hesitate to say evangelican?) cultural understanding of religion. The differences between polytheism and monotheism. How one might feel if the divine was proven real on earth. Zelda is a Japanese property, it is not a Christian country. Though it draws aesthetic inspiration from western medieval fantasy it is not and never will be culturally western. The majority of ao3/tumblr users are American or at least English speaking, and that will always affect interpretation. It's giving 'be thankful to God no matter what for he always has a plan. Trust in him and your suffering will be rewarded' which is not a universal religious belief.

Something I've noticed to be surprisingly common in fandom, is where a mentor or figure of authority who is anything less than perfect or all forgiving can very quickly have their reputation ripped to shreds by the fandom. And then newer authors come, read those works, internalise that about the characters and produce new works that assume that character's cruelty to be par for the course. I will not be listing those characters or fandoms for a variety of reasons lol. But it is amazingly common and very hard to untangle, especially in larger fandoms. It's character bashing in a way near identical to cancelling people irl. It's not 'giving them depth' or 'making it more realistic' (grittier equalling realism is an ice cold take proliferated by dudebro comic authors and wrong besides.) Have some critical thinking.

Lately, I've also been running into a great many fics (not so much comics) that make hylia do some fairly heinous stuff... And then unironically blame her for it. They do remember they're the ones deciding what the characters do, right? She's not an abusive master playing with her puppets until they break, she's quite the opposite! Use the right tags (dark hylia/ooc characters/character bashing/author made them do it, idk) or dial it back. This is a growing percentage of fics and I'll never restrict content but yanno, if you're going to make hylia evil or manipulative at least understand it's a canon deviation (and do something interesting with it, I once read an amazing botw fic with evil hylia and fierce deity!).

TLDR, To summarise, hylia is canonically incapable both emotionally and physically of doing the majority of things characters in fics blame her for. Stop using her as a scapegoat especially when demise is right there. Please give your whumpees deeper characterisation than hating on hylia. Please give legend deeper characterisation than hating on hylia every time he or someone else is sad. Please remember wild can talk to hylia if he wants. Please double check anything you're not sure about :D!

[skyloftian-nutcase]

And so begins the epic quest of finding as many Sassy Sky responses possible

[e-johnsen]

I’ve been enjoying the OSP Breath Of The Wild streams lately. Been getting me through overtime lately. ⁦Reds depiction of Sophia /Indigo /Navi is my favorite. You guys kill me. XD

[silver-stargarden]

loser zelda youtubers: they didn't explain EVERY LITTLE THING in tears of the kingdom, weh! 😭😫😡

chad history and mythology channel overly sarcastic productions: that's why it's good game design 💪🧐

[chromatasia]

Clover uty 🤝 Link Majora’s mask: Kids that were stuck in a loop, on a search to find missing person or people, and dealing with a creature that loves to torment them

STOP PUTTING THESE KIDS IN SITUATIONS!! THEYRE LIKE 10!!!!

[k-apk4n]

A sketch of Red playing BOTW and bullying the king :)

[aikoiya]

LoZ: TotK - The Gibdo

I read somewhere recently that the Queen Gibdo is implied to be entirely insectoid, however her children are parasitic & are unable to live outside a host body. Those hosts happen to be the bodies of dead Gerudo. This is why they have exposed ribcages as well as insectoid features.

The evidence being that Gibdo are regularly found in gravesites, but these graves are always empty.

So, this is both a zombie trope, specifically an insectoid twist on the zombie fungus trope, & a sort of facehugger trope.

What a lovely combination, right??

LoZ Cultural Masterlist

[muchmossymess]

So I started watching full metal alchemist brotherhood bc I've heard great things about it, and I'm really REALLY liking it, but oh my god I did not realise how long it was

I thought it'd be like, 20 episodes, 25 max, not fucking SIXTY

Dont get me wrong this is great news there's so much and I'm in love but goodness me, much different to the eight episode formula we've come to expect. They really don't make them like they used to ig

[botwstoriesandsuch]

Son of Farore | A Zelda Fansong Commission

Perhaps my biggest piece yet...started it all the way back in MAY OF 2022. So  yeah, enjoy the skyward sword vibes. (Best experienced with headphones plz i worked hard on that precussion...)

Thank you to @drsteggy for the opportunity and patience :3 I hope you all enjoy!

[magicalmatriarch]

I spent the whole day like this and couldn't understand why the kids at the Academy were looking at me strangely. And Sabrina was smiling suspiciously all the time and trying to take a photo. Now everything is clear...

Next time I lecture on self-defense, I'll check my own head. Who knew hairpins were the new witches' weapon?

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Проходила так весь день и никак не могла понять, почему дети в Академии смотрели на меня странно. А Сабрина всё время подозрительно улыбалась и пыталась сделать фото. Теперь всё ясно…

В следующий раз, прежде чем читать лекции о дисциплине и силе воли, проверю, как выглядит моя собственная голова. Кто знал, что заколки — новое оружие ведьм?

[sunder-the-gold]

Detail Diatribe: Tears of the Kingdom's Lonely Sky

[prayers-to-hyliarceus]

Pelipper Unmail! All of Link's gender(s)

oh. oh goddess. oh i feel... amazing.

I'm admittedly a little terrified, and I don't know if I'm more scared of Link or the Pelipper. Please don't take my gender.

nah, don't worry, i feel great. what is this feeling of euphoria. it is near unmatched.

don't think i can help you with the Pelipper, though.

That is wholly reassuring. Thank you so much.

[pigeon-wizard]

I need a super cut of OSP’s breath of the wild live steams but it’s just the parts where they point out beautiful and interesting parts of the story and lore