#that they are the actual ass Link and Zelda

[snailtaco]

Hey, y’all. Was feeling a lil bit silly and goofy so now this exists :)

[possiblyawesometmblr]

while i do agree zelda should get to have a sword i think the fact that nintendo looked at her and said "y'know what. i think she chucks entire tables at her enemies" is arguably better than any sword could have been

[zellink]

cocoon

[parksrway]

"celebrating fictional characters' birthdays is stupid" WRONG. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHEIK <3

[hopetatic]

cw body horror (for the first one)

day 20 - Mask and day 21 - Spirit TONAL WHIPLASH BE UPON YOU!!

[ganondoodle]

Regarding Demise: He is an interesting concept, as is the whole eternal cycle, but for that to actually become something worthwhile the games/stories would have to actually DO something with it. So far they are introduced in Skyward Sword and thats it! No other game even references them. And, yes, that cheapens EVERY other game because there is this implication that its all out of the control of the actual characters in the story because of this one asshole that we only ever saw once! Why not have Ganondorf realize that he is possessed/manipulated by this weird old Demon God? How would he react, would he embrace it, would he rebel, would he be broken by the realization that none of his actions were ever *his*? I dont even care which of these options they pick, as long as they pick any of it and do just ANYTHING with the concept.

Or maybe Link or Zelda figures out the Cycle and starts looking into breaking it because endlessly repeating Demon Attacks kinda suck and you dont want that for your descendants.

Or have a game focus on them remembering bits from past lives and having to piece it all together or, again, just ANYTHING!

The closest they ever came to was with BOTW Zelda praying to Hylia, aka HERSELF, to unlock her powers, which is some brutal narrative irony, but not much more.

And regarding the whole Zelda is Hylia thing, I've seen some headcanons about how Skyward Sword Zelda is terrified of herself after learning that, because she now has to assume that everything she did was planned by a version of her that she no longer is. Is Link her friend or is he the useful pawn that Hylia needs to turn into the Hero? Does she even deserve his affection when she probably manipulated him into becoming her champion and fighting, possibly dying for her all her life?

Thats juicy, thats something you can do something with but Nintendo really does like to plan those stories game per game without any care for the larger story.

Which I guess is the Irony of it all. They tried the whole larger connected story/universe thing once: With Skyward Sword. After all that was also the time we got the first Hyrule Historia & "official timeline" as well as "How it all began" in the game itself.

It felt like the start of a new era for Zelda games and stories and then it just... wasn't.

And while I get that they want to focus on gameplay over story, I will never stop mourning the stories we could get/have gotten, if they put a bit more thought into things.

I actually feel like its harder to make the 'cycle' into an interesting plot point when its a .. divine thing that happens, and not perpetuated by the people (though not impossible, given how the series is build up it would need alot of work to not make it worse still..)-

i actually cannot stand the idea that ganondorf is possessed or manipulated, made eviler by demise somehow (demise is dead, leave him beeeeee hes not some evil master mind behind anything aaaaah) bc it STILL takes away ganondorfs agency and character and gives right into the whole hes basically born evil and just pushes the fault tm onto someone else it in turn legitimizes that the kingdom of hyrule and its high rule (heehoo) is right and if only gan wasnt manipulated hed be good tm, aka allied with the goodest guys, hed gladly accept their invitation and join their holy empire of goodness tm if wasnt for da demon

(and i love to say, who decides what is good tm and evil tm? bc hyrules monarchs making every other tribe their subordinate and persecuting shiekah for example isnt what id call good but its fine bc the good holy guys did it in the name of "peace" -what is their idea of peace? everyones under their rule and must worship their god? uh oh- and resistance to it is gonna get you labelled as evil!! (unless you join their holy kingdom and become their vassal of GOOD) what good and evil boils down to in zelda is .. being allied/ruled by the kingdom of hyrule and being opposed to them, even if its only not wanting to be subjugated by them)

i can see the appeal to some degree, but i dont like the idea of ganondorf even being able to be manipulated or possessed, what makes his character, before it got flattened into well he just be demon in the eyes of the average fandom, interesting is his unbreakable will, that drive to keep on living and resisting those that want him dead, its poetic and sad, to the point that (until totk ...) it was really just ONE ganondorf that refused to die and came back over and over (also something i found a compelling thought for botw, that after all this time theres nothing left BUT his will to resist, its a tragic idea that rly spoke to me)

my personal idea of the cycle is that its only a cycle bc they, the kingdom of hyrule and their belief system, keep it going, its not a divine thing that needs to be broken (though the divine surely messes with it, just for the bit i guess) but something that keeps repeating bc hyrule is so soaked into the idea that their princess once was a god and hers is the right to rule it all in light- so anyone who doesnt agree must be of the demons from the darkness seeking to destroy the world, and what means the 'world' could just mean the kingdom of hyrule- in botw even with the calamity people went on and lived, same in windwaker, they dont need the holy kingdom to live- (who is to say the 'monsters' are bad for the land, to me they mostly looked like well adapted territorial beasts, and the bokblins etc clearly arent mindless monsters either, why do they need to be eradicated? they attack you? ok dont go into their territory, or defend yourself, you dont need to exterminate something just bc it could be a threat at some point)

(i do agree that conflict with zelda being interesting but uuuh .. well they never did anythign with that huh)

in the end, demise was just a throw away villain, and if i may get my tin foil hat back here, i feel like the whole creation myth skyward sword does was really just a way for them to get out of the predicament of having to consider a villain to be treated like a person to save themselves from having to think about what they imply and can just go, well this is the evil demons, this is the good gods- ironically enough the attempt to get out of having to consider complicated writing it ends up reversing straight back into the WORST of kinds of implications .. that arent even subtext anymore, if totk is anythign to go by, the most 'simple' or 'easy' narrative to go for might not be actually simple, just a so often retold one that it appears simple if not made aware of its dark maw, the status quo repeated ad nauseam

(and if i may, the whole gameplay over story thing is bs in my eyes, that sounds like the typical attempt of dismissing any critique, just like the stupid, and frankly, offensive "its just for kids" argument, story and gameplay are inherently intertwined, the story influences the gameplay, the gameplay influences the story, especially in a series like zelda that is a futile thing to go for and a reason why the stories themselves lack depth, how are you gonna have an epic adventure that drives you to get through any amount of puzzles and battles if there is no story to motivate you, at this point it feels like the series has set itself up for catastrophic failure bc i imagine, people might just keep buying and playing the games bc its attached to the series, bc they hope to see characters they loved return, new ones that will grab their attention, perhaps be taken away by a world that meant alot to them once before, hope that there will be something exciting-

i am not saying the series has no value or doesnt do anything well (hello who am i) but how many times can you repeat 'this guy good he fight evil guy he get the pretty princess as reward' without any interesting twists or narrative, even the most beloved characters can only keep it passable for so long, even the best gameplay loses its potential if its surrounded by cardboard characters and a story so "simple" as offensive it fits into a single page, i often wonder how a game would be seen if it wasnt titled -the legend of zelda- ..

it hurts especially when looking at its long history, how much estblished thigns it could exploit and expand, the potential the series has is still immense, it hurts to see it be wasted over and over :(

[tinyetoile]

wanted to practice drawing SS Link

[slasherflicks999]

……………..who was gonna tell me the BEN drowned arg was gonna make me weirdly emotional huh

[waroferas]

oihhh my god. its over btw :(

[themortaldraw]

the hero of time with an average sized bottle of milk

[specter13]

does it ever drive you crazy

just how fast the night changes?

[errorwarblesrr]

I was looking through old Wind Waker interviews and tossing them into Google translate (unfortunately it's the best I have </3) I kind of found this bit interesting

I guess I find it interesting because I feel like I see people describe Wind Waker as the opposite. Where it's a zelda world, but the main character isn't actually Link but happens to be a random guy. Here, Aonuma describes it as a non zelda world, but the main character happens to be Link.

Idk the translation could be wonky since well it is google translate so here's that original Japanese bit

[whatvioletdoes-blog]

I might have been hit with strong Linksmeet brainrot again

Our AU has the Links and some NPCs (about one per hero) wake up somewhere, paired up with someone they haven't met before (mostly? So far the only exception's Aryll and the Captain)

They don't have their items, but find both some of theirs and of others, and have to try to get theirs back, return the other ones to their owners, and somehow get out of where they are before the week is over

(What happens after the week is over? Don't worry about it)

Here are some possible pairings, with the people we know for sure will show up at least XD

(Iggy's the name we gave to an echo in EOW, we just decided that after the game (which we haven't finished), Princess actually adopts a real Iggy who's not an echo(?) unless the game gives us a better excuse, but we're keeping Iggy) (We're debating if she'll count as an item or not but like, we were missing a character for the last pair)

We take suggestions, except for the Teacher&Secret and Princess&Shadow ones because those are too precious(? I like the Aryll&Captain one a lot but at the same time it's the only one where the characters already know each other even if they've never met in-person before

So yeah I am being so normal XD I really want to draw some designs and like, make a proper list of what items they wake up with...

We know like, 3 items so far. Teacher&Secret have the ocarina of time (don't worry about it), Paint's gotta have Ravio's bracelet at some point for name origin purposes(?), and Red&Cook have Red's fire rod XD

Anyway, thanks to @a-manicured-lawn for helping us figure out the bit in parenthesis on Teacher&Secret's section and if anyone wants to know more about anything feel free to send an ask(?

[kiddokori]

things i like about totk so far: the depths,

i am going to be so completely honest i thought id be able to think of more. um. this is awkward

[waywardsalt]

slight explanation under the cut

3 chapter fairy focus: three chapters, each one from the point of view of one of the individual fairies at different points in the game. includes some headcanon stuff about oshus and bellum and the world in general

linebeck gets some fucking therapy: a few chapters of linebeck having what are essentially therapy sessions with oshus. linebeck backstory stuff and psychological stuff, w/ a handful of content warnings

early-game rainstorm crew bonding: the crew gets stuck inside and end up bonding after the fire temple. just character stuff, mostly

link finding out about linebeck feeding the cats on mercay: pretty much what the title says, linebeck secretly feeds cats on mercay and link finds out

linebeck tries to teach link about music and conducting correctly: roughly two chapters, with the idea that linebeck is fairly knowledgeable and link’s conducting is not musically correct

[happyhumannoises2]

Korok terrarium I made for my desk :)