Some People Think Writers Are So Eloquent And Good With Words, But The Reality Is That We Can Sit There

The sheer development of botw/totk zelink…

Zelda didn’t originally like Link. She outright avoided him at all costs and wasn’t particularly nice to him. And despite her own efforts, Link’s own determination and devotion to his role finally wore her down to the point where she realized how wrong she had judged him.

Link was a prodigy, he had the sword that would seal the darkness already (had since he was a mere preteen) and was known for besting adults in duels as a literal child. She was born with powers she couldn’t unlock despite all the effort she put in. She thought he was simply handed his fortunes in life with no consequences, while she struggled daily to uphold her father’s expectations for her and neglect her own hobbies.

But when Link steadfastly protected her in a place she had specifically gone to in order to escape him, she sees the truth behind it all. Link is determined. He never backs down from a fight. He’s also reckless and she understands this as she chastises him and worries over his well-being. He’s knowledgeable about horses and has good advice, always willing to share it when someone (aka Zelda) needs to hear it. She learns bit by bit about Link until she outright questions why he doesn’t talk much. And he genuinely hesitates but decides that he can share this with her. She’s the only one he ever has. Because she asked.

And he tells her. The sword on his back brings a great responsibility and massive burden to bare. He feels the need to be strong and to be the stoic perfect knight to take on the role everyone expects him to play.

They become much closer after this and there’s multiple times we see Link actually neglect his role as her protector in order to just be there for Zelda as her friend. Once in the spring memory where he turns after Zelda berated her inability to awaken her power and the second when they’re literally running away from murder bots and he doesn’t force her to continue when she slips but rather kneels, listens, and comforts her.

And to find out that Zelda’s love for Link is the reason she awakened her powers and that it’s canonically proven through Kass’ song? Wow. And that doesn’t even BEGIN their story and how it ends in totk.

In botw, the Japanese original logs are written by Link himself and it’s revealed that one of his motivators in saving Zelda was to see her smile once again. Just. Remember that.

Of course the game end and we do see Link and Zelda planning on traveling to investigate Vah Ruta. And we find out in ToTK that the two are inseparable, so much so that without Zelda by his side no one recognizes Link beyond the characters that genuinely know him through the story.

They’ve traveled across Hyrule and helped numerous people, no matter what it was. They live together in Hateno, where they helped to build a school and even teach the kids there. They founded expedition and research teams, reformed a guard, and even found the time to ‘vacation’ at Lurelin where they would go up to Lover’s Pond in the evening.

Zelda and Link create a home out of Hyrule. It’s no longer a desolate, sparingly populated land. It’s being reformed. It’s being cared for. It’s their home. They lost theirs 100years prior but they’ve steadily worked to make it a home once again. They were healing. Together.

So losing Zelda again, being unable to reach her, and also losing his sword. . . It’s a lot. But the thing he knows he must do— Find Princess Zelda. Despite knowing exactly where Zelda is after you finish the Tears of the Dragon Quest, Link does not complete it. Because he hasn’t found his Zelda. The one that rambles on about everything and gets excited about history and new discoveries. The one that tried to make him eat a frog (albeit she was on to something). She isn’t home.

Meanwhile Zelda. . . Zelda goes on about Link, enough for Sonia to know all about him and his tendency to worry over Zelda’s well-being. And then we have memory eight that has Zelda practically gushing about him to her pseudo-parents and promptly being teased for it. Then, as Zelda finally understands why she is in the past, she ensures Link has everything he could need in order to win. Because to her, Link and Hyrule surviving is a must. She sacrifices herself to ensure that.

And yet. . . Link is determined to bring her back. Hyrule won’t be the home they’ve worked so hard to make it so without her. He can’t quit until they find a way to revert her back. So when Rauru and Sonia channel their power through Link, it takes a moment for him to understand by when he does… WHOOH boy does the determination SHINE in his eyes.

And he gets her back. He reaches her. Protects her just as she did for him in the form of restoring the Master Sword. And she immediately rambles.

We don’t get to see Link’s reaction to any of this. But then we end with “Link, I’m home” and a SMILE. Because that’s all Link wants. For Zelda to be safe and smiling.

Ultimately, they just want to be home. And home is with the other.

finally finished danny phantom with @enthusiasticscientist and @megadrivemenace (who is a coward)

putting my thoughts under a cut since my friend who knows nothing about kh will probably see this post:

Thinking lots about Roxas and Xion post Kingdom Hearts 3, though this is more focused on Roxas.

They're both just children who came into the world at (supposedly) fourteen with no memories, and therefore no knowledge or experiences, and now they're thrust into as normal a life a Keyblade Wielder can get after being trapped for so much of their short lives. Xion became almost nonexistent until suddenly becoming two people against her will, only becoming whole when Sora rejoined her minds. Roxas had his ENTIRE LIFE replaced, only to suddenly remember his previous life in a fit of rage.

He clearly remembers both lives at the same time, shown with Sora being sad when leaving Twilight Town and saying goodbye to the real Hayner, Pence, and Olette. As well as appearing in a black coat in the fight in The World That Never Was and the snippets of memories we get to see afterwards. So his mental state must be a disaster, remembering two very conflicting lives and a one of them wasn't even real. But it was real to HIM.

Four kids living in Twilight Town enjoying their summer vacation, but now Hayner, Pence, and Olette don't even personally know who he is. They're willing to befriend him, clearly, but these aren't the people Roxas knew, and so much of his normal, fake life is overlapping his life as an Organization Member, and vice versa.

It's probably also practically impossible for this fifteen year old with one year of TRUE life experience and no real memories to process this to explain the horrors he went through to others. Even his friends. Only Xion would really understand what it feels like to be two people at the same time, surrounded with nothing but reminders of everything he is and isn't. But would she truly?

I headcanon the Days Trio +Saïx/Isa made the abandoned mansion their home, so it must be even more torture to Roxas. Probably to Xion as well, but I doubt as much since she made her choice willingly; though she did kinda force Roxas to kill her but that's neither here nor there. Oh but he definitely remembers her body crystallizing in his arms as she shatters into truly nothing, not even memories remaining, it all being his fault.

Man, can't wait for that Psychology of Roxas video :)

My thoughts on Xion aren't all that organized and I feel I put down the gist of what I have for her so far in my ramblings above. I just really feel bad for her and hope she gets to have a role in Kingdom Hearts 4. I do headcanon she's extremely touch starved and will hold Roxas' or Axel/Lea's hand as much as she can though. Also that she avoids Isa as much as she can, out of fear, anger, and pure spite.

me and my friend @nicolefirekitty did a 8:11 photoshoot today

friend who is playing ff7 remake being excited about how cool and strong aerith is while i'm just watching and internally

a mother dimetro and her child crossing an empty road

My favorite type of image from ff7 remake are the shots where cloud is in the background cinematicly blurry

bro is just standing there

love it when half awake thoughts are actually pretty cool ideas

so in a lot of legend of zelda fanworks and aus i've found, the creator has link speaking in sign language which is pretty cool in my opinion

But that's got me thinking; what about the other denizens of Hyrule? Not all languages on earth use a universal sign language, so i imagine with such exaggerated diversity (completely different species) in Hyrule, they wouldn't either. Therefore I have come up with some vague-ish ideas of what the other peoples of Hyrule might use as a method of nonverbal communication. I'm using Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom as the base for this.

also note I'm not versed in sign language at all, so there will be mistakes.

I'll start simple, Gerudo.

The Gerudo people are most similar to Hylians in appearance, both are basically humans though they are treated as a different 'species' as far as I can tell. But it still makes sense to me that their sign would be most similar to Hylian sign, just some words might get a bit lost in translation.

Next up, Gorons.

Due to their bulkier appearance and larger hands, their sign might include their arms more prominently. Certain motions and swings might be dangerous for the other species, but other Gorons would be able to take an accidental hit. They do still use their hands and fingers, but less so than the more human-like species, and the motions would be more like a game of charades.

My favorite, Rito.

Due to their fingers also being feathers, Rito use their feet by tapping their claws, clenching toes, or stomping. For more complicated words they lower their wings so their feather-fingers are in view of the person already looking down and combine motions alongside their feet. Rito sign isn't very common however due to the difficulty of standing, signing, and focusing on what they're even trying to say without stumbling. It's even more difficult to understand while in the air. Only those with impeccable balance even bother unless necessary.

And finally, Zora.

If you look at the Zora's design, their gills are along/near the latissimus dorsi, an easy place to see both on land and in water. Due to this and how water can get extremely dark the further you dive, I imagine it would be pretty cool if the Zora could activate some sort of bioluminescence in their gills to flash in sequences similar to morse code. This would make it easy to see even underwater, and the ability to essentially shut the light off would keep them safe from underwater threats. This idea also comes from how I think it would be difficult to verbally communicate underwater and while swimming at fast speeds.

Like I said, I've limited this to botw/totk for simplicity's sake, but I know there's all sorts of different species in the other games, so it might be cool to explore their nonverbality one day.

ik i should keep this for a bigger post with the other species in it but... minish dancing... they dance and twirl and spin around...