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[linktotheheart]

For those who don’t know, I am the technical admin for a Minecraft server. Now I have slightly above average skills with computers, but nothing to call home about, since computers generally act weird around me. That said I was the best equipped for it so me and @the-seelie-court-official started it up together, me for technical stuff and Dion for community stuff.

Now let me tell you about the Haunting on the Minecraft server.

One of the things I wanted to set up was NPC shop keeps. Now these shop keeps look like players, and I can code them to type in chat and to walk around, but they aren’t players. They aren’t counted in the server list, they only say the words I’ve given them. One of these Npcs was Herb, the Herbalist. They sold plants.

This was their skin, by the way.

Now one day herb stopped talking, this was odd so I tried to select them, like I had done so many times before, but it wouldn’t work. Whenever I tried I was met with error messages. I couldn’t select them, so I couldn’t delete them, I couldn’t move them, they had cut their strings and I the puppet master was forced to place an end portal beneath them and drop them into the void.

I thought this would be the last of it.

Fast forward a couple months and the server is up and running for public use. The players got into the end to find the end dragon missing, and upon building out to make an enderman farm we found herb. They were hovering, in the void. Easily accessible, I still couldn’t select them to change them or edit them so we just let them stay, floating above the yawning void that was meant to get rid of them.

Over time the server got more and more glitchy, chunks were being loaded by the thousand with only one or two people on at a time. After some serious sleuthing we (me and my team) found that the server recognized a ghost player. One that wasn’t listed when you pressed Tab, but was listed on the server side. The console of the server was filled with error messages almost constantly, cascading errors of Null, of Not Found despite the fact herb was right there.

Eventually it came to a head, the corn plants and slimefun crops went Wrong. Corrupted just like herb. And with fields of Steve heads staring back from what should be a farm we agreed that we would completely delete the world. The world that herb was in, that whole dimension. In hopes it would finally get rid of them.

We thought it worked, that we had finally be rid ourselves of this beast of my own creation. An hour later Herb Appeared at the world spawn. As if nothing had happened.

Finally I had to resort to burying them in a bedrock box directly under world spawn, because while I couldn’t move them I could break the blocks under them to make them fall. They sit down there trapped, vomiting error messages any time they are looked at or touched. Waiting for the chance to destroy what we have built.

[linktotheheart]

A confession !!

[linktotheheart]

✨ Zora May 2024 ✨ 6th year let's gO 🐬

Guidelines: Tag as #Zora May. Not everyday, no specific order, just pick some prompts you like! For: art/writing, canon zora and zora ocs~ Past prompts can be used, and you can merge prompts too 🐟 I’ll also rb entries!

Design a Zora Masterpost

Entries: tumblr entries  |  twitter entries  |  old twitter entries Previous events: 2023 | 2020-2021  | 2019  |  2018

[linktotheheart]

The Curse

Aka Hylia's favourite transmasc gets amnesia and forgets what periods are

[linktotheheart]

no grave can hold my body down, i'll crawl home to her

[linktotheheart]

More dragon Zeld cause I love her :3

[linktotheheart]

May I have the link please? (pun intended 😅)

They went wild with the dx version.

[linktotheheart]

practice doodles from this weekend. or alternatively titled "babygirl you are strange and offputting"

[linktotheheart]

happy release day 🎉🍃

[linktotheheart]

Round 6 Wave 3

[linktotheheart]

@danco110 OMG thank you for these tags!!

(The reason I didn't mention is that our memory has more holes in it than a block of swiss cheese, but yes, very this)

One of my personal favorite legend of zelda headcanons is that Lynels were either not always bestial monsters who would attack on sight (or can evolve to be an intelligent social race after being freed from Ganon's influence, but I like the deep lore of them having been corrupted by Ganon and being able to return to their previous state once he is gone).

They're already clearly very intelligent. They're the only enemy that can figure out you're not a Lynel when you're wearing the Lynel mask just by looking at you. They're able to fire an arrow up into the air and hit you even if you're standing behind an object that obscures you. They switch from ranged to melee weapons based on how far you are from them. It shows they have some reasoning abilities and even understanding of physics beyond a very base instinctual level.

I like to imagine that Lynels would still be largely solitary creatures in their uncorrupted state, sometimes moving about in small groups based in either family units or teams united for a common purpose. But maybe they did at one point in the very distant past have a homeland where they could congregate, perhaps outside Hyrule which is why it's unknown in the present.

I think they'd actually be very academic, and would travel a lot to study and document in their chosen field, hence the largely nomadic lifestyle. The combination of hardy hooves and dextrous hands would help them easily traverse places that would be impassible for normal hooved creatures and footed creatures alike. They are capable of feats of both great strength and delicate dexterity, and once produced great works of art.

Given the way they seek out very high, isolated places, astronomy may have been a common chosen field of study.

Their fall was concurrent with the beginning of the imprisoning war, which was the first time they were recorded appearing in Hyrule in official histories. They had previously traveled into the wilds of Hyrule, but any accounts made by people of the time were lost to the ages, and the accounts from the war only survived due to the fact that so many Lynels appeared together that they were witnessed by many people.

I like the idea of, after the events of ToTK, the Lynels regaining their full intelligence and appearing to speak to Zelda. Link immediately moves to attack but everyone is startled when the Lynel speaks. Zelda orders Link to stand down and gives him the chance to explain, and he does so and offers allyship of his people, who mean to reestablish a society outside of Hyrule. Zelda offers aid and they accept, and though all the races of Hyrule are extremely nervous about them, they start to interact and work together.

Also, in any story where a version of Ganondorf is saved, is able to return and be reformed, etc, the Lynels at first regard him as a mortal enemy for what he did to their people, and only eventually tolerate him if he proves he has changed (or, alternatively was corrupted by a being/force like Demise himself, in which case many Lynels actually turn around and accept him and mourn over what was done to all of them together).

I have so many fanfic ideas now, tbh.

[linktotheheart]

Seeing the Signs

My fic for @silentteal for the @loftwingletters for the @zelinkcommunity loftwing letter exchange!

.....

Link dropped to one knee with an audible hiss of pain as he defeated the last bokoblin, panting and resting his weight on his sword which was planted firmly in the grass.

No, no no no, Zelda thought, as she sprinted to catch up to him. Hylia, not again. He's hurt again and it's my fault, please don't let him die! The shrine of resurrection is gone, I can't do anything!

“Link,” she cried out, dropping to her knees and sliding the last few feet from the speed of her sprint. “I'm so sorry! Where are you wounded? I'll take care of you.”

Link looked up with a smile, brushing the hair out of his eyes, and Zelda's heart made a weird swooping motion like a Rito aflight.

“Don't worry, Princess,” he signed. “It's just a pulled muscle. I lost my footing in the wet grass and tweaked something in my leg.“

All the tension left Zelda at once, and she wasn't sure whether to laugh or yell at her reckless knight. She settled for saying in a stern, stubborn voice, ”Well any wound can still be dangerous. You will let me tend to it immediately.“

Link laughed, an almost-tinkling, melodic laugh that for some reason always made her think of fairy children deep in a forest. ”Yes, your highness,“ he signed teasingly, and she glared at him.

She set about removing first aid supplies from her backpack. Bandages, cloth made adhesive with chu-chu jelly, a balm made of monster parts that eased inflammation. 

She could feel Link's intense blue eyes on her as she applied the balm with a firm but gentle touch. She wasn't sure if the heat she felt in her cheeks was from his sky-blue stare or from the little thrills as her fingers brushed his leg. Strange, the balm didn't have any electric-elemental ingredients to her knowledge - though really, she knew it wasn't that. For some reason, she thought suddenly about the hylian sign lessons that he had given her pre-calamity, the way his fingers had felt like so many fairy wings on hers as he had carefully corrected her signs.

She then took the bandages and adhesive cloths and methodically wrapped the injury to give it support, before finally raising her eyes to meet Link's. To her surprise, he was as red as she was.

The silence hung in the air between them, somehow as fraught as the atmosphere before a storm, yet warm and comfortable as a home.

Zelda realized her hands were still on the completed wrap, and cleared her throat as she hastily removed them. As the silence broke, Link almost looked disappointed, as if he had hoped for her to... say something? Do something?

”You are not to fight any monsters until that muscle is healed, do you understand?“ Zelda said, her words falling over each other in their haste to leave her throat. ”That's what we brought along an additional guard for.“

Link nodded, still giving her that unreadable look. She stood, brushing down the now sodden and grass-stained front of her leggings, and offered him her hand to help him up.

As he stood, she held onto his hand for a minute longer, then abruptly threw her arms around him, clasping the back of his head with one hand and gripping the back of his tunic in the other balled fist. ”I thought I'd lost you again,“ she half-murmured, half-sobbed into the hair above his ear.

Link hesitated, then hugged her back tightly, his arms sturdy and unyielding as the Deku tree itself.

As Zelda finally drew back, the hand that was behind his head lingered, coming to rest in a caress on his cheek. His azure eyes were as warm and bright as a summer afternoon, as he brought up one hand to cup hers. She paused, not wanting the moment to end.

“Do you trust me?” the other hand came up to sign, startling her.

Her eyebrows knit together as she started to pull her hand back. “Of course I do! If this is about asking you to let others fight, I -“

He caught her hand as she pulled it away, interlacing his fingers with hers. The words died in Zelda's mouth as all her breath seemed to desert her.

Link stepped forward, slowly, as if he was trying not to spook a wild horse. One hand came up to alight - trembling almost imperceptibly - on her own cheek, and he closed most of the distance between them. Their faces inches apart, she understood that he was giving her the choice of what to do.

She moved the last few inches, blossoming into a kiss. Oh Hylia, Din Farore and Nayru, this is what she had been wanting. The last of the realization that he had been waiting for her to come to him so that she could be the one to make the choice, after a lifetime of being subject to other people's desires, melted away into the sensation of him. Her whole awareness melted away into soft lips, the smell of sweat and horse lather and leather, the feel of home.

She was brought back to the world around them when a loud noise arose from a little bit away. They both jumped apart, Link sheepishly grinning and rubbing the back of his head, as their guard applauded and cheered (with more than a few wolf-whistles) at them from a rise a couple hundred feet away.

She looked down at their hands, and then interlaced her fingers with her knights’, tracing the line of his arm up to see him gently smiling at her in a way that made her dizzy. She leaned into him, then yelped slightly as he stumbled. Somehow, she'd already forgotten his injury.

Poking him in the ribs, she said “Now you're going to get some rest.” Ducking under his arm, she helped him start limping back to their entourage, as the captain and lieutenant of the guard rode their way leading their horses.

She then recalled a memory she'd long forgotten. Over a century ago, Link had taught her the sign that he had helped introduce when silent princesses were discovered. She blushed as she remembered the other sign she'd had trouble distinguishing it from - “I love you.”

.....

If you have an AO3 and it's okay, I'd love to post in on there as a gift to your account there as well, Teal!

[linktotheheart]

Deaf people 🤝 nonverbal people

being like "Link is one of us"

I’m right, ok?

(Also if that Legend of Zelda film is happening, just get me some blond hair dye and a green shirt.)

[linktotheheart]

Might fuck around and start posting on tumblr again… (starting with a sad botw comic I made a while back )

[linktotheheart]

I feel like so many people misunderstand BOTW/TOTK Link especially (Zelda too, but that's another topic entirely)

His lack of expressiveness IS a personality trait. It's a direct result of the pressure on his soldiers to be a perfect soldier, hero, and savior. No, he's not Skyward Sword Link, and never will be, because his story is completely different.

"But [other Link] hugged Zelda when he got her back!" and this Link maintained a respectful distance as his princess's subordinate - but ALSO out of respect for Zelda as a person, because she spent her whole childhood having her agency denied and he wants to let her initiate even something as simple as platonic contact whenever possible. He's being kind!

(And yes, I know that primarily only the "he is a knight and she is a princess" part is directly supported in the actual game, but I'll remind the people making comparisons that the dynamic was COMPLETELY different in their favorite comparison game, Skyward Sword. But also... look at the gentleness with which Link interacts with Zelda, the tenderness that he shows so few other characters - Mipha probably being the closest example. Look at the way he looks to her first to see what to do in every scene they're in together, unless he's protecting her from an immediate threat to her life. Notice how outside of that, Zelda IS usually the one to initiate any physical contact)

I also personally hate it when people describe quiet, not very expressive people as "lacking personality" because... my partner IRL is like that. If she expressed herself at all around most people, it's in a very flat, reserved way. I've seen how it hurts her that people treat her like she doesn't have a personality, like she isn't even a full person - and I know that's real life and Zelda is fiction, but come on, do you think all the people that aren't highly expressive and extroverted don't hear that about very popular characters and internalize it?

Being reserved is a personality trait. Being cautious and not impulsive is a personality trait. In fact, I'd even say just because you as an expressive, extroverted person see Link as a blank slate to project your own personality onto, doesn't mean he actually is or was even intended that way.

(I also think this is a very US-centric point of view, honestly. There's plenty of cultures where even BOTW Link would be considered at least close to average - Finnish culture specifically comes to mind, even if he's still slightly exaggerated in that regard as, y'know, a character.)

Idk, this is as much a silly little vent post as anything, it's not that serious, etc, but whatever

(and don't get me started on "oh Zelda got no agency in TOTK and she learned the powers she was struggling overnight". No, it's called a time skip, and just because she learned her powers before the 13th hour this time - which yeah, she would get them easier this time with a mentor who could actually use the same powers, and having already learned to use her light powers - doesn't mean it just "happened overnight". And... she didn't express agency? She was actively influencing the entire flow of the timeline, changing the actions of her ancestors by convincing her ancestors to act, learning to control her powers and fighting Ganondorf, and finally expressing the ultimate form of autonomy in choosing to sacrifice herself to save the world. Some of the criticisms of TOTK didn't even seem to play the same game. Just because a heroine isn't a pop feminist badass who *gasp* wears pants and easily and perfectly kicks every villain's ass, doesn't mean she "has no agency" and is being sidelined. Like, a princess engaging in courtly politics is neither powerless nor "doing nothing")

[linktotheheart]

Nintendo could've done tears of the kingdom DLC where you could unlock magic outfits that turn Link into members of the other peoples in Hyrule, like, a Rito outfit that would actually allow you to fly (perhaps that you could only use a bow with), a Goron outfit that allowed you to roll everywhere and be immune to heat and fall damage, a Zora outfit that allows you to swim upriver no matter the current (and go underwater but you know they would never), a Gerudo outfit that... idk would be lightning proof, heat resistant, and attack up

But they won't

And that's an attack on me personally

[linktotheheart]

The Beginning of Everything

(Please consider supporting me on Ko-Fi if you like my art!! Donations go to my parents this holiday season for their endless support. $5 donations may request a doodle too)