#...this will not be a fic for people who love BOTW/TOTK princess zelda

[gay-jesus-probably]

yknow how i mentioned I'm thinking of writing a spite fic that's just TOTK but the narrative is allowed to acknowledge that imperialism is really fucking evil? Yeah so I might be outlining that fic and let me tell you i have Plans. I've now got a whole backstory about the Gerudo sage, namely what kind of person she must have been to be in the position to meet Rauru and Sonia (aka accompanying Ganondorf to Hyrule Castle, meaning someone he put a lot of trust in), while also being the kind of person that Rauru and Sonia would consider a viable option for a Sage (aka someone clearly opposed to Ganondorf). That's an interesting contradiction, and made me wonder why this woman would be part of Ganondorf's inner circle, but also look like his political opponent on a surface reading, and I wound up following that to the logical conclusion and now her story is making me really, really sad.

Also I found the helmets worn by the four non-royal sages to be really ominous and creepy, along with their complete lack of names, personalities, and that one scene with the four of them spontaneously swearing eternal loyalty to Rauru with zero prompting yet still speaking in perfect unison. That has Implications. I have done things with those implications.

Oh and I thought it was kinda bullshit that Sheikah are completely brushed off in this game, so I dug into wtf is going on there. I mean, it's weird that to fight a war against the Gerudo, Rauru decided that it would be a good idea to try recruit a Gerudo woman to fight against her own rightful king, instead of like... recruiting a Sheikah, y'know the people that can be trusted to be diehard supporters of the Hylian throne. That's a really weird absence, and I've decided that the fourth sage was originally a Sheikah, and they wound up turning on Rauru (over legitimate greivances!), and the resulting backlash caused the split that formed the Yiga Clan, AND caused them to be allied with Ganondorf.

[fioreofthemarch]

Fic Masterlist ✨

Hello :) My name is Rachael. I write Legend of Zelda fanfiction, mainly Zelink. I have a loving fixation on the world, lore and characters of TLOZ and often start my stories by opening up a map.

From the Ground Up

Post-BOTW. Love, War and Robots. Link and Zelda embark on a Hyrule-wide odyssey to rebuild their kingdom as well as their relationship, but sinister forces, painful memories and political machinations hide around every corner. Artwork Masterpost is here.

Finding Her

During TOTK. An open sky, a missing princess and a working Purah Pad. Link makes notes, takes photos and keeps time on his quest across Hyrule, in the hopes of finding Zelda and staying sane until he does.

Marble Skies

During and Post-TOTK. You, me, and the people we’ll never be. Three oneshots of quiet moments shared between Link and Zelda in the skies over Hyrule.

More below the cut!! ➡️

Long Fics

The Ballad’s Beginning 👑 - Pre-BOTW. A prequel to BOTW telling the story of the doomed reign of King Rhoam. The Prince who never wanted to be King now finds Hyrule’s whole fate rests on his shoulders and the decisions he makes. 

Where the World Ends 🌄- Post-BOTW. Setting out to explore the Lomei Labyrinths, Link and Zelda uncover clues that point towards their original purpose and the great secret that they contain.

On The Life of Queen and Consort 📝- Post-BOTW. A lifelong friend and advisor of Queen Zelda tells the story of her reign 

Hateno Housemates 🏠 - Post-BOTW. A year in the life of Link and Zelda as they settle down together in their Hateno home. 

All that was tangled came undone 🌟- BOTW/Kimi No Na Wa (Your Name) crossover. Knight-in-Training Link and Temple Acolyte Zelda find their paths intertwined by an inexplicable phenomenon: they have begun to trade places.

Oneshots

have and hold 🔥 - Post-BOTW. Mature. It starts by the fire and ends in fire every night. Link wants it to be more, but each time Zelda leaves him all the same.

Oasis abandon 🌞- Post-BOTW. Link and Zelda attend a wedding in the Southern Oasis of Gerudo and learn to live a little.

Eagle wake 🦅 - Post-BOTW. Now in her twilight years, Zelda visits a dying Teba and must help him decide who will inherit the powers, and the burden, of Divine Beast Vah Medoh.

Vicious Sickles 🔪- During BOTW. Mature. Wishing for a better weapon, Link wins a Vicious Sickle from a Yiga footsoldier — and quickly discovers that all blades, not just the legendary ones, seem to have a mind of their own.

Various tumblr oneshots - some are requests, some not, all BOTW 

[tirsynni]

I have another question! (Sorry if this is a

weird ask). I read a lot of your LoZ fics and love how you write the different pairings. I was wondering your thoughts on Sidon x Link? I haven't really seen any long fics with them and was wondering if that could be a possibility? Unless it's just not your cup of tea. Thanks again! <3

This is absolutely not a weird ask. lol No worries.

I enjoy Sidon/Link and I've written for them before. Hell, Sidon really comes as an oblivious guy with an insane crush in TotK. Like, chill, man. rofl It's incredibly easy to imagine everyone in Zora's Domain thinking that Sidon and Link actually had something going on (with Yona's full and enthusiastic support).

Overall, an enjoyable but possibly too-sweet ship? A little too easy? Not the right type of tension for me? Ironically, Sidon's enthusiastic adoration of Link, which is a great reason for their ship, is a turnoff to me actually shipping them. I love some snark, conflict, tension, etc.

TotK (and Yona) helpfully point out some things which could lead to some fractures in their outwardly idyllic relationship. Mainly, Sidon doesn't like conflict. He really, really doesn't. He does his best to be happy and to cheer others up. He avoids conflict and things which could lead to conflict. He smiles brightly and sparkles and is bright and extravagant and wants to pay attention to the happy and positive stuff, not on conflict and potential loss.

Link in turn is the type of guy who doesn't deal with that crap. Not "doesn't put up with it" like Yona. He doesn't deal with it. At all. Sidon avoids his responsibilities? Fine, whatever. Link will handle it. No conversation. No fuss. No making Sidon actually deal with the issues at hand like Yona forced him to do. There's no indication that it even occurs to Link to try to open Sidon's eyes. That's not how Link works. If there's an issue, Link doesn't bitch. Hell, it can be argued that he barely plans. He just handles it. One of the themes in TotK is that Link isn't alone, but when you get right down to it, Link would have done the whole thing alone without complaint or objection or even really asking for help. Zelda asked for him. People volunteered. People literally threw themselves into battles where he had otherwise been fighting alone.

There's a running gag in BotW and TotK that no one recognizes Link as the Hero and Champion. It's even funnier in TotK because he has spent so long saving and helping people and acting as Princess Zelda's Knight. As funny as it is, though, I would argue that there's a good reason for it: when Link is acting as Zelda's Knight, he plays the proper role and wears the highly visible Champion Blue, similar to Tony Hawk needing his skateboard to be recognized. Otherwise, he's just Link: the guy who wanders off and happens to come back to the stable riding a buck. The weird, quiet, but helpful guy who occasionally needs to scrub the cooking pot before anyone else can use it. Link and the Champion are as different as Clark Kent and Superman. Link doesn't really like to stand out. He doesn't like to draw attention to things. If there's a problem, he just quietly fixes it instead of pointing out that someone else really, really needs to handle their own shit.

On that note, it's Link being the Hero of the Wild and Champion which makes Link safe to Sidon, almost naively so. It's possible that Sidon's struggle with conflict stems from the traumatic loss of his sister at a young age. He avoids Yona in TotK because he is struggling with the fear of losing her like he lost Mipha and, again, can't deal with conflict. He hides instead and insists that he's performing another important duty. Unlike Mipha, Link came back. He literally came back from the dead, avenged Mipha, and defeated the Calamity. I think it's telling that, of all the moments to commemorate, Sidon chose when Link was being a powerful warrior with Sidon, proving his strength, proving that he was with Sidon and wasn't going to be easily defeated by the thing which took Mipha away from him. Again, pretty damned naive and feeds well into Sidon's deliberate and energetic optimism. The beginning of TotK proved how easily Link could fall. It doesn't matter. While Sidon is clearly fretting over Yona and about possibly losing her in TotK, he doesn't fret over Link like that. Link has proven that he's safe. That conflict that he has with Yona doesn't exist with Link, even if it possibly should.

So you have two guys who handle conflict in really unhelpfully opposing ways. There's the bonus that Sidon would probably tell himself that everything was great, there was no conflict at all, and Link probably wouldn't even recognize the actual nature of the conflict because he's so used to just shrugging and quietly handling matters himself.

Yona -- or someone like Yona -- being there helps with another hurdle in their relationship: I can't imagine the Hero of the Wild being trapped in a formal position like being the primary partner of a Prince/King. A good chunk of his backstory (even if it tends to get overshadowed by Zelda Angst) is how much the weight of being the Knight and Hero and Hylian Champion with all eyes on him fucked him up. He actually gives -- in canon -- a reason for being so quiet, and it's directly related to that stress. Sidon having a dedicated partner and Queen like Yona take the formal role while Link continues to be the Hero of the Wild would be helpful.

So yeah, I would absolutely be open to writing the ship. I've written them before, if not that many fics. The challenge, especially in regards to a long!fic, would be navigating these hurdles to create a solid, believable relationship while also writing interesting, in-character, plot-focused tension. Like, is there miscommunication based on a romcom trope or is there miscommunication because Sidon is willfully refusing to communicate and Link lacks the skills? How would Link react if he was forced under the spotlight again? How would Sidon's enthusiastic adoration and cheer react if there was actual conflict with Link, since we never actually see that in canon?

If you want just short and sweet fluff for these two? Very easy. Writing something longer and dealing with these things would require more time and thought. lol Definitely possible, though.

[ofstormsandfire]

do u have any zelpha thoughts

I have many zelpha thoughts! They're sadly a little harder to pin down and write about than the revalink thoughts, but by god do they exist. In many ways, they're very similar to each other—both are princesses with inherited(?) magical power, both play an important role in the fight against Calamity Ganon—but in many others, they very much aren't. Rhoam, of course, is the guy who pushed his daughter so hard away from her interests that he very well might have made it harder to unlock her sealing powers and doomed himself in the process, because OH YOU AREN'T ALLOWED TO DO ANYTHING FUN EVER. Sure, he regretted that in the end if you look at his diary, but—and this is crucial—Zelda had no way of knowing that.

And then we have Dorephan, who didn't want his daughter to pilot a Divine Beast at all because he was afraid (justifiably, in Breath of the Wild) that it would get her killed. I won't get into my feelings regarding Age of Calamity here, but while a lot of it is obviously not remotely canon to what happened in BOTW, I don't think it would be unreasonable to assume that Mipha promised a similar thing, that she would come back (a promise that she couldn't keep, because she died) in that timeline.

I think that Zelda would try very, very hard not to be bitter about that, given that Mipha is literally one of the nicest people she's ever met—but she would be bitter, regardless of how well she hid it.

Also very possible that, given that we never see a hint of Mipha's mother in the picture, she's dead too? So. More parallels.

(...I really, really should write more of my totk zelpha fixit. Because. God. It lets me delve into those things, and also the fact that both of them are so very traumatized and so very young.)

I'm grossly oversimplifying a lot of things here, sorry, but. Tl;dr yes I have zelpha thoughts and I wish there was more fic for them that didn't just have them as the B pairing to revalink. Because I love revalink too, don't get me wrong! But I'd love to see more lesbians. The world can always use more lesbians.

Strictly speaking, sapphics would be a better term given that Mipha is well-established to canonically have a crush on Link, and Zelda gives me bisexual vibes, but. Semantics.

Thanks for the ask!

[sparklyfaerie]

My Legend of Zelda Fanfic Masterlist:

🔥 = Smut

Incarnations are noted for each fic.

⚠⚠⚠ All fics are ZeLink unless otherwise noted. ⚠⚠⚠

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Multichapter fics:

Just Rewards: BotW, Pre-calamity canon-divergence (Complete)

In another lifetime, they beat Calamity Ganon. In another lifetime, they��won. In another lifetime, they lived Happily Ever After.

Restoration: Post-TotK 🔥 (Domestic fic, marriage and babies. Complete, contains spoilers)

In the peace that reigns after the chaos of the upheaval, Princess Zelda is returned to her normal, everyday life. With her new perspective, she has the opportunity to decide what comes next for her country, her community, and herself

Redesignation: Post-BotW 🔥 (Omegaverse fic, Alpha Link/Omega Zelda, Complete)

Zelda thought she knew who Link was, a hundred years ago—but the man who emerged from the Shrine of Resurrection is not quite the same one who went into it. There’s one key, fundamental difference; and it’s one that will redefine their relationship moving forward.

Ingénue: Post-TP/Post-BotW crossover 🔥 (Older TP Link/Younger BotW Zelda FWB fic, mind the tags, In Progress)

Link had merely been travelling through the countryside when the young woman had appeared before him in a shower of golden light. Introducing herself as a future Princess of Hyrule, he plans to do nothing more than show her the sights of Castle Town until the Queen finds a way to send her home. And then the night of the festival happens. (A story of sex, comfort, and companionship in lieu of love.)

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Series: Cold Comfort - BotW AU where Zelda and Link have a FWB-eque relationship pre-calamity

1. False Worship: 🔥

Really, what had her father expected? They are neither of them paragons of virtue, no matter how hard they try to give that impression. It had been inevitable that they’d be drawn to each other.

2. Precipice: 🔥

She doesn't want him to serve her tonight. She wants to debase herself, to prove that she's not the prize that the men back in the ballroom believe her to be. To take back some modicum of control in her life. She wants to keep him forever, wants to be able to touch him without fear that someone will see and take him away.

3. Catharsis: 🔥

After the defeat of Calamity Canon, Zelda and Link finally talk about what happened between them a century ago.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Oneshots:

Shrine of Conception: 🔥 (Post-TotK. Fuck/Breed-Or-Die fic) After the events of Tears of the Kingdom, Link and Zelda come across a previously unknown sheikah shrine deep under Mount Hylia. Later, Link will reflect that they should have learned their lesson about exploring strange, undocumented underground caverns by now.

Sweet Home: 🔥 (Post-TotK. Contains spoilers) Their relationship is not as chaste as most assume; behind the veneer of the dignified princess and loyal knight, they are simply two young people in love.

String Along: (SS) She has mixed feelings about Hylia tying Link to her. On the one hand, she loves him more than anything. On the other, she's using his feelings for her to manipulate him.

Freefall: (SS) Flight is exhilarating. It’s the sensation of falling that scares her. Link loves the sensation of freefall; he says it feels like freedom.

Pink Heart: (SS) Why is there a letter for him in Zelda’s room? It’s not the one she sent him the morning of the Wing Ceremony—that’s still on his desk, where he’d left it when he’d gone to meet her. It also doesn’t have a little pink heart on the back.

Oblique: (TP) In which Zelda is obvious, and Link still manages to completely miss what's staring him in the face.

Euphemism: (aLttP) Princess Zelda's new husband must learn to speak the language of the nobility. Until then, he may miss a few key, important details.

Three's Company: 🔥 (Post-Totk with visiting TP Link - Threesome fic): “You’re asking me to let you have sex with another man.” / “No!” She hurries to assure him. “I’m asking you if you’d consider letting him join us. You and me.” / Or: That time Zelda accidentally summoned a hero from another age, and her curiosity got the better of her.

Origin: (TP) Link does not know where he comes from. He’d been discovered wandering the Faron Woods as a boy of perhaps three or four, mind utterly blank but for his own name. It doesn't matter to him so much these days; but sometimes, when he holds his children, he wonders. At least, he is determined, his children will never know that confusion.

Looking for another fandom?

[spices28]

Get to know 9 people tag game

thank you @mistresslrigtar for tagging me! I love this -- it's so cute <3

Last song listened to: Hot & Heavy by Lucy Dacus

This song has been in my repeats since @korokposting recommended it to me -- he literally has the best music taste of all time. if he tells you to listen to something, do it. -- bc he said it reminded him of my zelink masquerade fic. Isn't that the sweetest??

Currently reading: OOOHHHH sooo many things. Although I've sorta committed myself to beta-ing so many projects, most of what I'm reading rn is what I'm editing.

The Long and Winding Road by @flutefemme -- A Twilight Princess AU where Zelda is running from her mob boss ex Ganon and finds a home with Link and his son. Very enemies to lovers. Very adorable. Except when Link is dealing with his widower grief -- then it's gutting.

A Lullaby for a Princess by @wouldyoustilllovemeifiwasawyrm -- Link and Zelda marry post!TotK after rapidly getting pregnant. There are a lot of really intense emotions in this piece and I love to see a bit of a darker look at post!Upheaval Hyrule. Link and Zelda each have my entire heart. They're such complicated people.

Two wonderful fics by @shameless-fujoshi. The Cage -- a Modern Zelink AU where Link is a cage fighter -- and Pride and Prejudice -- which has yet to arrive but is another very exciting modern AU. Firefighter!Link and Professor!Zelda.

And I'm nearly through A Couple of Trials by @kenlair -- which is part two of an incredibly ambitious story that aims at telling the story of post!BotW Zelink, eventually tracing it through ToTK, and relies heavily on elements that are already in game. No OC's -- every character and element has game/lore basis and it's really cool to see.

Sweet/spicy/savory: Savory

Current obsessions: Legend of Zelda lore, Vox Machina, DnD, Hadestown, TMNT, reading/editing as much Zelink as I possibly can, mindlessly playing RE4 and TotK

Relationship status: partnered

Last thing I googled: koroks -- needed to know whether to caps them or not :rofl:

Currently working on: two long fics! One retelling totk that I'm hopefully gonna partner with @shameless-fujoshi and the other a very long, excessive lore fic retelling the LoZ creation story -- and how Hylia chose her hero.

I'm tagging nine others who I would love to see their answers! But no pressure -- I know you lovely people are busy (and you may have already been tagged)

@korokposting, @wouldyoustilllovemeifiwasawyrm, @shameless-fujoshi, @citrusblooms, @franticcashew, @kenlair, @deiliamedlini, @obsidiangst, @aquaticpal

[dreadfutures]

TOTK ENDING SPOILERS

So I absolutely loved the dragon sky fight. It was cinematic, it felt good to play through, it was a literal upwelling. At the same time as it absolutely felt like a step above the Calamity, it also felt like -- this Link isn't intimidated, this Link has done this before, this Link is ready to take this guy down.

I did enjoy the Ganondorf fight, and the display of his swordsmanship! He perfect dodged me so many times. But it did feel slow. Like literally sluggish. The way he moved was just...like he was floating slowly toward me, and I gotta say it wasn't super scary. Even when he became the Demon King, Master of the Secret Stone it felt slow and not threatening. But my big complaint is...still don't super get his motivations. Like he wants to rule the world, why does he want to destroy all life?

Okay so my big gripe tho is that saving Zelda should have been a quest. It should have been separate. At the very least, it should have involved talking to Rauru and Sonia. Let it be a quick conversation about how idk people who become dragons with secret stones to seek Power or Immortality lose themselves forever, but Zelda did it because of LOVE FOR HER FRIENDS (if they don't wanna say she loves link, which like, SHE DOES) and so the power of love will remind her of who she is!

But it really should have been a quest. I kept going to Impa being like "you said we'll find a way to fix Zelda, let's find a way" and stuff. But no progress.

Overall I really enjoyed the game and will love playing it to 100% and I hope there's DLC! I'm (probably on purpose, fuck u Nintendo) still confused about the timeline. Sonia was a HYLIAN, she was a PRIESTESS, so Hylia was already a thing on the surface and not in the sky yet. Or, Skyward Sword had already happened? it being Ganondorf means Demise was already sealed right? But if Skyward Sword happened already, where is the Hero, why are Sonia and Rauru so ignorant about the Hero and the Sword? Why is it *Rauru's* sealing power, his light power? Zelda in BOTW is the Goddess Blood Princess, right, according to Kass.

Is Sonia descended of Zelda/Hylia? Or is she before Zelda/Hylia?

Like always I feel like Nintendo was purposefully like "what will people try to place this as? alright how can we fuck up every possible placement in the timeline, we are actively hostile to ppl who want to know that"

Anyway, my fic is going to be largely canon compliant except for two things -- the Hero is descended of the Fierce Deity, and saving Zelda needs a reason and a good adventure to figure out how to save her.

Also, Link should have kept Rauru's arm...or lost his arm in the end. Let the poor boy retire.

AND WHY DID YOU TAKE AWAY MY SHIRT!

[lucky-clover-gazette]

Shadow shakes his head. “You’re doing perfectly. I just don’t want this to be a bad memory for you.” Dreaming Vio startles at the comment. Is this a bad memory? He doesn’t think so, but his definition of ‘bad’ is far from conventional. That’s what months of corruption does to a person, he supposes. Shadow runs his hands down Vio’s waist and hips as the blonde pushes him against the headboard. Vio kisses him deep, almost as if sucking poison from a wound. Shadow’s eye widen as he watches strange patterns appear on his own skin. Dark purple veins run down his arms and neck, almost resembling the complex root system of a tree. They seem to almost be alive, the lines pulsing as Shadow kisses Vio harder. Vio whimpers, but doesn’t let go. The lines transfer from one body to another, tendrils of gloom creeping their way beneath the thin fabric of his blouse. It appears to weaken him further at first, and he loses the energy to kiss Shadow hard. He falls into the other man’s arms, his body jerking around every three seconds as if taking prolonged damage from the direct exposure.

— —

I think one of my favorite things about your writing is how you take so many concepts from other games in the Zelda series (like the gloom or the addition of the Hero’s Shade in this fic specifically) and use the elements given through canon but also add your own twist. I’m mostly curious what inspires you to use those things, and also how much more complex the systems might be than what we get from reading the character’s perspectives. I also just really like this scene and the concept of this fic as a whole; it’s definitely one of my most favorite things I’ve read :D (Also I’ve been meaning to ask if there’s any specific songs you’d tie to scenes in any of your fics or music you listen to while writing in general).

Anyways thank you! Hope you're having a good day!

thank you so much! i always appreciate your comments.

with other zelda things, it’s really kind of connected to my overall experience with the series. loz was an iceberg for me, like i started with botw, got really into it, started watching other people play the other games, read the twilight princess manga, got a wii u to play the oldies, and eventually just kinda randomly picked up the four swords manga almost a year ago. so i already had a lot of love for this series before writing four swords fic, and a lot of thoughts about the games. esp bc it’s not a nostalgia thing for me, i’ve approached zelda as an adult, i think my analysis of and connection to the media has been pretty “deep” or whatever. these stories mean a lot to me, and i’ve always been someone to take stories and their importance in my life seriously. botw in particular was a very healing experience for me at the time that i played it. that game holds a lot of philosophical and emotional meaning to me, and i get why others may not enjoy it, but as someone who has now played the other games, i still think it’s a master piece. my favorite game of all time, honestly, and totk was such a gift. it did so much right for me. it’s been delightful experiencing the series how i have.

i don’t love all of the choices made in terms of story and themes in loz, but there is a LOT to play with in fic. esp bc it’s a reincarnation type series, i don’t give a shit about the timeline, i just want to draw parallels and do clever interesting things. so a lot of the time i’ll have a vague idea of what i want to do with a story, and there will be a way to make connections, if only for my own enjoyment. i’m a strong believer that all art is derivative, but like, if you know the author loves it and is having fun, that only makes it better. it’s hard to pinpoint what i thought of and what was put in my mind by other things in the series, and honestly, i’m totally cool with that :)

i want to tread lightly talking about the gloom and corruption stuff in that specific fic because spoilers buuuuut the core concept of that part was just for it to be vaguely toxic and kinda … yknow… and i liked the idea of gloom/gloom hands being this confused force of harm and affection. honestly this whole fic is just me putting some very personal feelings and experiences on blast, and it’s been exhausting to write. i actually scrapped the final chapter and i’m rewriting it now, for the best!

hmmm i do connect my writing a lot to music but i think (?) you’ve seen my vidow playlist already! for the final chapter i’m doing a little bit of a tone shift and i’ve been listening a ton to the bottoms (movie) soundtrack. going for something more lively and active and cinematic, instead of two people being miserable. inserting a little dark humor too, closer to the og corruption but it’s chill au. while working on earlier chapters of corruption but it’s unchill i associated it with “eyes half open” by cinders, and (TOTK SPOILERS) i listened to the totk memory ost of rauru sealing ganon pretty much the entire time i wrote the chapter where vio kills green. been listening a lot to “pain” by king princess (also in bottoms, that movie is living rent free in my brain rn) while working on the final chapter.

hope this answers your questions! thanks so much for reading <3