#MIPHA!!!!!!! CRYING!!!!!!!!

[lanayrutower]

head in hands.

WAILING!!!!!!!!

Bonus:

just like me fr.

[kenneduck]

Crying over the thought of no one remembering Link’s birthday. Like after the 100 years, Link wakes up and realizes one day he cannot recall his birthday.

To his dismay, neither Impa, Robbie, Purah nor Zelda recall his birthday. He acts as if it isn’t a big deal, but he’s always finding himself quite sad when celebrating the birthdays of others.

Sidon notices at his own birthday celebration that his Hylian friend has a sense of sorrow. One that isn’t possible to rid of with his famous smile and flex. When Sidon approaches Zelda, she reveals that Link cannot recall his birthday, and that no one who knew him 100 years ago seemed to remember or take note. Sidon looks sympathetic towards the revelation, but then he has a thought…

Moments later, it becomes rather apparent that Sidon, the literal 10 foot tall birthday shark, has slipped away from his own party! A search begins around the domain. Where did he wander off to?

While looking around, Link finds himself being the one to enter Sidon’s room. He hears a flipping of pages, and he curiously notices Sidon looking through a journal. Before Link’s presence gets known, Sidon smiles his famous smile, and shouts “I KNEW IT”!

Link walks over to the happy shark man. Wondering why Sidon dipped from his own celebration to read a… paper journal. One that seems… familiar. Mipha’s journal?

Sidon, seeing his friend, scoops him up in excitement! Shouting over and over a date that wasn’t too far off in the future. Link looked confused, and when Sidon noticed said confusion, Sidon smiled. “Your birthday, Link! Mipha… she wrote it down! I knew she would!”

Link looked puzzled for a moment. What did Link’s birthday have to do with anything? But then he understood… his birthday WAS remembered. It had a date again. It wasn’t lost. Sidon couldn’t help but show the page of Mipha’s diary that spoke of Link’s upcoming birthday. Of the plans she had to surprise him despite the calamity looming.

Link couldn’t help but tear up at his smiling tail-wagging friend. Sidon looked concerned, thinking he did something wrong, but the tight hug Link gave him said otherwise. He thanked him. Repeatedly. And Sidon only began to smile again. Immediately beginning to ramble off birthday plans for his dearest friend.

But to Sidon’s dismay, Link cut him off. Telling him that it’s not Link’s birthday they should be celebrating right now. That Sidon has a party to get back to. Sidon only pouts playfully before readying to return to the celebration.

After the two do, Link couldn’t help but catch himself looking towards Mipha’s statue throughout the party. A few looks paired with a smile, but a few… a few felt tied with tears.

[noirandchocolate]

All the Champions’ demises at the Blights’ hands are tragic, but Mipha’s is forever the one that fucks me up the most when we play BotW because out of the group she is the only one that, one hundred years after the Calamity, should not be dead.

By the time that the game is taking place, Urbosa, Revali, and Daruk would have passed of old age even if things had gone right. But Mipha would still be in her early prime. Not even Queen of the Zora yet! Now that’s not to say her death is more compelling simply because she had a longer possible lifespan ahead of her. All of our companions were taken unjustly, too soon. No, what destroys me about her story every time is that…

Mipha has living family and friends.

The others are celebrated among their people, but only the Zora explicitly have citizens who personally remember their Champion. While Daruk has an entire mountain carved in his likeness, Revali has many admirers among the Rito, and Urbosa’s people speak her name with reverence, Mipha is still actively mourned. By people who knew and loved her.

Her now elderly teachers, who remain angry over her untimely loss. Her young-adult peers who recall playing with her and Link as kids. Sidon, who still wears the whistle he had as a child and who, after you complete the Vah Ruta mission, never tears himself from the plaza before his sister’s statue. King Dorephan, who asks Link about Mipha’s fate, because even after a century, he never fully gave up hope that she might be trapped, but alive.

Mipha should not be dead, but she is, and her death remains a fresh wound.

And she knows it, too. And that’s why, even when her spirit is freed, unlike with the others her story has such an air of melancholy amid the eventual triumph. She looks down upon the Domain from atop Vah Ruta, and…

“Father…are you well, I wonder? I want you to know... I have always followed my heart. I'm sorry I made you worry... I wish I could see you again... Even just once more..."

She could be there. With her father, with her little brother who is so big now, and who is trying so so hard to be like his sister. But she’s not. And she is terribly missed in a way that’s unique among the Champions.

God, it just rips my heart to pieces.

[gothic-soda]

Sometimes self care is playing Age of Calamity and reminding yourself that there is a world where the Champions, Link and Zelda are all happy and alive. Age of Calamity is just a 100k “Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies” ao3 fic come to life and I fully support that.

[lulu2992]

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was released one year ago today!

Even though I’ve dedicated at least 235 hours of my life to playing it, I’ve never shared the screenshots I took, so here are 30 pictures from my Sheikah Slate’s album (in chronological order):

[catman-draws]

And may it be that you will hear me

I'll watch from the bottom of the sea

Can you see me, all the way through the depths of the waves?

I’ll keep sending you my voice, from the bottom of this cold sea always.

[ocarinas-princess]

The Zora armor canonically being really special to Link...

This armor is one of the things that she left behind in the world. It's a reminder that she was once alive.

[smilesrobotlover]

Was thinking about my miphlink headcanons and then this doodle turned into a fully rendered piece 🫠

[prankprincess123]

Why didn't anyone tell me that the background music for each of the divine beast 'dungeons' is S.O.S. in morse code that is then drowned out by S.A.D. instead!!!

Cause I was just listening to LoZ music while doing my homework, and now I'm bawling!

Like the S.O.S. in Vah Medoh is SO frantic and how much immediate danger and pain must Revali have been in to openly express being so scared and panicked!!!!!!!

And in Vah Ruta the S.O.S. starts relatively calm and then grows more and more and more desperate as the song goes on, and Mipha in no way deserved that kind of growing terror in her last moments!!!!!

And the rhythm of the S.O.S. calls in both Vah Naboris and Vah Rudania sound so resigned, as if both Urbosa and Daruk had accepted their fates before sending the calls

And listening to the songs you can hear each of the champions' final battles as they fight, desperately beg for help, and then are drowned out by the 'seek and destroy' message overriding their distress calls

And I'm now sobbing

[kaiju-dayo]

[wip] ballad of the champions

[sunbloomdew]

hey, this poem

is about them

if you even care

[lanayrutower]

this keeps me up at night btw.

[kenneduck]

Me: Stop being sad.

Also me: Spends today thinking about Link and Mipha’s love and the fact he can’t properly grieve it because he cannot remember all of the memories of their relationship.

It makes me sad.

I’ve been coping with thinking about how post-AOC Sidon travels home. It’s after BOTW, and Sidon went missing for a few months along with other champions (and Tulin lmao) With his return, Link is emotional as he reunites with Sidon. Link was beyond stressed and worried over his missing lover. He hasn’t left Zora’s Domain in weeks since he got word of his disappearance. Once emotions settle during the reunion, Sidon gets to tell Link about how he went back in time and saved Mipha and all of Hyrule. He saved Link. Even if that Link wasn’t his Link, it made his heart happy to save his love from the grief he went through before.

And Sidon is so melancholic. He got to see first hand Link’s love for his sister. Her giving Link the armor after he saved all of Hyrule. The two sharing a kiss. A future between them that gets to finally exist. Something he knew from her diaries and from older Zora’s stories, but something that he deeply understood now.

As Sidon recaps this, Link is looking up to Sidon emotionally. Sidon too seems upset. But more so guilty, Sidon witnessed first hand what had to be lost for he and Link to love one another. That maybe what the two are doing isn’t right.

But Link shushes Sidon. Finally getting a word in for the first time after Sidon’s retelling started. That Link is beyond proud of Sidon for saving Hyrule. For saving Mipha. Saving him. Link can’t help but cry after this point. He thanks Sidon for giving Link a happy life. In both of his lives. Who Link was then isn’t who he is now, but he’s so happy to know that both past and present him get to love who they love surrounded by friends and a family they found. That it extends beyond him, too. So he’s incredibly thankful for Sidon. And that he loves him, and he won’t stop loving him.

Sidon can’t help but to kiss his Hylian lover. One he’s desperately missed during his travels. One he felt guilt over, but that washed away with Link’s affirmation. Now, Sidon just feels happy. Overwhelmed, but happy. He knows Mipha is happy, and he can’t wait to tell the domain what transpired.

[wanderingshieldmaiden]

Imagine standing in the Garden of Time, thinking of how almost all your loved ones died over a hundred years ago, and yet here you are, saved once again

I feel like Link would think of Mipha with all the waterfalls around the Great Sky Islands. Especially at the top of the Temple, it's so secluded and lonely, it just feels like the perfect spot to fall to your knees and weep

😭

[captainbogwitch]

don’t mind me im just crying and thinking about mipha’s champion’s ballad scene and the score that underlines it how it starts with her theme and then transforms into Sidon’s when she helps him up the waterfall AND THEN SHIFTS TO VAH RUTA’S the parallels between Sidon on Mipha and Link on Sidon and how they’re all connected JUST GOT TO ME OKAY

[autistic-sidon]

Anyways I have been thinking about Dorephan and Mipha ever since I posted my thread on Twitter and they make me positively ill.

Literally made a promise that Mipha wouldn't get hurt, that she'd come back safe and she fucking DIED. I'm surprised no fic writers have acted on this fact because man. I know you guys don't wanna write Dorephan but that is an easy angst prompt. If you know anything about how parents act when they lose their kids, you'd know how good Dorephan realizing Mipha is dead would be as a fic.

It fucks me up even more because we can see just how close they were in Mipha's cutscene after you free Vah Ruta. It hurts so fucking much when you realize how close they were, literally the first thing Mipha asks is if Dorephan was well FUCK!