#and a close friends know (like Sidon..Impa...Riju...etc)

[veggiecorner]

I woke up within a cold sweat with this botw/totk zelink headcanon but i like to think Link actually proposed to Zelda but in an unplanned unofficial way. Like...a week after totk happens and they're having their first breakfast at Hateno (or maybe Akkala) and Zelda's rambling about how she's sad she never recorded ancient food recipes she's tried at her time in the past and Link just stops her and goes "hey...do you want to get married?"

Zelda's visibly like ??? huh??? and he repeats it. She's a lil spooked cause where is this coming from. Also she's dense so she says "well...I've...assumed I'll be married sometime in the future..." not connecting that he's literally proposing to her and he smiles so sweetly at her and says "I mean with me. Will you want to marry me?" And he steps over to her side of the table and finally gets on one knee.

[caramel-catss]

botw/totk zelink headcanons

for @waroferas 🫶

they get married. first and foremost LOL. i will elaborate

after botw, zelda moves into link's house. they were already in love pre-calamity but neither realized or did anything about it. so they get to fall for each other againnnnn GAH. it just naturally progresses between them... there's only one bed, so of course they share it. of course link makes breakfast for himself and zelda. of course zelda braids link's hair and weaves flowers into it. of course link gives zelda his coat when she's cold. and then one night zelda is looking into link's eyes and they are so soft and his face is so joyful and carefree in a way she never imagined he'd ever able to be and suddenly she's brushing her hand against the scars on his chin and his breath hitches and they are so close and link leans in closer and zelda kisses him .

they make graves for the champions together

to me zelda drops the princess title, declares the castle a historical monument, and dissolves the monarchy. also to me like 90% of totk doesn't exist. so

link has no last name and zelda doesn't like hers. they create a new one for them both

the two fully embrace a domestic village life. link takes care of his and zel's horses or forages or helps out townspeople or follows zelda around or does whatever he feels up to doing. zelda starts the school and splits her time between it and working at purah's lab to research sheikah tech

zelda has a telescope and stays up late to look at the stars. link joins her. sometimes (mostly in the winter when it gets dark early) they'll invite hateno townsfolk to join them

botw took link 2-3 years, and the time between it and totk is about 5 years. when they marry, link and zelda are 23-ish? give or take a few years. being a kinda-medieval-ish world, it's probably a more normal age to marry

they get married at the heart pond. they only invite a few people; kass, riju, sidon, teba, yunobo, purah, impa & paya... close friends of theirs

link made their wedding rings by hand! got some help from the jewelry seller in gerudo town. zelda's has a silent princess shape - a topaz in the middle, and the petals made from diamond and sapphire

link has chronic migraines and zelda takes care of him. she tells him about hyrule before the calamity and helps him get his memories in order

they trade off for dinner w/ link cooking and preparing the meal and zelda cleaning the dishes

it is so so so important to zelda that they have an equal partnership, especially now that she isn't a princess and link isn't a knight. link respects this!!! it's a bit hard for him to adjust at first because of his previous relationship with zelda, but they are equals :)

sometimes they'll catch themselves falling into old habits!!! zelda sets the table in a traditional royal way without realizing. in the beginning (re: adjusting) link would subconsciously stand at attention when zelda approached him.

zelda had to learn a lot of things about life because she grew up rich!!!! link teaches her how to cook, mend + sew + wash clothing, etc... she's never done chores before and he had to re-learn them on the fly. they laugh a lot while they do this

link cuts zelda's hair short. zelda brushes link's hair as he grows it out

TOTK IS A ROLESWAPPPPPP FOAMS AT THE MOUTH TOTK ROLESWAP. GOD. only thing that makes its story bearable for me HONESTLY .

they're the kind of star-crossed lovers who are soulmates and would sacrifice themself for the other in an instant. important for totk lol

link places absolute faith in his wife when he swallows the secret stone. he knows how smart she is and know she'll find a way to help him, but even if she isn't able to... he doesn't mind. as long as this decision will help her and hyrule, he is okay with being a dragon for eternity

it's absolutely DEVASTATING for zelda when she finds out. link already lost an entire century because of her inability to save him. and now, he's lost his entire self for goddess knows how long... because she didn't catch him

zelda spends hours laying on link-as-dragon. she prunes his scales for him and memorizes his flight path

after botw, zelda passed out from exhaustion and link carried her on his horse back to hateno. after totk, link passes out from exhaustion and zelda carries him back on her horse <3

they officially adopt two cats after totk (i know they're not in either game shhhh they exist now) but link has and will bring home whatever animal is friendly to him and there are many feral animals in their backyard that link feeds

link had a very cloudy head and dissociated a lot post-botw, but after totk it got a LOOOOT worse. he'll be there one moment, and zoning out the next. over time it does get better but he's never quite the same

zelda wielded the master sword during totk and became quite a good swordsman herself. link used to sometimes go off to deal with small monster problems, and now either both of them go or just zelda if link's not feeling well

they don't use the master cycle often because it takes a lot of important materials to power it... but sometimes they'll go to hyrule field and play with it for fun

link primarily signs still. his voice was damaged from the fatal guardian hit, and the shrine of resurrection didn't fully heal it. but, when he feels safe (usually around zelda), he quietly speaks out loud. zelda, knowing why he was silent pre-calamity, can't put into words how happy it makes her

they grow old together :) after totk, they're finally allowed rest, and they live out their days as carefree village folk. both of them are the happiest they've ever been

[comradelup]

Hey bruh can we get an epic infodump about that BOTW au, because I am HERE for some self indulgent content, hit this niche Zelda/TAZ fan audience with that tasty au over here

i just woke up so this might not be too legible but :3333 also obviously spoilers for botw for ppl who haven’t played it and don’t wanna be spoiled

(most of it is under the cut though because WOW this got long akdnajfnsjf)

okay so taako is link and lup is zelda. instead of being a princess and knight they’re a king and queen co-ruling faerun. there isn’t really a king rhoam figure in this? like they don’t have a parent/guardian they pops up in the memories, it’s just them ruling the kingdom. when the prophecy came, they knew one of them was the royal with the goddess’ blood in them and the other would be the hero with the darkness sealing weapon. obviously both of them would have the same blood or whatever since they’re twins, but it comes down to who can properly wield the magic. as it turns out, lup is the magic twin and taako is the weapon wielding twin. their enemy, usually ganon, is instead the hunger.

there is still an old civilization of ppl with ancient technology, though i don’t really have a name for them, so i’ll keep calling them sheikah. BUT, there is a modern day group of people dedicating themselves to learning all they can about the sheikah technology in order to prepare for the return of the hunger. they are the institute of past research and exploration, IPRE for short. it is made up by the rest of the seven birds, among a few others.

the champions are davenport, merle, magnus, and barry. lucretia is kinda how she was in TSC canon, just sorta tagging along to write everything down, but that changes once they make the grand relics. speaking of, the light of creation replaces the master sword in this instance. it has the power to fight off the hunger, as well as take the shape of any weapon taako can imagine. that’s how we get the flaming raging poisoning sword of doom and the krebstar. but lup and barry, ever the scientists, are like “is there any way to… break the light into pieces? so more people get super powerful weapons against the apocalypse?” so they do

some of the relics are different, though. the philosopher’s stone doesn’t change things, but it changes itself, keeping that weapon-changing property of the original light. obviously, since it’s a seventh of what it used to be, it isn’t as powerful. but it’s still pretty damn powerful compared to the rest of the weapons in the world. the gaia sash is different too, adding healing on top of the plant magic. the animus bell basically makes undead armies instead of the soul switching magic from canon. basically, the relics’ powers are altered to better fit a combat situation. also they’re the gifts given to taako after the divine beasts (replacing urbosa’s fury/daruk’s protection/etc) so they would need a more combative/practical use. the healing part of the gaia sash is basically this au’s mipha’s grace akfnajfnsj

one relic in particular is interesting, and that’s the phoenix fire gauntlet. with lup’s struggle to unlock her powers, she created the gauntlet as a sort of conductor for magic energy. she’s incredibly proficient in normal magic (esp evocation) but this goddess magic is tricky to unlock, and it’s super frustrating. the other stuff came so easy to her, so why is this hard? unfortunately, the gauntlet didn’t help with that :-(

lucretia and her relic are also interesting in this au. as i mentioned in the ficlet i posted, she intended to use the bulwark staff to protect the champions, and she couldn’t, so she blames herself for everything that happened. obviously, it’s not her fault and i make myself sad thinking about her being sad T_T but as a result of this, plus a bit of good ol paranoia, she uses the bulwark staff to create a big bubble shield around phandalin (this au’s kakariko villiage) the rest of the IPRE live here (basically the BOB, so killian, carey, johann, etc)

i won’t go too into detail for the rest of the story, as it’s fairly similar to botw canon other than that, but some things to note are this: the divine beasts are different, so as to suit the champions better. magnus and merle have a bear and owl, respectively, but idk what’s for barry and davenport (definitely open to suggestions akdnajdns). also, the yiga clan is called the shadow brethren, because i love me a good amnesty reference. it’s leader is kalen, and he’s an actual threat to taako, unlike kogha. i’d imagine the brethren tie to magnus’ divine beast because kalen ties to his storyline. also, the gauntlet basically becomes the bow of light in this au, aka what taako uses to defeat the hunger once and for all

other characters to note are:

kravitz and the raven queen, basically purah and symin in the hateno ancient tech lab. they’re a mother and son duo, with TRQ living through the calamity and kravitz being born afterwards

lucas and maureen are in robbie and jerrin’s place as another mother-son duo in the same position as krav + TRQ; maureen lived through the calamity and lucas was born after

(everyone is basically human in this, or at least has human lifespans, so 100 years is definitely a long time for someone to live through. maureen and TRQ developed magic to prevent them from aging all those years. lucretia was the first volunteer to use this magic, but it kinda failed and instead only slowed down her aging. that’s why she’s her older self when taako wakes up.)

the goddess hylia is instead istus. not much changes there, she’s just the goddess everyone references akdnakdjs

yknow the characters that help link get to the divine beasts in canon? like sidon, riju, etc? they’re replaced by other characters depending on what relic taako is going after, and it correlates to canon. so when he’s going after davenport’s divine beast/the oculus, he meets angus. when going after the owl/gaia sash, he meets hurley and sloane. so on and so forth. though he DEFINITELY meets julia in refuge and she DEFINITELY does NOT have a crush on the hero of legend who piloted the bear divine beast 100 years ago ;)))))

differently from botw canon, taako actually develops a strong relationship with lucretia, who is pretty much impa with a different backstory. as he gets his memories back he realizes he had six incredibly close best friends and now five of them are gone, so he kinda gravitates to her when he’s with her

one more thing to note is that after taako defeats the hunger and lup is free, she combines the relics into the light and uses it to bring the dead champions back because FUCK death separating this family. lup “phantasmal and resplendent” adventurezone would never allow it. if her brother gets brought back from the dead, so do her friends and her husband, thank you very much

and that’s… basically it! i could go more in depth with the taakitz/blupjeans side of things, but this is long enough akfnskfnskfn but if anyone wants to know anything else i’m always open to talking about it :D