#and possibly Tears of the Kingdom

[quibbs126]

By the way I’m old now (aka today’s my 20th birthday)

[gaylactic-fire]

The Curse

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

PART TWO!

[puyoupuyou]

after the events of totk, i’d like to think that zelda shares one of her zonai earrings to link so they could have a matching jewelry

[davidjenkins]

people who draw link as taller than zelda are cowards.

[tortilla-of-courage]

i'm SO sorry to every korok i've abandoned while playing totk

[soaptaculart]

Zelda & Link 🫶

[mysteryfeesh]

Guys they all have two hands. No guys hear me out-

[robotsweater]

*** results may vary — fuse at your own risk ”(ᴗ_ ᴗ。)

(new print incoming for my next con in july! :-)

[bea902]

my girlfriend and I got really into botw and totk again randomly so here's a hylian sidon doodle I accidentally spent 7 hours on?? 😭

[fingolfinwiththesteelchair]

I think it's interesting that most art of Ganondorf he's smirking, looking absolutely smug and self-satisfied. The last one is more subtle, but he's definitely smirking

But in the Tears of the Kingdom art, he isn't

He looks weirdly solemn for Ganondorf. I doubt this means anything but it is an interesting stylistic choice

[skyloftian-nutcase]

TotK DLC idea!

The screen is black. You don’t hear anything for a long time. Then, faintly, in the distance, you can hear it.

Link. Link. Open your eyes.

While the line echoes familiarity, the voice does not.

Or. Well. It does. Because while it isn’t Zelda, it’s a familiar man’s voice speaking gently, so gently you almost don’t recognize it because there’s no way he ever spoke like this in the main game.

But he is now. And instead of a golden light being the first image you see before the screen shows Link awakening… you see gloom floating in the air. The image cuts to a Hylian waking up who… doesn’t look like Link from TotK?? He’s different, still small in stature, with slightly tanner skin, platinum light blonde hair, and red eyes. But… something’s wrong with his forehead. There’s a weird line on it.

This new character you apparently are gonna be playing in the DLC blearily blinks his eyes open, clearly groggy and too weak to really move. But then that line on his forehead moves a hair, it splits apart, and you realize it’s a freaking eye, red and yellow and it’s like the ones on gloom hands and oh gosh what the hell is it doing on his forehead—

Link realizes something is off and his eyes blow wide, his hands reach for his forehead and he screams in agony and terror, only for someone to scoop him into a hug to soothe him.

And suddenly you realize why that voice was eerily familiar.

It’s Ganondorf. He resurrected you from the era of the Imprisoning War. You, who have a history with him and his family. You, who he wants to protect, who he views as his kid, who he calls a prince and says he’ll keep you safe by controlling your body with his dark magic if he has to.

Welcome to Tears of the Kingdom: Hero’s Shadow.

You have to play a long gone Hero who was resurrected. Ganondorf, who is still recovering his strength in preparation for killing the current Hero, tasks you with finding your betrothed, his daughter, as well as his wife. They’re buried somewhere in the Depths like you were. He wants you to find their burial sites so he can use his secret stone to resurrect them like he did you, and control them as well. Which is doubly bad when you realize his wife was the original Sage of Lightning. He gives you free reign to wander once you go through a tutorial (he tests you to see if you’ve recovered enough strength), because he knows you love wandering and collecting things. Your own personal objective, however, is trying to help Hyrule from the Depths, to break free from Ganondorf’s control, because Link would rather set himself on fire than let Ganondorf resurrect and control the love of his life and his mother-in-law. Your best hope is to find shards of the shattered Master Sword to try and stab the eye on Dark Link’s forehead and break the control Ganondorf has on you. Until you can, though, the monsters are your allies, you can teleport across the Depths by manifesting out of the gloom created by gloom hands (just like what Phantom Ganon does), and the world below is your oyster. If you get too close to sword shards when gloom hands are nearby, Ganondorf can see your attempt and immediately takes control of your body, and no matter what button you press Link just walks back to Ganondorf’s location and stays there until you get a chance to try again.

You start with three hearts, all empty looking like when gloom hurts you, and if you get injured they just shatter. Whenever they all shatter, you respawn at Ganondorf’s location because his gloom hands came and rescued you from dying. The only way you can get more hearts is by collecting poes and offering them to the statues in the Depths. You can communicate with the spirits of soldiers, who may give you combat tips or info about the area. If you gain enough of Ganondorf’s trust, he’ll let you command monsters, and he might even let you wander the Surface (under his supervision) during a blood moon.

You learn of Link’s and Ganondorf’s history through discovering ancient relics/texts that trigger memories. This connection between you and Ganondorf stems back to time before the war, well over ten thousand years ago. Link was engaged to Ganondorf’s daughter, but during the Imprisoning War the family fought against the demon king. Ganondorf did love his family, but he loved power more. Link sacrificed himself, letting himself get mortally wounded to save Rauru from a killing blow. Gan held him as he died, and it allowed Link to both beg him to stop and stab him in the heart with a light shard. The shard didn’t kill him, but it was what Rauru connected with when he hit him in the chest, allowing him to seal Ganondorf away. Ganondorf still wants the world, but his love for his family is still present, though now twisted, so he thinks he can control Link and everyone else with his dark magic in order to keep them safe and in line. Once the threat of the current Hero is eliminated, the world will be his, and his family will be safe. As such, he treats you, Link, the player, like a stubborn child, reeling you in, but does so in a horrific way, torturing Link by controlling him.

You have to break free of this and stop him, and the only hope you have is the distant call of a sword spirit…

[kiapet2]

For all the Sidlink fans upset about Sidon getting a fiance in TotK, I have an easy explanation/solution:

It’s a political marriage.

Sidon is royalty. He’s being crowned King. Royalty usually don’t get the privilege to marry for love, but rather need to do so in order to build political alliances and secure heirs. Mipha was able to consider proposing to Link officially because having the Champion of Hyrule as her consort would both strengthen their connections to what was the biggest political power in the area and be a great boon to Zora’s Domain in general, plus if they turned out to be biologically incompatible there was always Sidon for continuing the royal line.

Now, Sidon is the last in his line and trying to give his people a sense of stability while taking the throne amidst another huge upheaval. The kingdom of Hyrule is a shadow of what it once was, and Link himself was gone with no way of knowing if/when he’d return, as well as needing to spend his time/attention on all of Hyrule rather than the Zora specifically.

Meanwhile, Lady Yona is Zora royalty herself making her a good political match, she has qualities and skills that are well-suited to helping the people of Zora’s Domain, and she’s an old friend of Sidon’s which means they’ll probably get along pretty well. Marrying her as a political choice makes perfect sense. And Yona is a small enough character that we honestly aren’t given many indications that there’s more to their relationship than that- old friends who are marrying now to strengthen Sidon’s new reign.

That doesn’t mean Sidon is straight, or that he isn’t still in love with Link. And it doesn’t mean he can’t eventually pursue a relationship with Link, once things have settled down a bit. That sort of thing was pretty common with royalty historically (or at least for men- stupid patriarchy). In this case, Sidon and Yona could have arranged to have an open marriage, with both of them free to pursue matters of the heart outside of their political duties. Or at least, that’s how I’d write it if I was writing canon-compliant Sidlink. 

So yeah, Sidlink as a ship is definitely not sunk, even if you do stay completely with canon. It just might look a little different. And I, for one, would love to see shippers play around with this new dynamic.

[montydragon]

my sister got really into sidlink, wanted me to draw some. I'm practicing before doing a nice big proper gift piece. how on earth have i not seriously drawn sidon before this

[doorstoplord]

~ Just Dropping In ~

[puppyeared]

Totk <3

[echoesofwisdomcountdown]

2 Days since Tears of the Kingdom Release. Behold peak game design. I call this the hoe sword.

The sheer joy this game has granted me should be studied.