#this happens between botw and totk

[rachelfc-art]

By Your Side

[veggiecorner]

One thing that I'm afraid about for the next Zelda game is that nintendo is clearly going down the botw route for future titles. I loved botw and totk, but to me these two games HIGHLY prioritized gameplay rather than story. Ocarina of time created a formula for its future zelda titles that in my eyes prioritized story over gameplay (now the quality of the stories could be debated aksjdbakbd)

Overall i just hope the zelda team finds a REALLY good balance between the two

[encrucijada]

might be silly and write bullet points for a possible tears of the kingdom fic 🫶

[lanayrru]

if there is going to be a third botw game the only logical continuation of the story is for there to be a break in the cycle. like if it doesnt have zelda starring back towards hylia and saying fuck no i wont do this shit again its not even just bad storytelling its just torture porn lbr.

[aredpenny]

I was talking with people about Zelda on discord and someone brought up the concept of a BotW/TotK Lorule and I started thinking about Princess Hilda in BotW/TotK's art style and I am. Unwell.

[ff2-soda-pop]

...i wonder if i can avoid tears of the kingdom spoilers basically until whenever it is i may possibly be able to play it like what happened with botw, if i'll get spoiled, or if eventually i'll just give up and watch a playthrough sdfghgf

[dungeonmeshifancast]

like specifically im talking mostly abt twilight princess and skyward sword links are like 17 but ppl are weird abt them...

[radicalposture]

ummmm going back to links hateno house is so. what do you meeeean zelda lives there now with him and the table is set for two and they have photos of places and people everywhere and zelda had a secret lab built in the well at the back and kept links hair tie and commissioned a new champions tunic for him and built a school for the village and the children come to the house to see her every day and keep asking you where she is and link goes with her everywhere

[inkedmyths]

Weather update after spending several hours straight playing TotK

(Grabbing the Zelda timeline, shaking, crying, screaming)

[waywardsalt]

:3

[newtsnaturethings]

This happened between botw and totk you can’t convince me otherwise

(For the wedding week prompt ‘elope’…tho it also low key covers first dance too)

[blue-likethebird]

Reusing the memory system from botw for the tears of the dragon storyline in totk was such a terrible decision on so many different levels that it’s honestly kind of impressive.

While the botw memory system had flaws of its own, there was one small but significant thing that worked in its favour: botw’s memories were largely separate from the main plot in the past, and have absolutely no bearing on the story being told in the present. Aside from a few specific instances (ie the calamity striking, the ceremony, Link and Zelda becoming closer) the memories are all self-contained moments that emphasize character development over driving the story. Because there’s no major narrative throughline between them, it gives players more freedom to discover in any order regardless of how much they’ve progressed through the main quest without running the risk of stumbling across a memory that ruins something else later on in the game.

(This got long so the rest of my analysis is going under the cut.)

The biggest change between the memories from botw and the dragon’s tears from totk is definitely what kind of information these cutscenes relay to you as the player. Botw’s memories are primarily snapshots of small interpersonal moments that hold very little significance to the greater narrative taking place in the past. Totk’s memories are the greater narrative. With only one major exception -that I’ll touch on in a sec-, every cutscene in the dragon’s tears shows a crucial moment of story development with no time left to explore the characters driving that story forwards. There’s no organic moment revealing, say, a quirk of Rauru’s that Mineru finds annoying, or Sonia’s sense of humour, or any of our literal Main Villain Ganondorf’s motivations for going to war with Hyrule. If there’s any moments of character focus they only happen in ways that advance the plot (meaning the only real character focus is on the characters totk wants the entire universe to orbit around, namely Rauru and Zelda), and as such it’s harder to bring myself to care about what happens to anyone.

To illustrate the point I’m trying to make here, compare the memories of the champions Link regains during the divine beast quests to the conversations with the ancient sages at the end of each temple. The memories make passing mentions of the ongoing preparations for the calamity, but the real purpose of those scenes is to showcase who the champions were as people before their deaths and give us a reason to mourn them, even though we know at the start of our journey that they’re all long gone. In contrast, the conversations with the ancient sages are all about the events of the imprisoning war and their promise to Zelda that their descendants will come to Link’s aid in the future, very obviously copy pasted for each of the five times that cutscene is brought up (which is a particularly egregious moment of bad quest design but that’s a rant for another time) in such a way that none of the 5 incarnations of that cutscene reveal anything new about the ancient sages as characters, to the point where none of them even show their faces. I care about Daruk because the game shows me that he cares deeply about the wellbeing of his fellow champions and brings out the best in others. So why should I care about the nameless, faceless sage of water? What’s there to move me about their struggles if my only interactions with the sages are a series of exposition dumps? If the game can’t give me a reason to sincerely care about its main characters, the whole rest of the story is meaningless.

(As an aside, I get the feeling someone on the dev team caught on to the issue I’m describing here, because the tea party memory sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the dragon tear cutscenes. It’s such a jarring change of pace to have the otherwise plot-heavy dragon’s tears come screeching to a halt for a scene where Sonia sits down with Zelda to have a cute little tea party and talk about absolutely nothing of significance that the whole thing almost seems like it was hastily tacked on to the story later. Given that the next (chronological) memory sees Sonia fall victim to an unceremonious death by chiropractor, it feels like someone realized that Sonia really doesn’t do or say much in the scenes before she dies and threw together the tea party scene so players would have at least one moment to look back on fondly when she’s fridged. But I digress)

The story told in the dragon’s tears is a highly linear one. But the open-ended nature of botw’s memory system remains, meaning that these tears can be found and viewed in any order. At first this doesn’t seem so bad, since the first two tears you’re likely to find if you follow the game’s intended path are also the chronological first and second of the memories you can discover through these geoglyph tears. But after those first two, the game kinda gives up on guiding you towards these tears in a way that flows well with the story they wrote: the closest tear geographically to the two the game initially guides you towards correlates to one of the penultimate scenes of that entire storyline, while the next scene chronologically is found almost halfway across the map. As such, it’s all but guaranteed that you’ll spoil yourself in some way without using either a guide or the (somewhat unintuitive and never fully explained by the game) little map in the forgotten temple. Finding memories in order didn’t matter so much in botw because the scenes you could find still worked well as standalone scenes before you discovered every memory and pieced together the full picture, and the game is never trying to surprise me about the characters’ fates at the end of this storyline: hell the first memory you’re guided to shows the calamity striking. But in contrast, viewing a dragon’s tear at the wrong time can completely ruin the story they’re trying to tell in those cutscenes. During my playthrough, for example, the first tear I found after the game stopped guiding me to them showed Ganondorf removing Sonia’s stone from her dead body. At this point I had known Sonia existed for all of like an hour, so every subsequent appearance she made was ruined for me by the fact that I already knew she was nothing but cannon fodder to be killed off for the sake of another character’s pain (Rauru and Zelda a-fucking-gain). I expected to be pissed that it was so easy to spoil myself, or maybe sad in passing that a character with her potential was so underutilized, but instead I just felt… tired. I wasn’t even halfway to the first settlement and already I was completely numb to the story the game was trying to tell.

But the worst was yet to come. And oh boy was it ever a low point for storytelling in the Zelda series. Remember how I said up above that the memories in botw had no connection to the story in the present? Let’s just say the same cannot be said for the dragon’s tears.

It’s May 2023. I’ve just finished the sage of wind questline. I still have hope that the story the game is trying to tell will be good. Deciding that I’ll go to Goron city next, I head towards the Thyplo skyview tower to expand my map, catch a glimpse of a nearby geoglyph from the air, and glide over to check it out. This geoglyph shows me a memory that not only recaps the entire dragon tear storyline, but also ends on a bit of foreshadowing about Zelda’s fate that’s about as subtle as a brick to the fucking face. By exploring -the thing the game claims it prioritized above all else in the design of its world and quests- I’d once again been hit with spoilers for a major story detail.

My main objective in this game is to find Zelda. It’s the only driving factor behind my journey towards all these different regions. The current big mystery I’m supposed to solve is why Zelda’s causing so much hell for the people of Hyrule. I now knew exactly where she was and what the deal with her appearances in other parts of Hyrule was, and I’d found it completely by accident by doing something the game says over and over again that it wants me to do. Unlike with Sonia’s death, this time I was a mess of emotions. I was pissed the fuck off that this open-world game had punished me twice already for trying to explore. More than that, I was disappointed that a game I had been so excited to play, from a series I had so many fond memories of, had let me down like this. With every subsequent quest where the sages and I chased a Zelda I knew was fake to our next objective, and every NPC wondering where she was that I couldn’t tell the truth to, that disappointment grew. The entire rest of the main story was ruined for me before I had progressed past 1/4th of the regional quests and a third of the dragon’s tears. There was no more sense of anticipation or mystery. I finished the rest of the game with a bitter taste in my mouth and haven’t touched it again since.

Do I think this story could have been good? Honestly, I don’t know, and by now I don’t really care either (that’s a lie. I care so so much and that’s probably why I hate totk as much as I do). But it’s all irrelevant, because like Cinderella’s stepsister cutting off her own heel so she can cram her foot into a glass slipper that’s never going to fit, totk is sabotaged by the devs’ insistence that everything fit itself into a world they custom-made for botw. This isn’t a new formula that the series is following, it’s Nintendo slapping a new coat of paint on an existing skeleton, and I’m not optimistic to see what this particular approach has in store for the Zelda series. Especially not at the price they’re charging for it.

[bloobluebloo]

I was just reminiscing on how hard this fandom was shilling for a complex Ganondorf for the wilds era, and this wasn't even confined to niche parts of the fandom. Every time there was a hint that Ganondorf might be involved in some way, the fandom went wild with speculation. It's like people these days, when defending TotK's poor handling of Ganondorf's writing, forget that a complex Ganondorf, or at least a Ganondorf that had a bit more character depth than a puddle on sidewalk, was something *everyone* wanted. Most people were not content with an "evil for the sake of being evil" Ganondorf.

When the first trailer and images of BotW dropped, a lot of people saw the cloth around Link's forearms and noticed the patterning there. Many thought it was similar to Gerudo patterning. Lo and behold people began speculating that Link may have a close relationship with the Gerudo, and perhaps with Ganondorf him. Cue all the theories and fanart and fanfic of Link and Ganondorf growing up together, being close friends, knowing each other, before Ganondorf's turn to darkness. Okay so as BotW's release approaches we learn about Calamity Ganon and then we see this mysterious old man. He seems pretty large in stature and is dark skinned. Cue the second wave of rumor mills that this may be Ganondorf. Perhaps a weary old washed up soul, or perhaps a manipulation tactic while his real form, the calamity, keeps Zelda trapped inside the castle. The tapestry with the red haired hero. This one causes a big wave of rumors that perhaps the past hero was a Gerudo, maybe an iteration of Ganondorf.

The first trailer for TotK drops, we see the murals, Ganondorf's corpse, what looks like a horrifying vision of how he ended up here. Rehydrated Ganondorf starts trending. People are wild with speculations of who he was. Many link him to the hero on the tapestry. Most speculation about Ganondorf now is what sort of horrendous thing happened to him that he would end up here, and less about how evil he must have been to end up here. The official "rehydrated Ganondorf" art drops. Everyone sees his design, how he seems more heroic in this art piece. Again, people are still speculating on how complex this Ganondorf might be, between what we have seen thus far. Many note he is not smirking in this art as he usually is, perhaps a hint that his character this time might be different. And we have reached TotK Ganondorf, with the most generic evil villain writing we have seen of him yet. Ganondorf is a big appeal of the LoZ games. He deserves more than just being hot.

[ganondoodle]

rough beast ganondorf design + sketches + notes design combines the typical boar form (dark beast + cloud form from botw), the oni one (demon king gan) hint at the draconic one to come but keep part of his humanity with his clothing being mostly intact

as the battle with Demon King Ganondorf comes to an end, the sages previously knocked out start to wake up again, he is cornered and hurt and as fear of being imprisoned, tortured and exploited overwhelms him he transforms into the Beast form, breaking the arena you were fighting him in and him going for Zelda as she is the biggest threat (he remembers her destroying dark beast gan and she reminds him of sonia, who is the one you sealed his human body back in the day)

you and zelda flee through the cracks of the earth as more earthquakes happen with a beast at your heels thats now truly only out to kill as fast as possible as he burrows after you (first sketch)

the path takes you both just below the surface and as you are trapped in a dead end zelda shields herself and link with her light shield ability, which protects you both from immediate damage but cant soften the impact from gan charging at you, the impact of which breaks you all three to the surface and the battle takes place in the same spot as botws dark beast fight-

fight is very challenging as gan is smaller than the dark best version, jumping and charging at you while still able to cast spells, now truly throwing everything he can at you in the hopes of ending you both

fight ends with you shooting an arrow at zelda, her deflecting it at the right angle and it shooting off the enigma stone on gans forehead; he falls seemingly defeated and as zelda runs to take the stone away gan through sheer panic lunges for the stone triggering his dragon transformation and making way for the final fight

(summary of the end: in the final fight gan snatches up both link and zelda once he transformed into the black dragon and takes flight toward the sky, zelda falls from between his teeth and knowing that she cant get to link and help him in any way from the ground she, while falling, takes out the enigma stone she has kept in a save container in her backpack all this time and swallows it for her own transformation, in her white dragon form she takes active action and charges at gans head so link is freed, then supports him in the fight itself; at the end link plunges into dragon-gans mouth to reach the stone on the inside where he makes use of the 'medicine' previously made using the moonbloom taked from kogas secret lab, link and the stone are spit out and as gan reverses into a human and falls link is caught by zelda and he uses the second charge of it on her to bring her back as well; as all three fall from the skies as the sages have made their way through the tunnel that beast gan made earlier, they help link and zelda getting to the ground safely while the yiga do the same for gan - final end end isnt determined yet but this is waht i got so far and even if i have written this once before i felt it was fitting to do it again and no you cant tell me this is too much of a wishfulfillment thing bc it literally is just that as i cant actualyl change whats in the game, so even if im trying to make it all fit well together i can still do what i want nhakjdbgshdbhsjka)

(totk rewritten project)

[flowering-thought]

Ganon brainrot won in my heart so here we are-

Please know that this version of Ganaon is influenced by BOTW and TOTK as I never got the chance to play the older games and I'm hopefully going to purchase TOTK soon (I'm a broke bitch so I look at spoilers in envy and awe). Also note that due to the complicated timeline of the games I'm going to say that Zelda has traveled back maybe 10,000 years because as of right now there's no telling how to fit it into the timeline for sure-

Not gonna lie I wanna do more of this, maybe a part two?? Should I do a part two?? I want to do more but I didn't want to make it too long-

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

WARNING - MINORS DNI

AFAB reader and reader is described as feminine and chubby/plus sized.

Yandere themes, obsessive behavior, hints at stalking

Yandere Ganondorf x Archeologist Reader

Zelda and Link. Two people you had come to know well as you had helped Link grow used to life in Hyrule after waking from his 100 year nap.

You were an assistant who occasionally helped Purah but also looked for things to research on your own when you could.

And when Link had saved the kingdom from Calamity Ganons grasp? You had grown close to Princess Zelda, who shared many interests with you. You two got along quite well, having fun and sharing research with each other and having long conversations about the past and the link between technological advancements and a declining birthrate.

And with Link? You appreciated the times when you could just relax. You would both sit by the fire and relax or you would tell him stories to pass the time.

Before Link had managed to defeat Calamity Ganon you would empathize with the struggle of not remembering his past, of the emotions that came with the weight of the world on his shoulders. And you would help him find ways to find happiness in the small things, even talking with him and having conversations to make things seem less stressful than they were.

So with Link and Zelda by your side with ruins of the ancient past? What would you have to worry about? Zelda is knowledgeable about ruins and Link is strong enough to help either of you if something were to happen.

But things don't always turn out how you want them to be huh?

Walking up to what looked to be a corpse deprived of light and dehydrated to the point it was practically a standing mummy, a hand attached to its chest and a spiral of light emitting from the contact.

And as though it were fate, that hand detached, a stone falling with it. A part of you felt as though you weren't supposed to be here, you took a step back, behind Zelda and Link, your eyes fixated on the mummified corpse.

As if you had walked into some tale of horror, the cracks of bones could be heard from the body, it slowly moving in what could only be described as terrifying.

Just as it opened its eyes Link blocked the first attack, and you grabbed Zelda's wrist, ready to run with her if need be. And the shattering of the master sword echoed through the chamber.

"The sword that seals the darkness? Such a fragile sword cannot defend you from me." He stated, a raspy voice speaking out.

"Zelda.. And you who carries that sword are Link." He continued.

The conversation did not last, another attack carried and both you and Zelda are knocked into the abyss. And even if it would be your death, you did not let go of Zelda, knowing that you'd rather be together in death should you die from that fall.

But all you saw was a burst of light before you inevitably passed out, your consciousness fully collapsing as the world around you changed.

And then there you were, in a field in Hyrule, both you and Zelda lain among the grass for a certain King and Queen to find you.

Zelda was the first to awaken to their voices, explaining who she was to them before they explained their own title.

And just before Zelda could gasp, you awoke. You held yourself as you woke up before fully awakening and looking around frantically for Zelda.

You didn't mind the strangers as you crawled over quickly to check for wounds, "Are you okay? You didn't get hurt?" You asked.

And upon realizing where you were, and looked upon by strangers, both you and Zelda explained what had happened to the young King and Queen as they brought you to the peak

Of course what followed was being brought to the founding kingdom of Hyrule, Rauru and Sonia treated Zelda like their daughter, smiling and making sure she was well fed.

They had claimed that both you and Zelda were distant relatives despite you saying you were not a part of the Hylian royal family. But they stated it would be better to claim that for now.

And while they treated Zelda like their child, when it came to you they were gentle as though you were someone they loved. You did not have powers like them and so they made sure you had a guard with you at all times.

Often times you would be found by the pair with Mineru, both of you enjoying different topics and you found immense enjoyment from learning everything that the Zonai technology could offer.

Sometimes you would actually fall asleep in Minerus office, and you could have sworn one time to hear Sonia and Rauru conversing as your head was supported by a lap and your hair pet gently. It was such a warm and gentle feeling so you eventually drifted back to sleep only to wake up in your chambers the next day.

And then, the one and only Gerudo King known as Ganondorf made his appearance.

Far too many times had you seen the depictions of a monstrous beast called Ganon, and upon hearing the name in another form you could feel shivers roll down your spine.

You stood next to Zelda, deciding to take your mind off of the King and look to his group, finding the differences in the attire of the past and future was fun to you rather than thinking about the anxiety that came with meeting Ganondorf.

And while you gazed at his group, Ganondorf had been staring at the stones for a time, noticing Zelda had one so he assumed that you would as well. And as soon as he noticed you did not have one he should have brought his gaze back to Rauru but he couldn't.

The way those robes fit on your figure, your soft looking features and that gaze of intelligence and warmth in your eyes had him nearly move his head to look right at you. But of course he knew better than to make his interest clear right in the throne room.

He couldn't keep his eyes off you, even when he and his group of warriors were escorted to different chambers to rest he had your face in mind. And before he was escorted to the separate nicer chamber he would stay in for his standing in the Gerudo tribe was the highest, he pulled two warriors aside and told them to keep an eye on you in secret, to learn more about you.

"And what kind of information on her would you like us to gather?" One asked, prepared for whatever her king would ask of them.

"Everything." He stated, turning to follow the Hylian maid who stood quite a bit away.

And so for an entire week, while observing many schedules of those who had the secret stone, he would try to find the places you tended to wander in.

He learned of the foods you prefered, how you spent a lot of your time either in the garden or the library, snacks such as fruit you often snacked on. He also found out the size of the robes you wore, getting a messenger to send that information back to the tribe to prepare you clothing. And he also tried his best to search into your orgins, but even most servants of the palace did not know where you came from.

It was frustrating that oftentimes you were with a member of the royal family or in places he couldn't get to without arising suspicion when it came to trying to get close to you.

Until finally, you were in the garden, only a single guard standing a couple of feet away as you sat in the grass and with a sketchbook open drew the different kinds of plants in front of you.

He found it beautiful. How your fresh flowed around you in the grass and your hunched form taking in the details of nature.

A part of him thought it suited you. But another thought how much better you would look smiling at him and waving him over.

But alas he had to make the first move.

So that's what he did, he stepped into the garden and made a light cough, the guard startling and immediately formed a stance while you turned to face what was only a pair of legs till you craned your head up to look at him.

You stayed completely still out of shock, till Ganondorf tilted his head a bit, wondering why you merely stared.

"Am I truly that shocking to see my lady?" He asked, a small smirk adorning his face. You nearly wanted to run but at the same time a part of you didn't want to create problems for Rauru or Sonia or even possibly Zelda so you decided to be neutral and scoot over a bit.

"Not as shocked as you would think, sit down and maybe I could see your face without needing to break my neck." You said, hoping that maybe he wouldn't be too interested so you wouldn't have to be too on edge.

But much to your surprise you heard a loud chuckle and next thing you knew had the King of the Gerudo sitting next to you in a garden of flowers.

You couldn't stand the awkward silence so you decided to form a conversation with him instead. "So how is your stay? I hope you're finding things enjoyable?" You ask, fumbling with the pages of your sketchbook, the notes written between the pages among illustrations and dried flowers and plants.

Ganondorf took in everything. How lovely your face looked up close, how tiny your hands were as you held that book in hand, and how your fingernails would get under a page to flip to another as you tried to make conversation.

He wanted you. He knew for certain then and there that he wanted you. It was love at first sight yes. But it wasn't the kind that he would throw away everything for until this point.

Now he understood the tales of foolish people throwing things they had worked hard for away for love. But it's a good thing Ganondorf is a greedy man. He'll have you first even if it means abandoning his first plan. He can always create another.

So as his mind processed these thoughts he gave a hum of confirmation before gazing down at you, "Do you know anything about the desert?" He asked. You would never know this was a conversation to prepare you for the harshness of the desert when he would eventually find a way to sweet talk his way into taking you there.

But unexpectedly you nodded and smiled, "Yes! While during the day it reaches its hottest point at noon, and its coolest point at midnight. But the sunsets and sunrises in the desert are breathtaking!" You started, smiling as you opened another page to some of the flora and fauna you've observed in the future.

"See I love how things can still manage to survive, it's so interesting how they form their own ways of survival and manage to thrive. Just like people do!" You stated.

"And how clear the sky looks at night when you're in the desert, it almost looks like an endless sea of stars. It does get cold at night but I've never been one to grow cold easily." You add, a bright smile on your face only keeping the man stunned in place.

How positive you were when he had only seen the negatives of his homeland. The vast desert is dry and harsh. He hated the Hylians who had taken for granted their habitable home and yet here he was, in love with a Hylian even before you would confess of your love for the desert.

You went on about how to build the most efficient homes, how staying near an oasis is the best move, and how white paint or tiles would help reflect the sun off the roofs. How different muds and rocks and soil can affect how to build a home there. And how you enjoyed the feeling of warm sand on your feet.

It took you at least an hour of talking to realize he had listened intently for a whole hour.

It left your face feeling hot and putting your book to cover your mouth and nose, hoping to cover up whatever blush had formed on your cheeks. "Sorry, here I am drawling on and talking your ear off." You muttered, avoiding eye contact but also realizing that looking at his well-toned body was a bigger mistake as you felt your heartbeat rise and then looked to the scenery to try and calm yourself down.

Ganondorf only chuckled, smiling as he set a hand on your head and gave your hair a little ruffle. "It's okay little Vai, I quite enjoy listening to you talk." He claims, getting up before looking down once more, "We should talk again." He adds.

And with that he walked off, leaving you slightly bewildered.

Unknown to you, that guard had reported back to Rauru and Sonia at the end of the day after making sure you were safe in your chambers.

The next day Rauru and Sonia would pull aside Zelda and Mineru while you were in one of the libraries researching.

"What do we do? Why on earth would he take an interest in Y/n?" Zelda asked, her hands held together in anxiety.

"He should have been targeting one of us. Someone who holds a secret stone. Y/n doesn't even have a stone!" She adds.

Mineru and Rauru sat silently in thought while Sonia put her hand over Zeldas, "Do not worry. I don't think he has the intention to hurt her." She claims, her calm voice carrying Zelda out of all the thoughts of you becoming hurt.

"But that doesn't mean he doesn't hold other intentions with her." Rauru says, looking slightly agitated as his gaze stays focused on the table.

"She wouldn't betray us. That much is certain. So if he doesn't seek to harm her or get information out of her, what could it be?" Mineru asks out loud, her question plaguing the thoughts of all four of them.

And they all knew only time could tell.

And unfortunately for them, Ganondorf would come to find you often, growing closer to you and making you feel comfortable around him. And due to that, coming up with a new plan to propose to his tribe and the warriors who followed him was easy.

He would take you as his wife. A surefire way to ensure a "peace treaty" between the Gerudo and Hylians. And your knowledge of the landscape and ways to improve their housing would prove useful for keeping his people safe, many warriors agreed with this plan as the longevity of their tribe mattered to them more than stealing a stone.

If they managed to strengthen their tribe with knowledge you could lend then they could form a better plan to take over Hyrule.

So with the support of his warriors, he asked to meet with the Hylian court, including you.

And it was tense. When you stepped into the hall, you could have sworn Sonia was on the edge of yelling and Rauru was bewildered. Zelda took notice of you and immediately brought you close to her and went closest to the thrones to keep you within reach.

You had made it late so you didn't know that Ganondorf had just announced his wish to marry you.

"Are you insane? You propose such a thing to keep the peace between our people?" Rauru asked, his voice commanding an answer from the brazen Gerudo King.

"But it is not unreasonable. I understand that Y/n is a distant relative yes? Not only is she of noble lineage she is also intelligent and capable of helping my tribe prosper. Would it not benefit both you and me? You would have my word of peace and know that your relative would be in capable hands and protected by my people as she would become one of us by wedding me, trying our people together." He concluded, looking straight at Rauru.

You were shocked at the information, never expecting to be proposed to by such a man. Yes, he seemed to be kind to you but how would you know he would keep his promise of peace? The history you read was different from this!

You felt overwhelmed as Rauru and Sonia went on about rejecting and Ganondorf would try to talk about the benefits. It took you a minute to collect yourself so you could speak.

"That's enough!" You yelled. You hated all the attention turning to you but this was your life. You were not going to allow anyone else to choose anything for you.

"Give me a couple of days. And I will reply to your proposal Ganondorf. Please allow me that." You stated. Rauru and Sonia wanted to object, and Zelda held onto your hand desperately.

Ganondorf smiled, giving a nod before speaking, "I hope you will give me good news soon my lady.".

After the meeting Rauru, Sonia, Zelda and Mineru profusely asked you to reconsider saying anything but no. That this was insane and that you don't know any of his intentions. It took at least an hour of their constant pestering for you to hole up in a library with snacks and comfort items.

You quite literally locked them out and spent your time reading to try and find any wisdom to help you.

Eventually you came across an old scroll, your body wrapped in a blanket and a few grapes in a bowl nearby while you read what this scroll had to say.

"Time is a complex device. One that has too many layers to have one conclusion. Some say time is final, that the past cannot be changed, and nor can the future. But some say that one single element can change that. The outcome is split into multiples and time divided. Should you find yourself at a crossroads and the future you envision challenged, take the chance for there is no telling if the future is sure. And if changed with a sure future, know that while things around you may change, you will not."

And with that you had decided.

You had bathed and gotten dressed and called a meeting to answer Ganondorfs request. And Rauru, Sonia, Zelda, and Mineru looked as anxious as can be.

And with a couple of words, fate was changed.

"I accept your proposal."

[comixandco]

The four Sages were called back into the past by Terrako and they remember it happening

Tulin got to meet his hero, Revali, and decided to be just like him, adopting his idol’s brash personality and drive. He practises Revali’s Gale and eventually comes up with his own way to show off his mastery of wind, and when trouble hits his home he rushes to fix it on his own to prove how strong he has become and because, like Revali, he can’t stand idly by while he knows there’s still things he can do.

For Yunobo, when he goes back and meets his ancestor Daruk, he is a very timid and reactive Goron. He needs a push from others to come up with ideas and carry plans through, and when bad things happen to him his first instinct is to use his fire magic as a shield, to wait until the threat has passed by or somebody else has come to save him. But when he is sent back in time to Divine Beast vah Rudania, for the first time he has to be the one doing the saving. Daruk encourages Yunobo and is proud of him from the moment they meet, and it’s this support that gives Yunobo the confidence to help fight against Calamity Ganon, and to start YunoboCo when he gets home.

For Sidon, meeting his family from 100 years ago is bittersweet. He is proud that he was able to protect his sister, and it’s a comfort to know there is a version of him who will grow up alongside Mipha because of his bravery and fighting prowess. But as much joy as he got from seeing her, hugging her, and hearing her voice again, it just reminds him of how unfair her death was, of just how young she was when she died and how he is now older even though he’s the younger sibling. And at the end of the war, when he’s returned to their original time, he has to readjust to her absence all over again, and in light of that is it really a shock he’d have her statue moved further away from his home? And it also explains why he’s so desperate to protect Yona from the sludge.

Riju in AoC still a new ruler to her people, despite her accomplishments in BotW, she still feels guilty over the temporary loss of the Thunder Helm and isn’t sure if she can lead the Gerudo. She has a lot of confidence but is quick to falter when things go wrong. Urbosa treats Riju as a capable fighter despite her young age, and teaches her that she should never give up, to keep trying even when her resolve falters. There is always something you can do, even when it’s just stalling for time until help can arrive. Urbosa guides her in mastering the Thunderhelm, and possibly begins teaching her to summon lightning herself after Kohga attempts to steal it, and at the end of their time together Urbosa tells Riju she’s certain she’ll lead the Gerudo well. Riju treasured her time being mentored by Urbosa so much that she considers what Urbosa would do during the Upheaval in her diary in TotK.

I think the entire reason Tulin was added to the DLC was because the TotK team had already decided that Tulin was going to be the Sage of Wind, and that since the other sages were going to meet their Champions Tulin had to as well.

At some point in the years between Botw and TotK Teba, Tulin, Sidon, Yunobo, Riju and Patricia were summoned back in time by Terrako to aid the Champions during the Calamity, and even though those events took place in a parallel timeline and had no bearing on the world they returned to, the Sages’ personalities at the beginning of TotK are because of their experiences during the Calamity and the bonds they made with the Champions.