The Most Majestic

Ari | 28 | teacher | writer | making my epic return to see if I ever blow up the totk tags like I did for botw | (not really but the timing is comical) |

[majestically-fangirling]

Do you guys ever think about how much Bazz had to babysit Sidon and co after the Calamity...and how Sidon probably thought Bazz was just part of his friend group because he didn't realize they were being babysat for the longest time...?

Or is that just me?

[gabelew]

and to cap off zora may,,,, the Man™

[charlesoberonn]

Introducing: The Tier Matrix!

For when a 1-dimensional tier list doesn't suffice

[gabelew]

Dunmaaaaaa I love her so much she's the best~ and so strong for dealing with the hot mess that is her father. How often does she contemplate patricide, I wonder.

Read more for my thoughts on Zora childhood~

5,6. The age from 3 to 6 is very important. Once a Zora is comfortable with air, they can learn how to crawl and then walk, and also start working on basic speech. Handling them is a major chore though, since most of them really would rather return to water and also they're Very Hungry. All the time.

For once in my life I'm going completely anachronistic and giving Rivan access to a camera. The idea of a Proud Dad photo album was just too fun not to take advantage of.

I won't elaborate much on exact circumstances of Dunma's birth and upbringing, this is just a Baby Zora Growing Up kinda thing.

1 .Egg. Smaller than you'd expect (every time Zora women hear about Hylian pregnancies they shoot a grateful prayer to Nayru) and pretty durable. Needs very specific water conditions (clean, cold but not too much, oxygenated) to develop correctly, which takes around 6 months.

2. If everything goes right, the egg hatches into a tadpole. The tadpoles are much more fragile than the eggs and can die very easily if the water conditions aren't right or they get too little/too much/wrong kind of food. They don't really do anything besides eating, pooping and trying to get themselves killed. Because of this, baby Zora only get named on their first birthday, when they're deemed strong enough to probably make it through.

3. Until around 3yo the baby Zora will remain in the water, working hard on getting fat and sprouting limbs. They start demanding more protein-rich food - if two or more tadpoles survived, they should be separated, or they'll quickly become just one (but very round).

The baby still needs more or less constant care, as it will bite on things it shouldn't or jump out. They can start interacting with other family members, becoming more resistant to infections.

4. At around 3, the baby is ready to be introduced to the concept of using their lungs. They tend to not like it very much and it does take a while.

7. A zora usually gets their first neck brace and accompanying adornments around 6/7 years old, when it's deemed to be safe (as in, their necks are long enough that they probably won't choke).

8. The Zora toddler years last until around 10/15. They can run around (if a bit clumsily) and communicate (more or less coherently). Can start eating foods that are not algae or raw fish. Finally can be left to its own devices for short periods of time, moves to more communal care (parents with kids of similar ages often share care responsibilities).

9. 15-25 is an early childhood stage, the child Zora can do most everything that an adult can, just with a lesser degree of motor control. They're still very small, but mostly independent, curiously exploring the world. They start learning how to read and write.

11. Once the Zora is grown enough (within like 1 head of height to being adult size, usually around their 40s) they're expected to start helping out at some easier jobs (though with no compensation). Usually it's fishing, gardening or some menial Guild tasks (if they're from a Guild-adjacent family). They're still very much treated like young kids and have few civil rights.

10. 25-40 is Zora equivalent of early teenage years. Most of their essential education happens during this time (it varies a lot between commoners and nobility). Zora grow in spurts, which depend on an individual and are not consistent at all. You can have a friend group where everybody is roughly the same age and the tallest has two full heads on the shortest.

At this age the Zora are encouraged to explore the Domain and start building connections with the community.

12. The age of 50/60 is the biological adulthood barrier, though of course it varies between individuals. A Zora usually reaches their final height until then (though for some it might take until their 80s) and could technically start having children of their own (it's preferred they wait a bit more on that). Those who can, finally start their career paths as Guild apprentices or guard recruits. They gain some actual rights and are treated as their own legal people (for some more serious stuff they'll need to wait a bit more, one becomes a full citizen only at 100).

I actually don't have that much to add, Dunma was a pretty normal kid in terms of development, despite the extremely chaotic start (Rivan became a dad at 70, which is most definitely -not- a proper child having age,,, not to mention Dunma's mom went to the store to get shrimp and never came back).

Gaddison was helping out since the beginning but Bazz was a different story, which drew a major wedge in his and Rivan's friendship. The man was terrified of finally meeting her for many reasons, some more justifiable than others. When he finally did, he almost got his fin chomped off multiple times, which ironically made it a bit easier for Rivan to forgive his crimes. He ended up adoring her (he keeps some of her baby drawings on his office wall) and she kinda idolizes him in turn. Rivan is unsure what to think about it.

Congrats on making it through to the end, here's a sketch that kickstarted the Baby Dunma Photo Album idea~

[mochiobonio]

if prince sidon ever swears then BY GOD he's gonna swear it with 𝓰𝓻𝓪𝓬𝓮

[gabelew]

So today we're going back 10000 or so years to ask the important question of: where did the Zora even come from? And why are sea-creature-shaped people living so far inland, what's up with that?

Read more for my attempts to rationalize vidyagame aesthetics choices~

As we know from Creating a Champion, the Zora are not actually native to Hyrule, as it is said that they "settled in Lanayru" more than 10 thousands years ago (let's save the question of "is 10k years of living in a place enough to be considered native to it" for another day).

I have major issues with the idea that basically nothing happened over this many years ( BotW and TotK seem to imply that the ancient era wasn't that different from the present day Hyrule), so I allowed myself to mess around with the world and such a bit more than I usually do.

Hyrule used to have a native Zora population - the River Zora. They inhabited wetlands and riverbanks and were semi-sedentary, travelling up- and downstream with the change of the seasons (basically they'd follow fish migration patterns). They could be found around Central Hyrule, Lanayru, Faron or Akkala, though the exact spread varied with climate fluctuations and flooding patterns.

They were roughly Hylian-sized, with the age span of 150/200 years, and lived in small communities of few dozen individuals (usually 2-3 families). They had okay relations with their Hylian neighbors (Hylians weren't too interested in wetlands and Zora didn't care about farmland or forests, so there wasn't much reason for territorial disputes) but would frequently fight each other for best fishing spots of the season.

The River Zora were quite well adapted to living on land - enough so, that aside from tadpolehood they'd rarely go underwater for too long, preferring to hang around in shallow waters. Because of this, their diet included stuff like plants, roots and mushrooms, not just fish and meat.

The River Zora had private homes (sort of, the main construction would be abandoned every season and possibly used by others in this time, but the expectation was that a family would be able to return) and had pretty strong sense of private property; fishing gear, tools, home furnishings etc belonged to an individual or their family and be hauled on rafts from one seasonal dwelling to the next.

They also wore rudimentary clothing, mostly simple capes and hoods, worn for the purpose of shielding from the sun and protecting the gills. Personalized handmade accessories would be crafted from leather, fibres and bronze and then gifted to other members in the community.

In general, save for internal squabbles, the River Zora were happy to chill in their wetlands and follow the patterns of nature. They very much lived in the present; while having extensive oral tradition of storytelling, they didn't really feel the need to create any historical records or even really write at all.

Now the ancient Sea Zora were a very different story.

I'll leave most of their biology for another time, when I go more in depth on saltwater Zora (contrary to River Zora, these guys are still very much around and haven't changed much), but the most important part is that they're Large and Sharp.

The Ocean-born Zora of the old times used to live in large hordes, freely roaming the waters, letting themselves be swept by the currents.

The group would be led by the strongest and most assertive individual and upon their death (or injury) would often split into 3-4 smaller ones, if there was no clear and worthy successor.

While for most it would seem like the Ocean Zora were just wandering aimlessly, they actually were in something like a perpetual state of pilgrimage, from one temple to another.

Now the concept of Zora temples is a whole thing itself that I will elaborate on more once I get to the Religion part of my lore series. For now, in big tldr, the Ocean Zora were (and still are) deeply spiritual, and they externalize it by building giant, elaborate temples. The purpose of the temple is 1. gaining favor with the deity; 2. marking the place as belonging to the Zora people; 3. establishing a fixed point allowing different Zora groups to meet and exchange information/resources/members; 4. storage of historical records; and finally 5. a mark of a Great Deed for the Zora leader who managed to complete a project.

A Temple takes anywhere from 50 to 1000 years to build, depending on location, size/skills of the group and available materials/tools (usually it's around 100-200).

Aside from Temples, the ancient Ocean Zora had little else to ground them, having very nebulous familial bonds and basically no concept of privacy or ownership.

At some point, couple thousands years ago, a group of Ocean Zora split off (succession crisis? territory conflict? not enough resources? who knows) from a bigger horde, went really far west for whatever reason, and made a landing on the shores of the Hyrulean continent. And then, of course, they set out to build a Temple, in the deep underground cave system of Lanayru province.

(The temple was for Nayru, as per custom of gaining favor with the local deity; the Ocean Zora subscribe to a very particular system of polytheism).

The construction took a long time, longer than anybody expected, for many reasons, and so, the new Zora had to occupy themselves with,,, living life in the meantime, which mostly meant getting acquainted with their River cousins.

By the time the Temple project was finished, the new generations of Hyrule-born Zora were no longer able to return to saltwater. If it was because of River blood, freshwater-developed eggs or Hyrule just being a cursed land intent on trapping its inhabitants forever, nobody can tell anymore. The reality was that the Ocean Zora had to suddenly abandon their free-spirited ways of life and find a way to settle in this new land forever. And so they did.

Over the years, they mixed even more with the River Zora, their traits combining into the Hyrulean Zora of the present day. The Ocean lineages quickly established themselves as dominant (they were bigger, stronger, had better weapons and were good at organising large groups) and slowly the River Zora either integrated completely or were pushed further and further out, until finally they were completely gone as a separate people. Eventually, the Hyrulean Zora community became as we know it today, concentrated in Lanayru's Domain, in the city that has since been constructed around the Temple that started it all.

The Ocean Zora also gradually lost their old ways of life, embracing parts of River culture (some sense of privacy & personal property, the idea of family units) and Hylian ways of managing things (such as establishing a royal line and a nobility class, having a specialized military and guilds etc).

While the freshwater trait seems to prevail over anything else (when a Hyrulean Zora has a kid with an Sea Zora the kid will always be freshwater, maybe with some salt tolerance), the Ocean blood seems to be almost equally as strong in terms of general physical appearance. The more specific Ocean traits such as extra fins, more vibrant colors or elongated features are less commonly passed down, but well-regarded if they manifest. All River traits (translucent webbing, face fins, dappling) seem to have disappeared completely, save for the little dots on Zoras' limbs and tails.

So yeah! The Hyrulean Zora are a mix between River and Ocean Zora, and thus kinda,,, uniquely neither. Zoras from other Domains call them Upstream (if they're nice) or Lake (if less so).

The Zora Royal Family looks so distinct from other citizens not for some magical royal reasons, it's just that importing foreign partners from Ocean Domains makes them have more Ocean blood and thus higher likelihood of manifesting Ocean-specific traits (size, unique features, uncommon scale colors). It is done on purpose, to justify the divine right to rule and stuff. Hence the arranged marriages and "you have to have a wife/husband to be crowned".

All the stuff about the Ocean Zora doesn't really apply to modern day saltwater Zora really, they've mostly transitioned to the Domain way of living. Some pilgrim-nomad groups still exist though! It's just much less common.

[lilyblisslys]

me with the. When she. When her. When the she her me

[mollyjames]

[majestically-fangirling]

Y’all remember back when we were obsessing over what a Hylian!Sidon would look like?

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[raincoatpng]

AHOY sidlink nation I have returned with sustenance who is your favourite fearless hero who is your favourite fearless herooooooo

these two are so so very dear to me

[majestically-fangirling]

….i miss this account

And I miss sidlink

I’m deprived of my fish where did everyone go are we all riding the struggle bus or have I just been logged off for too long lmao 🥲

[threebeandinner]

80. Codpiece

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Masterpost

Apparently Link isn't the only punster in town. Also, I'm sorry.

[vanemiin]

I love drawing Link in the archaic set! It looks so good on him and it's the closest we got to having another green tunic in the game 💚 Also a little bonus ember set at the end

[majestically-fangirling]

Really important question: which version of Pokémon is Korbin playing? I know he's playing on the original Gameboy, but is he playing the American Red, Blue, or Yellow version? Or is he playing the original Japanese Red or Green version?

This is the most important question. And I have 2 answers.

With the way I see it, Central Hyrule likely puts out the equivalent to the original Japanese versions of games and Zorana, Tabantha, and Gerudo get the “Americanized” versions. It’s less so in terms of language translation and more so how the storytelling, censorship, and general licensing is concerned (especially with how everything is falling politically atm) ((I don’t know why fantasy politics has led to me contemplating the impacts to the gaming industry either)). Outer Hyrule settlements like Hateno wind up with access to both versions.

Anyway. All that is to say that Korbin is playing the American Red version. He doesn’t even know there’s a different version yet.

Also if I’m gonna be technical…he’s TECHNICALLY playing FireRed on the Gameboy Advance. His first Pokémon game was Sapphire but he was so colossally bad at it that Klydus just took the game and played 99% of it for him so Korbin has no idea what the plot of it actually was. All he knows is he only ever had his Mudkip and about 40 Magikarp and that was the best he could do. But the only narrator who would care enough to mention those details is Nami but she’s a little too old to have hopped on the video game train and Tulin was the one with the SNES.

It is worth noting that as of the latest chapter he’s on the Mewtwo fight and he CANNOT beat Mewtwo by himself….🥲🥲🥲 and for spoiler reasons he’s gonna get frustrated and abandon the game for a WHILE only to immediately pick up Diamond and Pearl when the DS comes out. And then immediately blast through both games like a champ. He’ll come back to FireRed down the road when Samwise gets Let’s Go Eevee for his 10th birthday…now because Samwise takes no interest in video games until Pokemon Go comes out, Samwise is gonna go to Korbin with an even worse understanding of Type Advantage and Korbin will have to play 99% of the game for Sam.

And then he’ll get to the Mewtwo fight and realize he has no idea how to beat Mewtwo so he just survives off of vibes and tears.

And then he rage quits when he realizes there’s more game to beat.

And then he goes back to his Gameboy and hesitantly boots it up to finally beat FireRed. But I’ll save the details for that scene for later.

Also holy hell it feels good to ramble about my characters. Finding time to sit down and write between bottles and diaper changes is hard, but yapping on my tumblr app while a twin sleeps on me is great. So thank you for the ask!!!

(Also hi I’m alive and surprise I’m a whole ass mother now)

[senzywenzy]

soldier and egg

[songs-of-the-windfish]

*Draws more Yona and releases her into the wild* Go, be free...💚

Im slowly working on a classic expression chart with her, this is what I have so far!

[gabelew]

resting...

[asktheritochampion]

STOP BEING A COWARD RAHLIN. GIVE US FULLY NUDE REVALI!

I've only seen him leave his blanket nest once since losing all his feathers and it was for thirty seconds at 4am while he was getting a glass of water okay.

Why do you even want this?