#il mini

[interlink-au]

It took me longer than expected, but I drew something for the top five favorites.

Thanks for continuing to support Interlink!

[nevermatchandscpsradadventures]

Look, ma (@interlink-au), it’s your guys (+ Altered)

The forest is dim, but not dim enough for our heroes to need any lanterns. Trees tower over them, not enough to where their tops are all out of sight, but tall enough to be notable… at least in the opinions of our heroes, including their tallest, who isn’t that tall in retrospect.

Up in the front of the group are Cap and Mask, and in the very back are Aspect and Echo. Of course, everyone else is in between, and that’s how their tiny hamlet of a group travels among the foliage.

Oddly, though, the forest is rather quiet, save for our heroes’ footsteps and occasional chatter.

“I wonder why,” Mouse hums.

“It’d probably be a good idea to keep on our toes, whyever it is,” Gen points out.

As if on some sort of cue, there’s a new sound - specifically the sound of something rustling in a nearby bush. The group stops, and with more rustling, something emerges, but all it is is a little pink Chuchu. Given that it’s a monster, the heroes draw their swords; unusually, the Chuchu begins trembling on the spot.

“Hey, wait, wait… That Chuchu is pink.” Wild notes, “That’s not normal… is it?”

“No,” River says thoughtfully, lowering his sword, “and they don’t tend to shake like that, either.”

One by one, everyone lowers their weapons; even still, the Chuchu shakes and shudders, not daring to move an inch outside of its shivering.

Mini steps forward, crouching down in order to seem nonthreatening and in order to make some kind of eye contact.

“What’s the matter?” he asks, “What are you so scared of?”

“Mini, why are you trying to reason with a Chuchu?” Vet asks blandly.

“Because she’s scared we’ll hurt her or put her in a cage or something,” Mini replies almost matter-of-factly.

That gets the Chuchu’s attention. It (she?) stops trembling, at least as much, and it looks up at Mini with wide eyes - which is quite a feat for a monster with already bulging eyes.

“Yeah, I can understand you.” Mini nods, “I ate a Jabbernut… My name? Oh, Mini’s just a nickname, because we’re all named Link.” After a brief pause, it’s time for Mini’s eyes to widen. “Your name is Link? But… What do you mean, a curse?! Slow down… Evil wizard… Ritual… Wrong place at wrong time… And now you’re like this?”

The others look at each other with their own wide eyes, with confusion and worry to go with it. Could this Chuchu be telling the truth? If this really is a curse, how can it be broken?

Finally, Mask steps forward. “I have an idea. Mini, tell the Chuchu to hold still.”

Mini doesn’t have to, for the Chuchu stops its trembling even more. Mask pulls out a blue ocarina, and by bringing it to his lips, he plays a song. It’s a haunting yet comforting sort of song, and the Chuchu seems to think so, too.

As the song plays on and on, the Chuchu begins to change. Before everyone’s eyes, its form changes from that of a little pink Chuchu to that of a young Hylian girl, one who couldn’t be that much older than Mini. Oddly, her hair, right down to her eyelashes, is pink, but not in the same shade Vet’s is; instead, hers is more of a pastel pink.

The girl - Link - opens her eyes as Mask finishes the song. Her eyes are yellow, just like they’d been as a Chuchu.

“Did it work?” she asks uncertainly. She blinks before looking down at her hands - her Hylian hands. She gasps. “It did? It did!” With a great big smile and happy tears bubbling from her eyes, she all but tackles Mask in a grateful hug. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! I’m me again! Well, I mean, I’ve always been me, but… I-I have hands, and legs, and a nose, and hair, and…”

She trails off, getting off of a very confused Mask and sitting up. She brings a clump of her hair to her face, and her eyes widen.

“Pink?! That’s not supposed to be pink!” she cries, “My hair’s supposed to be black! Please tell me this’ll wash out or grow out or fade or something!” She skips a beat and looks sheepishly up at Vet. “Errm… No offense.”

“None taken,” Vet shrugs.

“Maybe it’s a side effect of the curse?” Twilight ponders, “I mean, I’m sure you already knew this, but you were pink as a Chu…chu.”

Link sighs, defeated. “Just one more thing to have to explain to my aunt and uncle the next time I see ‘em. And lemme guess, my eyes are still kinda Chuchu-y, too.” At everyone’s nods, she just sighs again. “Just my luck. Well, thanks again - for not attacking me, for understanding me, and for turning me back to normal.”

She seems to look them all over, furrowing her brow in curiosity. “Say, how come you’re all traveling together? Tiny traveling hamlet?”

The heroes all look to each other. How are they to tell her?

Verdi clears his throat. “Well, you see…”

[interlink-au]

Jabber Nut findings

I'm organizing all I've learned from the various folks who have answered my questions and from what I've seen for myself. I've verified everything to my best ability. Thank you all for your help!

The Jabber Nut seems to be a universal translator. It can enable you to:

Talk to animals (ex: dogs and Epona)

Speak with the Minish

Understand Minish text (assuming the sign in the Temple of Droplets is in Minish)

Presumably, this means you can communicate in and read any language

However! It only seems to work when Link is Minish-sized. I wonder what would happen if a normal-sized person ate one. Maybe it has something to do with Minish magic so it wouldn't work.

Since Ezlo couldn't understand the local Minish dialect before Link ate the Jabber Nut, but he could afterwards, it can be assumed that the Jabber Nut can be split and still have full effects. Ezlo doesn't have an animation for eating it, but I don't have any other explanation for this unless Ezlo is lying about not understanding the local Minish.

If you have any additions or corrections, please share!

[interlink-au]

I'm not sure if this was on any of the ask game lists, but:

How easily are they goaded into a competition or bet of sorts?

For any of them, but especially, Engineer, the Colors, Junior, Wild, and Mask.

They're Links. They thrive on competitions! And the majority of Zelda games have something involving gambling. A common one is “choose a treasure chest.” Even the tiniest child (Mini) has betting games in Minish Cap. With double or nothing prizes! And a gacha machine! He's toast…

Engineer: He's actually more level-headed. He doesn't require much work to convince, but other Links are more eager to prove themselves compared to him.

The colors require no goading whatsoever. It comes from within. They sabotage each other to be the one to get the most whatever-the-current-thing-is the fastest.

One of the reasons Forest favors the boomerang is so he can yank others back with it and then use it to collect items quickly. And Ember is the worst…

Junior - He acts chill, but he wants to win. However, on a scale of Engineer to Four, he's on the Engineer side of the spectrum.

Wild - The Lucky Treasure Shop should never have given him free access to the treasure game… Is what I would say if he didn't already have enough of the rewards offered already in his pockets. Thankfully, he does try not to abuse the system, and the owner often gets free food. He's more into beating his own high scores in skill-based mini-games than gambling for luck. But he still pops in to try his luck with the chests on occasion. Competition against others? Ohoho, I can't wait to put him in a dungeon.

Mask - He loves games. He doesn't need much promise of a reward to play in the first place, but if you dangle something good in front of him, he absolutely will not give up until he gets it. Bombchu bowling may have wiped out all his cash, but he was determined to win.

Speaking of which, the same thing happened to Wind when he was given the opportunity to play what we like to call Sploosh Kaboom. (It's apparently called Squid-Hunt and is basically the Battleship board game.) He's sunk (heh) hundreds into that game trying to get a higher and higher score. His record is 11. (In this game, less is more. A perfect score is 9 and the previous highscore was 20.)

(That was @loz-chainsofcorruption's attempt👏👏👏)

[interlink-au]

For those that missed it under the read-more from a previous post. A scene from Chapter 5 of Interlink: Reaching an Inn.

[nevermatchandscpsradadventures]

@interlink-au made Minish Cap-style sprites of Spring and Gan for me, so I made these Earthbound-style sprites of her boys as thanks!

Top row: Sky, Gen, Mini, and Junior Second row: Forest, Ember, River, and Quartz Third row: Twilight, Mask, Wind, and Engineer Fourth row: Vet, Verdi, Echo, and Mouse Fifth row: Cap, Aspect, Wild, and Ness for reference/comparison Thanks so much again for the sprites you made for me, GiGi!

[interlink-au]

*hands one of these to Mini*

Now you can color the map (including the water) ❤️

~ SCP-42605

He is very grateful. ☺️

[interlink-au]

How do they deal with getting sick? What kind do they get most frequently?

^ For Vet, Junior, Mini, Cap, and anyone else

Vet is a miserable sick person. He's all snotty and gross and just wants to curl up in his blankets with his tea and be taken care of by his uncle. He's drinking warm stuff constantly so the congestion doesn't turn into a nasty headache. (Spoiler: it will.)

Edit: Forgot to mention that "miserable" applies to both himself and anyone who needs to interact with him. He radiates bad vibes. Just imagine a manga panel with a big dark gloom surrounding a pile of blankets in the corner of camp.

I have no idea what's going on there. ☝️ Imagine they're blankets.

Junior simultaneously wants to suck it up and continue about his day without fuss and be coddled. Unfortunately, he's mostly on his own right now (current company excluded) while he searches the farthest reaches of Hyrule for a place to leave the Four Sword. Thankfully, he hasn't gotten sick since before his adventure, so he's still used to his grandpa letting him push himself just a little before sending him to bed with some hot cocoa to chase down the medicine with. His most common symptom is an annoyingly drippy nose.

Mini gets a variety of symptoms depending on what's going around. A cough and sore throat are most common. Sometimes his nose runs both directions at once and upsets his tummy. But luckily, he only gets one or two symptoms at a time, and he has his grandpa to take care of him. He's not a fan of medicines, but grandpa Smith makes sure he takes whatever bitter stuff he needs to get better. If Verona from town hears about it, she might drop off a meal. Zelda has to be stopped from visiting for fear of her getting sick, but she's very practiced at getting what she wants with or without permission. And of course Mini gets blamed if she gets sick even if it's her fault.

Cap powers through. He presents himself in such a way that it can be hard to tell he's sick. You know it's really bad when he ends up taking a break. He has people around him who will care for him, but he's stubborn, so the best they can do is leave tea and soup in his company and hope he doesn't ignore it.

Mask is kind of the same way but he's more obvious about it. While Cap is functioning with a smile on a carefully prepared face, Mask is scowling and red-nosed. He's great at taking care of others but is hypocritical when it comes to taking care of himself. He tends to sneeze a lot and is likely to run a temperature while shivering because he's cold.

Engineer is slightly more likely than the others to get a stomach bug and a fever. :( He's likely to take care of himself because he doesn't want Niko to catch it.

Twilight also powers through. He just overall prefers to be active. Being sick is boring and he'd rather be working even while coughing and sneezing. But he knows to stop and rest sooner than Cap does.

Wind is a complainer. He doesn't feel good, he's tired, he's bored, he's missing out, his nose is sore from wiping it, he's hot, etc, etc, it goes on. Fortunately, it doesn't last long because Granny's soup is more or less magic.

Those are the ones who stick out to me the most.

I guess I could tack on that Mouse hides that he's sick like Cap does.

Thanks for the ask!