Chapter 36: The Hero's Dream & the King's War
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Additional Tags: Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), Alternate Universe, Character Study, War, world building, Trauma, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Political Intrigue, Found Family, Angst and Humor, Warriors is a very complicated person, Warriors also does not know Time is Mask, Warriors (Linked Universe)-centric, Canon-Typical Violence, Heavy Angst, Manipulation, Morally Ambiguous Character, Please read content warnings before each chapter, Abuse, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Physical Abuse, Implied Sexual Content, Power Imbalance, Implied/Referenced Torture, Blood and Injury, Disabled Character, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Summary: “You are going to hear a lot of terrible things about me. Most of it is going to be true.”
Being the hero who saved Hyrule from a bloody war was a thankless job that left Warriors with more regrets than he cared to remember. He only started to heal after meeting his fellow heroes from across time and joining them on their quest to defeat the black-blooded monsters.
But when his time-hopping journey takes him back home, he finds his kingdom on the brink of war once more. This war threatens to ensnare not only Warriors, but his newfound family as well.
Warriors will do whatever it takes to keep them safe, even if that means becoming a traitor to the kingdom he gave up everything to save. But the harder Warriors works to protect his family, the more the secrets of his dark past come to life. Who is Captain Link Walton, the Hero of Warriors? What happened to the two other heroes he had once fought alongside all those years ago?
When this is over, will Warriors even have a family left to save or is he doomed to repeat his past mistakes?
(Once, there were three brothers: the captain, the engineer, and the child. Their story did not have a happy ending.)
Wow, it only took me just under three months to update. Compared to my history of updates, that is very, very swift. I think I am finally getting my shit together.
I hope you enjoy this chapter. As always, it is a doozy at just under 38k words. Please tuck yourselves into bed and have fun :)
In this chapter of the final arc of my never-ending fanfiction:
Link's attempts to help Proxi reunites him with an old friend
Now the head of the army, the burden of war falls squarely on Warriors's shoulders
Hyrule Field is soaked in blood and covered in flames
Here comes a lot of GBA-style pixel Links! (and a couple of Zeldas.) Ignore their heights. I usually try to keep height differences in mind, but I prioritized appearance this time, so we've ended up with weird situations like LU Four looking too tall and HP Four looking comparatively tiny.
See below for the original artists. See if you can guess who they are!
Row 1:
Sky (SS) from @tethered-in-myth
Picori (the Hero of Men) from @flm-linkedfissures
Minish (TMC) from @minas-linkverse
Four (Four Swords trilogy) from @linkeduniverse
Four Swords Link from @cokoakeostuff's Hero's Paradox
Row 2
Leaf (pre-OoT) from @marenwithanm's Little Links
Time (OoT/MM) from @linkeduniverse
Reaper (TP) from @chained-spirits
Wind (WW) from @heroesspirit
Tracks (ST) from @the-phantom-peach's Rift in Time
Row 3
Mage (ALttP) from @bonus-links (my followers might have seen this one already)
Totem (ALBW/TFH) from @linkbetweenlinksau
Ravio (ALBW) from @minas-linkverse
Silent and Echo (EoW) from @linderosse's Wisdomverse (my followers might have seen them, too)
Row 4
Hope (The NES games and the cartoon) from @linkedspirit-fanartfunart
War (HW) from @bonus-links
Aspect (the Ancient Hero) from @chained-spirits
Tears of the Kingdom Link and Zelda from @proxycrit's Familiar Familiar (Not a Links Meet like the others, but it was a big request from my sis, and I'm a huge fan of the always messy hair. Great series.)
--
I told myself I wouldn't do this but here are some design notes:
Pixel art this small can only handle so many details, but I tried to fit whatever I could.
If you look closely, you'll see a tiny reference to Sky's feathers on his hip.
I went back and forth on whether to include the red ties Picori has. In the end, they looked too much like hoodie strings, and the strap wanted to blend in with his face, so I had to chop the strings off and swap out the leather strap for his undershirt.
With Minish: I tried really hard to nail that stare of his. I'm a big fan. There was a ton of trial and error - and I almost gave up several times - but I'm satisfied with the result. His pockets are represented by a single light-green dot. :)
JoJo doesn't color eyes, so I had to decide if I would go with the blue of his games or the grey that fans tend to use. I went with grey. It was a fun challenge to incorporate that eye color into his deadpan expression. I drew his before Minish, which helped me figure out some tricks that made Minish's eyes more achievable. I also had to figure out how to give the bottom of Four's tunic the right shape. Every other tunic I had drawn up to that point was straight across in the center. The GBA sprite doesn't even include legs (those are my own additions wherever you see them), so it took some messing around to find something that worked. I think the result added to his accidental tall appearance. That, and his hair kept getting taller so it wouldn't look like a frying pan hit him. Hm... I wonder if I...? But then his arms would be too long...
I had a really hard time placing Hero's Paradox Four's earring. It kept wanting to blend in. Unacceptable! I ended up saturating the color quite a bit compared to the original to make sure the colors stood out. With a few exceptions like this, try to stick with the artist's art style as far as palette choices go. It also killed me to leave out the design on his tabard. It looked like a checkerboard.
I just realized I didn't put any greenery in Leaf's braids! For shame! Maybe I'll do a separate post with the fix. The tiny braids were fun to figure out how to draw with the little pixels. I wonder if it would have been easier or harder to figure out if I remembered the plants. I guess I'll find out when I fix it.
Time is the most obvious example of how GBA sprites don't have a center. They use an even number of pixels on both sides, so any center parts or markings had to choose a side (like in this case) or become two pixels wide (like in Reaper's case). I wanted to challenge myself with a heavily armored character. I didn't think about how many details his armor had before I made that decision. ( ; >_<) I'm sure someone with more experience could have done better, but I'm satisfied.
If you look closely, you'll see that Reaper has his nose scar.
I thought about including Wind's sword and Wind Waker, but I didn't want to complicate such a cute sprite.
I tried to give Tracks all four of his buttons. I don't think I succeeded, but I tried. It was fun to figure out his poncho-style coat.
Mage: Glasses are hard. I don't want to do it again. I had fun fitting as many details in as I could. He has a lot of details in his design, so almost all of them are dropped for clarity, but I enjoyed playing around with it.
Totem: I adore his hair. It's my favorite thing about him. But boy was it an experience to make sure the green section of his hair didn't look like it was meant to be the bottom of his cap. I ended up having to make it a lot lighter than the original.
I was excited for Hope because I have zero experience with tight curls. It wasn't as hard as I imagined in pixel form, though that might have been due to the great highlights and lowlights I could pull from the original art. Trying to make sure all the browns didn't blend together was another story.
Aspect's main difficulty was finding a good curl on his tail that didn't interfere with his long hair. And his arm jewelry. And his shirt. For some reason I really struggled with his shirt. It's such a simple shirt, too. I also struggled with the placement of his teardrop makeup. I'm still not satisfied with that.
Familiar Familiar Link also has his nose scar. It looks like stylistic shading if you don't know the original design, but I think it's cute with either interpretation. ^_^
Some of these AUs are probably going to see some more sprites from me. It was hard to choose which Links to prioritize for this set. Everyone had such fun designs! If there's a character or au you were hoping to see, please shoot me a request. I love making these little guys. OCs are welcome, too!
Artists, feel free to request a separate version of your character. Tumblr wouldn't have liked so many individual pictures in one post, so I grouped them together, but I can definitely send you singles if you feel like causing mayhem with a little transparent pixel guy.
Or if you want your character removed from this post, I can do that, too. 👍
a lot of you really need to internalize that acting avoidant isn't cute at all and that it will cost you experiences and life outcomes if you don't change course
April 6th, 2026 - Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen, and Reid Wiseman become the first human beings to travel farther than 248,655 miles from Earth, breaking the record previously held by the Apollo 13 crew.
hey waiter can i get a -- oh you can just beat the shit out of me right here? free of charge? man the service here is impeccable
anyways this is simple but it had been infecting me since the song CAME OUT and if i didnt expel it from my brain i was going to die. read call them brothers by @wutheringmights i am NOT asking.
Genuinely, I have no words. This is incredible. I love this song and I ADORE every bit of this comic. The visual of the boots from the hanged turncoats, the tangled red string (the bloody footprints!!), the COLORS, Spirit holding the knife— HONESTLY if I will just end up listing everything in this comic if you let me continue.
Thank you so much!!! I am throwing out the rest of my plans for the evening just so that I can stare at this 🥺💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛
wait can i ask something. if Spirit looks like any of his parents, do you think he'd look more like his mom or his dad? not that it'd matter much at the end but y'know,
Spirit takes after his mom, who is Hylian and a descendant of Aryll. She died when he was still very young, and he was raised by his dad until he was about 8-9 years old. His dad was Lokomo. Spirit only has his build (which did not make itself apparent until he was an adult), shorter ears, and curly hair. When he was a kid, it was often remarked that he and his dad did not resemble each other at all.
Spirit has complicated feelings about this, in no small part because he more easily passes as fully Hylian and often finds that his Lokomo heritage is dismissed.
art + commentary under the cut - warnings for teeth! also there will be spoilers, so read at your own risk 🙏
Byleth drawing hours - this time, the focus is the present section of Chapter 16 of @wutheringmights ' 'Call Them Brothers'. I'm probably just going to compile a masterpost for the art I draw because of this fanfiction because I foresee that there is more to come 🤣
This drawing is definitely a test of my skills and the stuff I am not confident on - side profiles, noses, perspective and light, horses, and teeth. It's given me a lot to chew on artistically, and I am pleased with how I've done things.
First! My thoughts on Chapter 16 - this chapter was really really good. Chapter 15 ended on a wild cliff-hanger and drew upon one of the past chapters that I did not expect, but when it came together, it was so so good. Chapter 16 followed on nicely. Something about the waiting of it all, the single focus on Warriors in the wagon, the lead-up to the Bottom of the Well built up a dread in me in such a good way. And then to have Four there, the rush to escape, a small break from the dread only for it to set back in when Warriors realises that the escape was a trap? 😱 I had to think about this chapter for a couple of days before even trying to draw anything because it landed so well.
Now, onto my artistic commentary + rambles!
The first thing I'm really glad that I could put to paper was the open mouth drawing of panel 2 -> as I read this section, I could almost imagine this mouth kind of mid-speech, revealing lots of teeth and being kind of unsettling. I can't picture things very well in my head, so to have a very clear idea on a picture a piece of writing is giving me is a very surreal feeling (in a positive way).
One thing I'm surprised with how it turned out was the horse. I have not dealt with horses much at all -> the only artistic piece regarding horses that I've done is assemble this wooden toy about ten years ago, and I put all of its legs on the wrong way round. To me, it looks like a funny dog on stilts, but I've also stared at it for too long 😭😭. I did pull up a reference of a horse, which helped a bit, so that's always good.
Also! I did realise that I drew Warriors in slightly the wrong position (he has his arms crossed rather than having his palms on the ground), so that'll be a potential task for another day to build on that skill.
By Crom! is my joke-a-panel autobiographical comic featuring life advice and spiritual guidance from Conan the Barbarian. It ran from January 2012 to May 2014, and is collected in two books, The Collected By Crom! and Full Colour Cromulence. You can read the archives on WealdComics.com, and grab the books in print and in PDF.
By Crom! will be tabling with Weald Comics at TCAF, VanCAF, TAAFI and possibly FanExpo Toronto!
It’s been … a WHILE since I was at a show with books BUT! if you want to get your hands on By Crom! this summer, next month (June 7-8, 2025) I’ll be at the Toronto Comics Arts Festival ( @torontocomics ) with a big stack of cromulent advice, and I’d love to see you there!
If you missed me at TCAF, there are two other ways you can get By Crom! They are in stock in person at the Danforth Arts Market in Toronto, Ontario, Canada!
OR!
They are in stock at the Beguiling, who ship internationally!
The best thing about this is how much love for Rothko there is in it. Like... here. Here is a rectangle, and if you stand far away it's just two or three colors a bit streaky, and the closer you get the more it opens up until it swallows you whole with the idea of how vast it is, how much bigger than you. If someone framed the real-life sea and sky and told everybody that's what my artwork was like to them I'd kiss them
caulk and tall borture @wutheringmights - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
