Original: BV1yUSEYdEc9（bilibili）

Let’s go on an adventure.

These are the scenes that came to my mind when Hyrule first met Legend. I assume Legend doesn’t know yet that he has a successor or that Ganon won’t revive after he kills Ganon a few times. And Hyrule idolized Legend as a hero before him

How would you feel if you met someone from the future who MAY know your history?

And how would you feel if you met the -legendary- person who became your idol for the first time?

sorry if my English/tenses are wrong.

I’m glad ppl on tiktok are doing ok

A Conspiracy Theory: Why Hyrule could be (quite possibly) a Hyrule.

And by him being a hyrule I mean him being a member of the hyrulean royal family, whose last name just happens to be hyrule.

"I was King Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule"- The Old Man (Botw)

A funny tidbit, but that could be why "Hyrule" chose his name (aside from him being the "Hero of Hyrule" of course). However, I think there is actually substantial evidence in the games to suggest that hyrule could actually be "Link Hyrule", descendant of the hyrulean royal family and "blood of the goddess".

Before we get into everything, let's make a quick list of what we know about Hyrule and his hyrule:

About Hyrule

Parents??? We know nothing about them, it's possible that hes been on his own for a while and never knew them (According to nintendo, he is 12 in Zelda I)

Obviously, he bears the spirit of the hero

He can cast magic without the use of any items

He has in the past and possibly in the present possessed the entire Triforce

About his Hyrule

After the Gold Era (legend's games basically) Hyrule entered the "Era of Decline". Exactly what this encaptures is not expressed by nintendo, but it can assumed that Hyrule was thrown into chaos and that things got pretty bad.

It is literally a wasteland

1. Blood of the Goddess

So throughout Zelda 2, it is stated that Hyrule's blood is needed to resurrect ganon. Think is kind of odd, because in none of the other games is the Heros blood a requirement in the resurrection of ganon. What IS frequently a requirement for Ganons resurrection is the sacrifice of Zelda (which is to say her blood). We can see this occur with the resurrection of Ganon in a Link to the Past.

The thing that all the Zeldas share and what I assume to be what makes thier blood so valuable is thier being "the blood of the goddess" AKA descendants of Hylia (Sky's Zelda). Therefore, the reason that Ganons minions would need Hyrules blood is not because it's the blood of the hero, but because it's the blood the goddess.

2. ...Magic? Magic!!!

So, Hyrule is the only one the boys who can do magic without it being given to him or having to use an item. We see time use some magic, but all of his abilities are either channeled through his masks or were given to him by the sages in Ocarina of Time.

Time is given Dins fire in the Fire Temple (OOT)

Legend and Four regularly use magic, but only through items such as the four sword and fire rod.

Hyrule however, learns magic. His ability to do magic is innate and doesnt require any items. The only other characters I can think of who use magic like this are the zeldas and a couple of antagonists.

Most of the antagonists are either not hyrulean (such as Vaati, who is a minish and thus associated with magic) or associated with Ganon somehow, who can probably give them access to magic in some way.

So that leaves the Zeldas... who are descended from Hylia and thus have magic. Since Hyrule is hyrulean and definitely not in league with Ganon that just leaves the last option... being a descendant of Hylia and member of the royal gang.

3. Ravioli, Ravioli, it's the Triforcioli

At the end of a Link to the Past, Legend gains access to the whole triforce after defeating Ganon. He wishes on it and then it splits apart again, because he is not it's natural wielder. The hero is only the natural wielder of courage.

However, when Hyrule collects the whole triforce it stays with him. Why? If both Hyrule and Legend have the spirit of the hero, then why is Hyrule worthy of keeping the triforce and Legend not? Because Hyrule is natural weilder of both the triforce of courage as the incarnation of the hero and the triforce of wisdom as the blood of the goddess. The triforce of wisdom historically belongs to the zeldas, so it can be assumed that it is bound to the blood of the goddess. As for the triforce of power, it is often "taken" by Ganon. Since its nature is power, it would make sense for it to align itself with whoever seeks it (it being purest incarnation of power) out. Since Hyrule sought it out and took it, it chose to align with him.

4. Family Legacy???

In Breath of the Wild, we see that Flora also wields the entire triforce. (Evident by all 3 glowing pieces)

It is stated that this is a power passed down to her from her family. But the royal family has only ever passed down the triforce of wisdom not the whole thing... unless she had some potential ancestor with royal blood who some how assembled the whole thing and couldve passed it down thier family lineage...

There is something of a resemblance between them... or as much as there could be over 10,000 years.

Round baby face

Green Eyes (I'm pretty sure Hyrule has green eyes)

So... How would this Happen?

Although it's not clear what exactly happened during the era of decline, it is clear that things were looking bad for Hyrule. It is entirely possible that as the Kingdom declined, the hyrulean monarchy could've lost power and eventually been displaced. This would have led to thier descendants eventually blending into the populace.

So uh yah that's the theory!! I haven't played all of the games so I may have gotten some things slightly wrong. I doubt this is actually true do its probably more of a headcanon than a theory. This is my first contribution to this fandom though so yay!!

May add to this if I get more info!

Description and a bit more info under the cut. 

A series of green, blue, and red graphics using a nice sans serif font and a Zelda display serif font with white and gold as accents. 

First picture. 2024 Linked Universe Fandom AO3 Wrapped, presented by Mina, @zarvasace. (That's me!) 

As a fandom, we wrote 2,273 fics in 2024

That's over 6 a day every day this year! 

In smaller text below: Counting only fics tagged with “Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda)” on AO3. Counting all fics last updated from Jan 1, 2024 to Dec 31, 2024. Data pulled by hand on Jan 1, 2024 at ~2:00 AM GMT-7. 

Next picture. Our favorite tags this year were:

1, Hurt/Comfort with 432 tags

2, Fluff with 352 tags

3, Angst with 335 tags 

4, Not Beta Read with 260 tags. Here there is also a brief exchange in two handwriting styles. One arrow points to this tag with the remark, “perfectionists, much?” Another cursive hand replies “Be nice.” to which the first says, “no”

5, Legend-centric with 251 tags

At the bottom of this image is a piece of parchment. The scratchier handwriting says, “Ha, I'm the favorite. Take that.” and the curlier handwriting replies “Not so fast, Ledge… we aren't done yet.”

Next picture. Favorite tags continued:

6, Blood and Injury with 230 tags

7, Wild-centric with 204 tags 

8, Whump with 215 tags 

9, Emotional Hurt/Comfort with 181 tags

10, Good Older Sibling Warriors with 163 tags. Legend's handwriting says “Din give me strength—” to that. 

Section break, and a bit more: An average of 7.46% fics every month were tagged Whump. Except October, which saw a spike to 29.5%.

Next picture. Our favorite Links. This info is presented in a table, with names on the left and number of tags on the right, organized from most to least. 

Warriors, 1408 (his handwriting says: HA!! I won something!)

Legend, 1398 (his handwriting says: BY TEN.)

Twilight, 1371

Time, 1323

Wild, 1217

Hyrule, 1151

Wind, 1143

Sky, 1137

Four, 1027

At the bottom is another piece of parchment. Legend says: “JUST TEN.” Warriors says: “Jealous?” Legend replies: “I don't know if being the favorite is a good thing.”

Next picture. Our favorite secondary characters were Malon (176 tags) and Racio (160 tags)

Section break. and the most popular pairings were Malon/Time (161 tags), Legend/Racio (89 tags*), Sky/Sun (66 tags).

At the bottom is the asterisk footnote: it's no secret that our fandom tags are a little wonky sometimes. This number adds together the works tagged “Legend (Linked Universe)/Ravio” and “Link/Ravio” where the work was also tagged “Linked Universe,” assuming that people would only tag one. 

Next picture. 2024’s longest fic was: This is an Adjuration by @not-freyja (linked below). 

Editor’s note: linked here!

With a total of 312,547 words. That's almost 971 a day! 

Began July 14, 2023, Finished May 30, 2024. 

Screenshot of the tag summary from AO3, showing a Mature rating, Gen, an archive warning, and complete. 

Significant tags: Time Travel, the Chain as Family, Time Loop, Multiversal Time Travel, Temporal War Crimes, Chain Meets Chain, Chronically Ill Sky, Four Splits Into the Colors, Fairy Hyrule, Hyrule Has a Blood Curse. 

At the bottom, Legend’s writing says: “That sounds like a lot of time travel…”

Next four pictures are a set titled Fandom Trends by month. Each month has, in order, a Popular Link, Popular Duos, Popular Genre, and Unique Tags, along with occasional handwritten commentary. 

January: Twilight. Twilight & Wild. Hurt/Comfort. Crack, Soft Legend. Commentary: Warriors says “aww.” and Legend responds “I'm going to poison your milk.” 

February: Warriors. Twilight & Wild, Twilight & Warriors, Legend & Warriors. Angst. Febuwhump 2024. 

March: Twilight. Twilight & Wild, Time & Twilight. Fluff. One Shot, Linked Universe Discord Server’s 5th Birthday Gift Exchange.

April: Legend. Twilight & Wild, Twilight and Warriors. (Commentary from Legend: “wow Twi”) Fluff. Humor, Canon-Typical Violence.

May: Twilight, Warriors. Hyrule & Legend, Twilight & Wild. (Commentary from Legend, circling Hyrule’s name: “Finally some good taste.”) Fluff. Other Additional Tags to be Added. 

June: Twilight. Twilight & Wild, Time & Warriors. Hurt/Comfort. June of Doom 2024, Sky-centric, Twilight-centric. (Commentary from Warriors: “Wait, doom?! Oh, there's Sky”)

Editor's note: congratulations to @somer-writes who singlehandedly got June of Doom in the top 10 tags of June. :)

July: Warriors. Hyrule & Legend, Time & Twilight. Hurt/Comfort. Twilight-centric. (Commentary from Legend: “leave some for the rest of us”)

August: Legend. Hyrule & Legend, Legend & Warriors, Time & Twilight. Hurt/Comfort. Crack, Fluff and Angst. (Commentary from Warriors: “I'm concerned.”)

September: Legend. Time & Twilight, Twilight & Wild. Hurt/Comfort. Sicktember 2024, Legend Has a Bad Time. (Commentary from Legend: “Excuse me?!” Warriors says: “I suppose your immune system is awful now.” Legend responds with: “ha ha.”)

October: Warriors. Time & Twilight, Time & Warriors. Hurt/Comfort. Whumptober 2024, Warriors Has a Bad Time. (Commentary from Warriors: “oh no…” To which Legend responds: “HAHAHAHAH”) 

November: Warriors. Time & Warriors, Hyrule & Legend. Fluff. Crack, Good Older Sibling Warriors.

December: Legend. Hyrule & Legend, Twilight & Wild, Warriors & Wind. Hurt/Comfort. Families of Choice. 

Parchment at the bottom has Warriors saying, “That's a nice note to end on.” Legend responds, “Not so bad I guess.” 

Thanks for coming along with me on this fun stats journey! It's been a privilege to add to this fandom. 

I thought about adding a section for ratings or prevalence of Gen fics, but I think you can guess that we’re a Gen- and Teen-heavy fandom. You can see my raw data and some more charts over on the Google sheet right at this link. Ha, link. :) 

i cant find you

put on the mask link

Fairy boys (ending!)

i decided to take the story in a different direction than a lot of you were expecting, but i think it really fits the character and the vibe of the rest of the comic. i think you'll agree that this is the best way this story could have ended!

(read the actual comic here if you need context lol)

this might be weird to ask, but how do I critically look at another person's writing and implement what I like in their writing in my own writing? I've been having trouble improving in my writing, and frankly Im not sure how to go about doing that, even. It's easy to see what I like about another person's writing, but hard to pinpoint exactly why...

THIS IS NOT WEIRD TO ASK. It is, in fact, the most important question EVER.

How to Read Like a Writer

Re-read. If you get halfway into a chapter and think, Wow this chapter is super creepy–I wonder how they did that. Or get to the end of a book and think, I feel the poignancy of the fragility of human life in an inherently volatile economic system–I wonder how the writer made me feel that way… Go back and re-read that shit.

Read slowly. When you read like a reader, you read pretty fast. When you go in for your second, or third, or fourth re-read of a passage, chapter, or book that you want to know more about, read it slowly. Really. Slowly.

Read for technique, not content. Readers read for content (”In this paragraph, Damien gave Harold a classified envelope.”). Writers read for technique. (”In this paragraph, the writer made me feel curious about the contents of the envelope by giving sensory details about its appearance and weight.”)

Ask the right questions. They usually start with HOW: How did the writer make me feel? How did they accomplish that?

Read small. Did a chapter make you feel sad? Find out WHERE EXACTLY. What paragraph, sentence, or WORD did it for you? Was it a physical detail? A line of dialogue? A well-placed piece of punctuation? Stories are made of words and sentences. Narrow it down.

Practice. Reading like a writer is a skill that takes time to develop. Over time, you’ll get better at it!

How about y’all? Anything to add to this list? I made it off the top of my head so I’m sure I’m forgetting something. What have been your experiences with learning to read like a writer?

Hope this helps!

//////////////

The Literary Architect is a writing advice blog run by me, Bucket Siler. For more writing help, check out my Free Resource Library or get The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. xoxo