Toon Zelda redesigns! I've never been fond of the Toon Zelda design, and these girls deserve some individuality. Design notes and rambles below the cut :D
(time to turn the proper grammar off i aint capitalizing all this. warning: i am verbose)
first up, tmc zelda!
shes the one most like toon zelda, since i felt like the vibes fit the *most* (though not a lot). also, with her place on the timeline, i could justify a lot of bits, like the wings and the cape
the cape! obvs it comes from the toon zelda base design, but also it involves skyloftian fashion! i take the timeline as a challenge, and i once saw a take somewhere that the skyloftians all wear their family crests (most often birds lol) on their person. zelda here (and link too) do just that, wearing their family crests on little caplets. on the back is, of course the royal crest
i went very cutesy princess for her. tmc has such a *whimsical* vibe that i feel is very. muted? by the fact its stuck with the toon style. so i wanted to put in that vibe here. also her sprites make it look like her skirt is super poofy, so how could i not?
curly hair: i wanted something interesting, and most zeldas have straight hair. so! adds to the cuteness
i didnt draw it so well but she (and link) both have very sleepy expressions. zelda especially just has a sleepy expression in her sprite, its quite adorable.
shes not as decked out as other princesses, cuz i see tmc taking place before the royal family really starts to get *royal* as we see it. shes still of course got a tiara and some embroidery tho.
Tetra!
her base design isnt all that changed from the original. her name is a fun hc of mine tho. i think "von Hyrule" sounds better as a surname than just "hyrule". shes not zelda, but shes still a descendant.
(WW) princess z (as i call her)
I went more oot zelda vibes for her, since she would be closer, temporally, to oot. i also went very warm, since ive never seen the flood as a *warm* endeavor.
shes got the shoulder danglies, as most zeldas have shoulder armor of some kind. the danglies instead of actual armor are supposed to kind of evoke a royal sea captain kind of vibe.
shes ghostly, with a fish-eyed stare. shes been dead and gone for a long time. shes also a bit taller and a few years older than tetra (as of ww). shes just some spectre the king saw in tetra, not at all a close match
tetra, being smaller than princess z, doesnt fit into the clothes. the dress is too big for her (as is in canon gd that skirt is WAY too long for her), the coat is baggy. the role of a princess *literally* does not fit her.
the ribbons! theyre my replacement for the wings, and they represent the wind in the game! since its represented by white lines, the ribbons are a perfect symbolic match. (also, a note, tetras hair is shorter and coarser than princess z's)
i mostly bullshitted the blue panel but the vague idea i gave it was 'a hope for the triforce to give good fortunes to the people' (pictured as dots, mostly behind her arms)
Pirate Queen Tetra
ph! about a year has passed, and tetra has really grown into her own! as well as literally grown!
shes still tetra, pirate and captain, but shes incorporated that royal heritage into her identity: quite literally! she made piecemeal of the original outfit (what was left of it anyway after the fight), and added bits and pieces to her new life.
she also takes full advantage of said heritage to call herself pirate queen. its great for branding. whos gonna say she CANT go by pirate queen?
the seagull feather is from Aryll. only crew member tetra wears a trinket from (who can say no to that ball of sunshine! certainly not tetra)
not many notes. yall can see whats there. (also she still wears her hair in a bun, its just in a low bun (you can almost see it) when she wears her hat)
st zelda!
first note is: shes not a princess! shes an heiress of the company tetra had made and left behind. hence her title of Lady zelda. ("new hyrule" rly just like-- the ending of ww was *literally* that hyrule is dead and thats okay. how did they miss that :sob emoji:) also calling her Lady Zelda fits with the train vibes
shes in a 1880s style bustle dress because 1) i am OBSESSED with bustle dresses. i love them. so much. 2) the more historical vibe works really well with trains! also a lot of the other outfits in the game have late victorian vibes, so shes certainly not out of place.
her hat (and gloves): any proper lady has a hat on when going about town, however, when she gets body snatched, she pulled out her hatpin to use (ineffectively) as a weapon (she IS tetras great-great-granddaughter), causing her to lose her hat *and* hairdo.
shes still got the hatpin in her ghost form, too. she uses it to threaten people for funsies
Ribbons! on the topic of hairdo, her ribbons! visually tying her to tetras design, the ribbons here instead take on the image of train tracks, with her pin (on the left side) evoking a train engine. the pin also makes her look rich and girly. when her hair comes undone, this makes the ribbons all loose, like how the train tracks disappear in game. (the hat also kinda connects her to tetra)
thanks for reading :D i hope you liked reading this as much as i liked typing it
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09 soapghost au, ghost was a member of soap’s unit before roba and they were together until he was taken. when he comes back and takes up the ghost mantle, simon riley is declared KIA and the hope that soap had let kindle in his heart that he’d come back to him dies. he throws himself into training, into becoming captain so he won’t let down another soldier the way he let simon down
then he recruits ghost to the 141 and ghost sees how much he’s changed, how much harder he is; slow to smile, never relaxing and he realises how much he fucked up by never reaching out. he’d thought he’d be better off without him, without the shell of the man he used to love but he’d done nothing but hurt him
after the close call with shepherd, soap wants to get right back into it, wants to hunt makarov down for almost getting his sergeant and lieutenant killed and ghost is yelling at him to just take it easy and heal first when soap snaps back, “i can’t lose anyone else! not again!” and ghost just rips his balaclava off, showing his face for the first time in years…
and soap says nothing. he just looks at him, completely unreadable. ghost clenches the balaclava in his hand, waiting for anything; even injured, soap can still pack a mean punch and he’s waiting for it, almost hoping for it… but he still does nothing. just stares
“well? c’mon!” he growls, stalking in closer. “let me have it! tell me how pissed you are! that i left you alone! that i ruined you the moment i touched you! that you regret ever fucking looking at me! scream, shout, say something!” until he’s leaning over soap’s chair, chest heaving
soap’s hand lifts and ghost can’t help his flinch before planting himself, ready to be struck, longing for it, to be punished the way he punishes himself-
soap’s hand gently cups his cheek and he freezes, breath catching as his thumb caresses the snake bite scars on his lip; feather-light and reverent. just like he used to
“you’re as beautiful as the day i lost you”
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I think I cried harder today over my dad's jackets than I did at his deathbed. That was a miserable time of course, a memory that will likely be seared into my brain until I die, but I cried... I think a normal amount, all things considered. More than I ever usually do of course, but I typically don't cry At All. All this free crying is certainly surreal.
The jackets, though. I was put in charge of doing his laundry, because we don't want to pack up dirty clothes. I was expecting it to be unpleasant bc my dad's dirty clothes - gross. But really, it was much more unpleasant in that... those were his. It felt wrong to touch them. Felt wrong to treat his jackets as gross. Because they were just his jackets. They weren't even in the hamper. And then I was remembering him wearing them, and then I was crying. Again. And again. Weeping over these damn jackets.
Then I found a shirt on his bed that still smelled like him. It smelled like a Hug From Dad. And that set me off crying even harder.
In total, I think I cried like 6 times within 40 minutes. It took me that long to finish sorting the damn clothes bc I just. Was a wreck. Like, what are you supposed to do when you're living life like normal, vaguely hopeful bc you're taking steps to secure your own happiness, and then 4 days later you're sorting your dad's laundry because he fucking died. Suddenly. Without a goodbye.
And you have to worry about his lack of a will (even under an ideal situation, only 2 heirs and no conflicts between us, probate's a fucking Bitch), and arranging the funeral, and prepping his obituary, and picking out pictures, and writing a speech bc you want to talk at his funeral, of Course you want to talk at his funeral, but even just thinking about anecdotes you could share has you crying yet again.
I've cried more times in the past 3 days than likely the entirety of last YEAR. And that's WITH my cat, and uncle, and family friend dying. Those all hurt, my uncle most of all, & I was real fucked up over it. But this? This was my Dad. Likely the person I'd have named 2nd closest to me in my life, second only to my sister. He wasn't perfect, but he did so much for me throughout my entire life. All he wanted was to raise us to be happy and independent. And he accomplished it, we're getting by without him, but we still wanted several more decades with him. He was only 57. We should've gotten several more decades with him.
But here we are now. Playing investigators to his life, digging into all his shit, trying to find documents and take inventory of all his things, and learning Many things about him in the process. In his lockbox of sensitive documents, like his SSN and birth certificate and all that stuff, we found an old letter. About a decade old now, written in my hand. Right at the very top, we found that he'd kept the letter I wrote to him telling him frankly about my struggles and the things I wanted him to do better. He kept it. He tried to take it to heart. He looked at it again, sometime more recently than all the rest of the documents. That was on top.
His love for us is evident everywhere. The pictures he has hanging up all over the place, majority of them with us in them. The old fathers day cards placed on display in his bedroom bookshelf. The gifts we gave him, even stupid little knick knacks, placed around his apartment with pride. I wish we'd taken more videos of him. I don't want to forget the sound of his voice. I don't want to forget his smell either, the smell of a Hug From Dad, but I still tossed that shirt into the wash even though it felt like saying yet another goodbye.
It's the suddenness that hurts the most, I think. We were planning on having him help me finally get my license this year. My final words to him, the last thing he would've seen from me, were messages asking up on whether he'd called his car insurance company to make sure there wouldn't be problems. I should've called him more. I don't know if I'm going to learn from this.
I cut my 2 weeks off early to have time to grieve and to work on things for the funeral and settling the estate. The last thing I'd wanna do right now is selling fucking bubble tea in a job I already decided to leave. So here I am without a job, though with potentially two life insurance policy payouts to come. Inheriting half his 401k. Inheriting couches, knickknacks, keepsakes, paintings, art pieces, maybe even his guitar and other furniture if we can figure out what to do about space (I don't have room for this furniture, I don't know if I even have room for the couches, but God do I want to keep so much of this furniture). It has me even considering keeping one of his guns, just one. A tiny little revolver, it sits so comfortably in my hand. I don't even want to use it for anything. I just want to have it, keep it stored in a drawer with its ammo kept separate. I don't like guns, but this is a part of him. He loved collecting guns. He was about as responsible with them as someone can be, keeping them locked in a lockbox and impressing upon his children the importance of gun safety (I've known the basic gun safety rules ever since I was a little kid. Of course, of course, of course.) It reminds me of him. It's horrifically easy to have a gun in Indiana. I apparently don't even need a permit to carry anymore. (I have no intention to ever carry this in public.)
It's all a cycle. Business, grief, thoughts about my future. Round and round, like the most nauseating carousel in existence. I don't know how I'm still so functional. My skills with compartmentalization have been my lifesaver.
And im just thinking about the story my dad's best friend shared today. About a friend of theirs who lost her father. She reached out after hearing about my dad to share his words with her: "it's okay to grieve, but don't make his death your life".
He explicitly referenced himself in this, saying if he were to die suddenly that he wouldn't want us to define ourselves by it. Grief is expected, but he wants us to be able to move on. He's always wanted us to establish ourselves and make ourselves happy. He wouldn't want to be a weight holding us back from that.
So every time I start to feel guilty for thinking about having nicer furniture or using his life insurance payout to fund the rest of my college, I remind myself of that. Thinking about the material isn't a bad thing. I'm only human. And in the end, he'd Want me to be thinking about it. He never intended to die, certainly not without warning like this, so he would've only encouraged me being pragmatic about it all.
He only ever wanted us to be happy. So I need to do what I can to live up to that.
I love him. I miss him already.
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