"How has your character developed?" The Man, The Meme, The Legend

[beknightedheroine]

Because introspection is fun.

Basically, exactly as stated - how has your character developed throughout their time in the tower, from their state upon application? Feel free to be as TL;DR: as you want, because I want to read all of it this is a writing based hobby, words are what we're here for!

ARBITRARY RULES:

->Post your characters as a header
->Reply to your comment with explanation!
->???
->spam sad emotes at everyone else's downward spirals

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Zelda | Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

[sageprincess]

/sobs quietly as she pulls up a word document, this is gonna be a while

[1/2] oh dear god the tl;dr

[sageprincess]

So this ended up being more a 'story so far' but oh well.

Zelda is pulled from immediately post-OoT. The Imprisoning War had finally been won, the Hero of Time was where he should be, the way he should be, and the Princess was ready to finally begin work on reconstructing her broken and battered country.

And then Jason and co. said NOPE. ~Welcome to Animus~

Zelda made her horrortower debut in early January, 2012 – right after the DW move that one time all the floors disappeared and there were monsters everywhere. Of course, she outright refused to believe the worlds had been destroyed. The Goddesses wouldn't allow it, so clearly whoever had kidnapped her was lying. And she would refer to the administrators almost exclusively as 'captors' and 'kidnappers', only using the term 'savior' when being sarcastic. And so she began her stay in the Tower, being an optimistic and determined newbie like they all start out as. It's rather easy to do when you find it impossible to believe everything you've worked towards for the past seven years has been for naught.

January was fairly chill for Zelda, all things considered. The Tower only went up to Floor 25 back then, and having spent a good amount of time in hostile territory, she quickly picked up what she should avoid. Of particular importance, she met FemLink and England, two of her most influential CR. FemLink entrusted Zelda with her little secret after learning the truth about Sheik, but despite realizing Link was from a slightly earlier point in time than her, Zelda couldn't bring herself to tell her of their inevitable parting. The guilt over the selfish reasons for keeping that secret would come up now and again in later interactions, leaving tension in the air. Later, she met England over tea, and after some initial awkwardness over formalities, he regaled her with stories of various British monarchs, which she soaked up like a sponge. At this point she was really just trying to learn how to socialize normally after years of being a ~mysterious Sheikah bard~, and having someone to trust and someone to look up to really helped.

February was her wake up call. She was given a teddy bear to 'take care of' and told she was 'infected'. She was pulled into the Midnight Man game, which she faced with confusion and frustration. But she was not going to let the Tower's games get the better of her, no sir!

And then Ghirahim showed up. In a way, their meeting was useful as she learned of Hylia and her bloodline, but at the same time, she barely escaped with her life. And another was not so lucky. Shortly after Ghirahim's first appearance, SS!Link's limbs were strewn about the Tower in a gruesome display, with his bloodied torso placed in Zelda's bed as a 'gift'. She was Not Okay with this as one might expect, but thankfully her cries of terror were answered by the one who would become her first real cross-canon friend: Minami Arisato, Streganato's sister (remember that, it'll be important for later).

With Minami's help, she managed to recover from that trauma, though while she did, a certain little Hero of Winds arrived and stumbled upon her room. He asked her who she was and she responded with “Zelda, Princess of Hyrule” as always and he asked “Hyrule? You mean that flooded place?”

… Yeah, that went over well. That's the point where her self-esteem really took a silent dive, as she immediately placed the blame for her country's demise on herself and her actions. After all, even if she was trying to do the right thing, she was the one who sent the Hero of Time away, right? She was the one who doomed Hyrule to this fate, right? She didn't really confide in anyone about this (she couldn't really, with FemLink in the dark and no one else from her time who could understand), and the idea that, no matter what she did, no matter what her intentions were, she would ultimately fail everyone took root in her mind and began to grow like a weed.

Moving forward, dwelling on those thoughts was interrupted momentarily by the Valentine's event, in which WW!Link became a creepy stalker child, there was mild unresolved romantic tension between her and FemLink, she got beat up by sadistic!Samus, and she swore off chocolates forever. :|b The rest of February went largely without incident.

Then Hitori Kakurenbo happened. Both FemLink and Zelda were pulled into the game, and they stuck together like glue for the duration of it. This cam to bite them in the ass when, after twelve hours of hiding in a wardrobe, they were found by Captain Cinnamon Claws. In a fit of cruel irony, Zelda was transformed into a crystalline statue – though she remained conscious and aware – and her body was used to beat FemLink into a bloody pulp before shattering herself. Her revival marked her first real heroic BSOD in the Tower. The memory of being used to kill her best (and at that time, who she perceived to be her only) friend, of hearing her screams and cries of pain, of being completely and totally helpless to stop it, was simply too much for her to take in. She broke down sobbing, was found by some of her positive CR at the time, and later made a promise to stay by Link's side for as long as she would allow it (even though she knew she wouldn't ultimately be able to keep that promise, it was still one she took very seriously).

Moving into March, her recovery was aided by the arrival of Tetra (she had family again!) and bonding with Minami over Queen. Because it is a proven fact that Queen makes everything better, yes.

Of course, that all went to shit when Ganondorf appeared in the Tower. Needless to say, that encounter did not go over well and Zelda racked up her second death. Being used as a human shield sucks, fyi.

A few more weeks passed and remember Streganato? He becomes relevant here as the collar switch event takes place. Minami was one of the ones affected by the switch, and she became possessed by her fragment of Death. After learning about her subsequent murderspree, Zelda went in search for her just as her reserves were running out. Unfortunately, this is Animus and not a shojo anime, so her attempts at a “I know you're in there” fight fell on deaf ears. Streganato showed up then, saving Zelda at the cost of putting crazed!Minami out of her misery. Later, at a “friendship party” hosted by Willow and Aradia, she learned Streganato and Minami were brother and sister, and she promised Streganato she would look after Minami as best she could.

Then she met Gandalf. Almost immediately upon meeting her, Gandalf told her that she was the one who had to lead the Tower to freedom. That because of her bloodline, her Triforce, and her station, she was the one best suited for the task. She protested – remember that complete lack of self-esteem? - but Gandalf only said he did not believe he would find another who would be able to fulfill this duty.

Funny how that little word can get her to do just about anything. Her sense of duty warred with her lack of self-worth, and she went to England for advice on what to do. After a bit of talking, she recognized that self-worth or no, she was still the sole heir to Hyrule's throne, and if nothing else, she should try to gain true leadership experience for that purpose.

She would get her chance come May, at the start of the Labyrinth event. Many of her close friends had been taken to the Labyrinth, and she refused to sit around and watch them be forced to kill one another. She gathered up a small task force and together they broke into the inner Tower. After a good amount of fighting, they managed to reach the outer wall of the Labyrinth, where they encountered Jason. He was less than pleased that they sought to put an end to his experiment, to say the least. With a push of a button, he killed each one of her group instantaneously, making their efforts for naught. She spent the rest of the event sulking.

When the participants of the experiment returned, she tried to act normal for their sakes, especially when she found Minami on the verge of contemplating suicide after she learned the nightmares she experienced could be viewed on the network. Needless to say, that social link reached Rank 10 that day.

Then Jason had his little Q&A, pissed off the entirety of the Tower, and Gandalf was like WE NEED TO GET THIS FELLOWSHIP THING GOING. And Zelda cursed her sense of duty and said “okay fine.” So recruitment started. And with recruitment came the thought that she needed to be the image of a perfect princess all the time, or else people wouldn't want to follow her. So she became more formal, stopped correcting people when they referred to her as “Your Highness” or “Princess,” and generally started bottling everything up when around people she was not close to. Which wasn't much of a change from her seven years in hiding, but it was a bit more difficult to do after a few months of just trying to be “normal.”

She also began social linking with Streganato, as he appeared to understand the difficulties of being viewed as a leader.

[2/2]

[sageprincess]

Then the Fire Nation attacked Infighting happened.

Zelda was luckier than most, being placed in Dax's pod with several people she trusted like FemLink, Legolas, and Aqua, and she spent the first week enjoying the strange sort of comfort Dax provided his group. She also managed to strike something of a truce with Majora, which would become the foundation of their odd sort of friendship later. At the end of the week, however, she witnessed the horrors the other pods were forced to go through, and her determination to win skyrocketed. England's plight especially moved her, as without her conscious knowledge, she had began to see him more and more as a paternal figure, and seeing him in pain brought back awful memories of her father's assassination.

And then England was 'eliminated.' Gruesomely, by vivisection, and in front of everyone.

Zelda did not take this well. Especially when she realized one of the people who had sentenced him to death had been the very person she had confided in not more than a few weeks earlier. Blinded by rage and grief and betrayal, she lashed out at Streganato, cutting off all future interactions with him. Though already emotionally exhausted, she refused to give in, and spent the second week doing everything in her power to win the challenges. And it was almost enough; at the end of Week Two, Dax held a slight lead – five points over Jason's four and Riki's zero

There was hope. And Zelda grasped onto that hope with everything she had. But Week Three's challenge was passive: endurance. And Dax's pod became merely an empty room, with two meals of nutrition bars and water given each day. Majora encouraged the pod to make the most of it, to dance and play music and not give into despair, but in the end it wasn't enough. Due to Sayaka's rebellion, Jason's pod was disqualified, and due to Ganondorf's break-in, the competition was ended early. The endurance challenge was worth six points in total, and Ruana deemed that Dax's pod simply did not have much to endure. So Riki won.

The month of July.

The whole competition was to see who would take over for the month of July. Once again, Zelda did not take this well. She had thrown her entire being into the competition, had promised England before his execution that she would win and he wouldn't have to suffer any more, and it was over before she could even process it. She spent the last week of June virtually catatonic, to which Ruana responded by giving her a “prize” for being the “most entertaining” of Dax's pod: a book dealing with loss of all kinds.

She stomped on it before leaving to return to the Tower proper.

Her return to the Tower did not bring much of an end to her emotional volatility at first, however. She broke down sobbing in England's arms after finding him again and telling him the news, and Minami had disappeared. Despairing because of what he witnessed during the event, Legolas succumbed to a broken heart shortly after, with Gandalf, Gimli, and Zelda in the room. Streganato went on his murderspree and Majora went on a rampage searching for her lost Fierce Deity mask, though thankfully she was able to escape and calm each person respectively. Really, the only relatively good thing to come of early July was her regain: two small bottles of water from the same springs her ancestor bathed in during her journey to awaken the goddess Hylia. Encouraged by Fi and desperate to stop feeling completely helpless, she performed the same ritual, hoping that in doing so she would gain just a glimmer of the Goddess' wisdom and power.

The rest of July went largely without incident until the first Fellowship meeting, which... did not go as smoothly as she had liked. Yet another self-esteem dive, whoo!

August was... busy, to say the least. She spent the first few days of it in a KH!coma, thanks to Xehanort, in which FemLink finally found out how OoT really ends, Riku found out about her alter ego, Ruler learned of Hyrule's state during her adolescence, and Ventus found out about the whole “descended from a Goddess” thing. Also she had an epic bossfight with Momotaros, but for the most part the dream event lead to a lot of things she would have rather kept secret being revealed.

(Though FemLink finding out about what happens at the end of OoT ended up with a promise to fight time and space to be together again so everything went better than expected??? Sort of???)

Then Monstro's Revenge happened. Zelda wanted to fight to keep the swarm of monsters at bay, even offering to create a barrier to Riki, but Gandalf and Legolas told her she was too important to be on the front lines. This frustrated her, to say the least, and she spent the rest of the event in the cafeteria, keeping up a glowy rainbow sage barrier in order to feel like she was at least contributing something to the fight.

After that was somewhat resolved, the Ghoul Powder mini-plot became a thing, and Zelda was incapacitated by a crazed Momotaros. While in the infirmary, two of her closest friends, England and Ruler (aka Jeanne D'Arc) encountered one another, which... went about as well as one could expect. Of course, not being from Earth, Zelda couldn't understand the apparent animosity between them, and was left upset, confused and hurt when Ruler excused herself. In truth, she was afraid of losing someone she cared about, whether it be England or Ruler. But of course, she didn't say as much – that complex about bottling up her feelings was still firmly in place.

At least, until September rolled around. Kind of hard to keep your feelings to yourself when they've manifested as a separate being, no? Zelda's Shadow went about spouting her fears of being left behind, alone, and her insecurities about being placed in such a high position of authority. Self-loathing being Zelda's middle name, she denied the Shadow, and a bossfight took place. She would later run into FemLink's Shadow, but Link refused her offers of help. Yet despite being hurt and upset that Link wouldn't trust her after everything (including her own Shadow), she showed up to fight her Shadow when Link was beaten down and broken by it. Since then (due to my own busyness with school), she's remained fairly quiet, helping a bit with the bodyswap event and making an appearance at the 'Pissed in Jason's cornflakes' party, but largely keeping to herself.

In all, compared to when she first showed up, Zelda has become a lot more emotionally volatile. Despite her best efforts to remain stoic, the stress gets to her every once in a while, leading to outbursts like the end of Week One during Infighting or FemLink's Shadow. Of course, as mentioned previously, her time in the Tower has not done good things for her self-esteem or guilt complex, and she's also become a bit less doggedly optimistic, which is saying quite a bit since she managed to survive for seven years in hostile territory without losing hope. That is not to say she's become a snarling cynic, however. She's just... tired of fighting all the damn time. Still, she'll persevere, because that's what she does. That's all she really knows how to do, she believes, deep down.

More positively, though, she's learned how to interact with people without feeling awkward, and is getting better about trusting people, even if she still has a bad habit of being afraid the people she trusts will betray or leave her eventually. She really does like people, but those fears still get in the way of making real friends sometimes.

… Good god, I think I'm done.