HOW IT STARTED...
    the first time i ever remember seeing anything pertaining to the legend of zelda was the nintendo 64 holographic majora's mask cartridge we owned.
    unfortunately, couldn't play it since we didn't have an expansion pak (which run around $70 today, thank you). so, instead i stuck to playing the platform collect-a-thon banjo kazooie and banjo tooie. but this page ain't about them.
    it wasn't until middle school when i actually got into the legend of zelda with the 3ds remake of ocarina of time. i wasn't very "good" at video games. i would really just wander around and not do what i was supposed to either because it bored me or because i didn't pick up on the hints the game was giving me.
    at this time, games with journals or a space for your obectives to be reread would've really helped me. navis advice didn't really help me. but ocarina of time (besides navi) doesn't really have any of that so i got lost and just wandered around a lot.

    to someone watching me play, i probably looked both insane and incredibly bored but i was making up plot and stories in my head while i walked through zora's domain or death mountain. it was fun! i had my own ideas of this forest fae kid and that was all i needed. also i was absolutely enamored with (and still am) the shooting gallery. the gyro aim on the 3ds makes it so fun, i could play it for hours.
    in any case, i never beat ocarina of time then. it wasn't until years later when i came back actually understanding how video games worked and beat it. it was probably a good thing because the lessons of ocarina of time, especially some of sheik's quotes, hit real fucking hard when you're at a big transitionary period in your life. like going from high school to college, for example.
    later on i finally got that mystical majora's mask i'd owned but never could play, this one also the 3ds remaster. the timing of when i got that game will never not be funny to me. i was in eigth grade and the reason i got it was because i made a bet with my mom that if i aced my woodshop test first try, she would get me a game.
    i studied with my dad, the master fabricator that he is, which consisted of him just quizzing me off a study sheet from the teacher. and for the record, besides the game, the stakes were that you literally had to get 100% on the test to even start doing things in class. they had to make sure you knew how to be safe, though, how much a paper and pencil test actually prepares you to handle a table saw is debateable.

    anyways, not only did i want a new game but i was also deathly afraid of failing (anything below an A killed me, like, i felt absolutely terrible about myself because from middle school to high school, my grades were tied to my self worth. i've gotten better, don't worry) so i studied my ass off with my dad.
    test rolls around and what do you know, i pass first try and the game my mom gets me is majora's mask 3d. unfortunately, i didn't have much time to play it since it was nearing the end of the semester and i was just busy and tired.
    then i got a bit busy with something that's not school-related. my dad was pretty sick, issues with breathing, and it was just getting worse. i think i knew but i hid in my room a lot and played games like ocarina of time to distract me. but one night, he gets taken to the hospital and the longer he was there, the more i had this very certain feeling he wasn't coming home. and then they decide to medically induce a coma and that's when i was like 'oh'.

    at that point, i stopped going to school. i was so anxious and scared i couldn't focus.

    he did not end up coming home. what can ya do.

    that summer, a few short weeks after his passing, i actually got to start majora's mask and the timing is hilarious and perfect all at once. i think i really needed that game at the time and i owe it a lot for teaching me things about grief and loss and moving forward. but i'll get to that.

    somewhere between ocarina of time and majora's mask, i got a link between worlds which i guess is technically my first 2d(ish?) zelda. first of all, that game literally has the best promotional art. like have you seen it? the style and the oil/chalk pastel-like texture??? inspired. breath-taking. i love it.
    i really remember loving the way the game looked too, how link was just a lil guy! it's so cute! but the game made me pretty dizzy. i don't know if it was so much the wall-merging or the 3d-ish dungeons (especailly those buttons that fling you up), but i felt a lil sick after playing for a bit.
    i don't think i finished it, and if i did, i don't remember it. but i Do plan to return to it, maybe this summer, because i wanna give it another go!