UPDATE May 31st 2010: If you have read Spirit Tracks: The Final Chapter notes then ignore this. Otherwise there is an update at the bottom. Make absolutely sure you read the bold on the bottom of this before continuing to the next chapter.
Not everyone is interested in where story ideas come from. This is more for reader's interest than anything else. There's going to be three things here in order: 1) The story analysis and commentary 2)A thank you and 3) Future plans. If you aren't interested in something feel free to skip it
I would also like to note that the story has no been edited and I am referring to the original content if anything was changed. So if you feel like reading along the cleaned up version feel free. I also changed the chapter names. With further ado
BEGINNING THE STORY
Well I had bought Spirit Tracks early January, I have seen a deviant saying "Playing Spirit Tracks was the first thing I did in 2010." Which fits me well. I really enjoyed the LinkxZelda in the game. I believed in it in Ocarina of Time. I embraced it in Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass. But I loved it in Spirit Tracks. I thought Zelda was a great character; in fact I developed a small crush for her. This is mostly because she looks and acts like someone I knew and loved when I was younger. Before now I considered feelings for a video game character ridiculous but now I understand. I decided I would make a new account and try my hand at FanFiction again. I don't know what possessed me to do a Spirit Tracks romance. Link is a hard character to work with since everyone imagines him differently; I learned this on my last Zelda fanfiction on my other account. Maybe it's because I played Spirit Tracks ten times by February and knew the story somewhat well that made me decide to write the fanfiction. Of course then there's the idea of romance, something I know absolutely nothing about. Unlike my TP fanfiction I was sure ST wasn't a good game for a dark mysterious story. I thought of ZeLink and considered a romance despite my lack of knowledge on it. My sister encouraged me and I couldn't think of anything else so I got to it.
CHAPTER ONE: The letter
In the original I flamed Twilight a little bit for its poor grammar, I suppose that wasn't a smart move as Twilight has a lot of fans and some can get offended, I took this out in the new version. I don't know why but I always imagined Teacher having a British accent. This is my first time doing these two as characters, Teacher was easy as the readers don't know much about him, I could let my imagination take over. Zelda was a little harder. I think I made her a bit rougher than she is in the game, but I don't know…that's my opinion. Something I found odd in the game was how easily people accepted that Link restored the Spirit Tracks and how easily Teacher accepted the chancellor was an evil monster. I made people a little more skeptical here. As I read this a second time I realized how much harder it's going to be to correct this. Grammar slips through me and it's harder to notice the mistakes while reading than while writing. Several times in this fanfiction I have characters say "What on earth?" I considered them saying something else but thought it would be cheesy, I admit I can get annoyed sometimes when fanfic writers do that too much. I mentioned Tetra in this chapter; I decided to have some of the older storys come into play. I thought they would make the fanfic more interesting, although I admit I lose readers by doing this. Not everyone has played Wind Waker and Ocarina of Time and would rather them not mentioned. I mentioned Zelda's family dying too. For some reason people don't seem to know whether or not she has parents or not. I think it's obvious she doesn't or she would be running the kingdom, but that's just me.
People debate whether Tetra is actually Zelda's grandmother. I say she is, although I admit that makes no sense. Still Linebeck the III is Linebecks grandson and the same age so it should apply to everyone. Meanwhile I try to make my Link character; these are always interesting as everyone has to make this one up a bit. In this case I put myself in Link, ha ha ha! I know, I'm so conceited. I got the idea off of my sister saying I'm so much like Link (whatever that means). Once again I found it odd that Niko believe Link's story so readily at the end of ST, I could tell Link was lazy and didn't seem like the type of person to do this at first glance.
I gave Link a little backstory here too, I suppose it wasn't necessary but oh well. My sister thinks I did a good job on Niko. I think I made him too immature, I suppose he ended up alright overall though. Wow I can't believe I used "That" three times in a row in once sentence ha ha ha. The postman comes in, another one of my sister's favorites from me. Personally he played such a minor role that I didn't even pay attention. I originally intended to make a Ferrus reference at the words "Legendary Engineer." But decided I would rather avoid Ferrus altogether. The reason for this is because it's hard enough to use proper logic for this series considering it's in medieval times yet uses cameras and ect. Ferrus being a nerd that actually says Oh Em Gee, is hard to make a character for while following the series logic. So I decided to leave him out, until later I decided to mention him in a chapter so I didn't look like I forgot about him. I decided to give Link all of his powers in this game as if he did all the sidequests. I hope nobody got confused by things such as sword beams and great spin attacks. In the original version Link's thoughts looked just like Zelda's…like this. I changed it in the newer version. Funnily I had the same reaction Link did to Zelda's letter…of course what I was reading was an email and not a letter from a royal princess.
CHAPTER TWO: Swimming
I sometimes wonder if Teacher is Teacher's real name…well it is for this fanfiction ha ha ha. I think I made Zelda sound a little too formal…although she's a princess in the presence of her Teacher, I suppose it can pass. I think that transition between Link and Zelda's thoughts as iffy at the whole time thing, oh well… the swim scene seems to be a popular idea for Spirit Tracks FanFictions. I thought this was a good idea to show some fluff between the two and give readers a taste. I considered having Link call Niko a pervert when he asked Zelda to change her clothes in front of him but thought better of it, especially as I rated this K+ at the time. I decided to make Niko your typical embarrassing parent in this for the fun of it; I don't know how it went with the readers. I notice a lot of people describe Link as muscular…personally I don't see it, especially in Toon Link so I was honest and made him look more what I figured he looked like.
I decided to have Link act in ways that seemed to be completely out of character, the reason for this is because couples apparently show their other side to each other and act differently, I did this a bit for Zelda too but I may have gone overboard on that.
CHAPTER THREE: The body guard
Another popular thing with these Spirit Tracks FanFics is the body guard idea…am I the 2nd or 3rd person to do this? Well it is a convenient way for Link to be with Zelda 24/7 ha ha ha. This is where I introduced Togoron, my name for him wasn't very original, but some readers seemed to like him. The names for the rest of the guards, as well as any other character I made, were generic as hell. Ha ha I bet everyone knew Link was going to win, huh? Yeah…that was pretty obvious. Especially since Zelda said he would. I don't know why but I found Link's cheesy speech amusing…even though it was my joke.
CHAPTER FOUR: The three thieves
Awesome now I just gave Link and excuse to be with Zelda 24/7...he's just like Santa Claus, he knows when she's asleeping, he knows when she's awake =D. Well now that that's out of the way let's crank up the fluff machine. Link foreshadows Byrne coming back…my god I suck at foreshadowing ha ha ha. Also sorry zeldamaster456, Link only massages girls =P. I notice that I really suck at scene transition; seriously I brought the desert village out of the freaking blue, ha ha ha. I made the Lokomo Link and Zelda's age. Nobody ever asked why this happened, thank god. I would have hated to answer them heh heh heh *cough* Plot hole! *cough* out of interest "Areno" means desert. If you want to know where I got the names for the new Lokomo here they are, like the old one's they were named after trains:
Traan=Train
Wistil=Whistle
Geer=Gear
Freet=Freight
Trax=Tracks
Weel=Wheel
Stashun=Station
Now you know, although it was probably pretty obvious before. Now here comes our villain: Ganondorf. I was thinking of who to use for a villain in this, I wanted some conflict and plot for this, not just generic fluff. Although that might be the case if I do the sequel, because I am running out of ideas. I was then later thinking of how Nintendo always uses Ganondorf and how they didn't have him in new Hyrule. Knowing Nintendo I figured they would bring him to New Hyrule one day to be the villain or use Malladus in the same way they used Ganondorf over and over again. Well this got me thinking; maybe I could bring back Ganondorf? It was better than bringing back Malladus which would be cliché as hell. It was also better than making a new villain which I knew I could only screw up. So Ganondorf was born…er reborn.
CHAPTER FIVE: The robbery
I put down that Zelda likes seeing Link blush; this is another experience I got from real life. My friend told me she missed the unconfident me a little bit because she thought it was cute when I blushed. I notice a lot of girls say it to boys they like, actually. I never understood it; it simply means someone feels uncomfortable…
I also decided I would try to narrate from a female perspective half the time even though I am a guy. Whether it's because Zelda had more character or I thought it would be interesting I don't know. I wonder what real girls would think of the characterization I gave Zelda…
I did one of those out of character scenes with Zelda, I'm not quite sure what inspired this particular scene, nothing like this has ever happened to me. Like the other scenes I did it for the whole "other side" thing. I thought of having Zelda have thoughts along the line of saying it was slutty behavior, but decided against it. Even if I rated it T then I probably wouldn't, it just doesn't sound like the type of thing you would hear in a Zelda game.
Ha ha ha, when Zelda asked Link what he thought and he said 'beautiful' Zelda asks if he means it. For some reason every time I tell a girl my opinion and that she looks great she questions me. Once again I fail at scene transition, I improved just a little bit from the original but not much, in this case it's when Wistil and Traan rob everyone.
Hey does anyone know the name of the family in Aboda? I originally inteneded to mention names but couldn't find anyway, the only times I saw names was in Kerian's fanfiction. I was going to use these but I was afraid Kerian made them up too and didn't want to steal.
When they stole from the gorons I decided I ought to give them a weakness. I knew gorons wouldn't lose to a bunch of sneaking thieves; they are too proud and strong. If anyone is wondering, yes all the Locomotive Musings in this chapter exist. You've probably also noticed that I make up the stangest names, this is because I think using your typical American name is weird for a Zelda fanfiction, so I make most of these up out of the blue. I wonder who figured out these were Lokomo themselves? I meant for it to be obvious but you never know… hmm I think this is my first long chapter.
CHAPTER SIX: A day off
I decided to give Link a little more character by giving him a Zelda's fear of rats as well. Some people find it annoying that Zelda is afraid of rats and bugs, yet she fights things like Malladus, personally I can sympathize. Link's reason for fearing rats is actually the reason why I am afraid of rats. And honestly I just don't like bugs, I won't freak out as much as Zelda at bugs but rats are really bad for me. Although instead of cowering I just freak out and destroy everything around me until it's dead. My reason for hating bugs is the same as rats…I think I must also have a phobia of birth ha ha ha!
I had them sleep together in this chapter; I wonder if it was too early and too overused in this fanfiction. Due to my aspersers I have a tendency to be repetitive. I checked this and realized I spelled peace wrong…my God I suck. Geez I hope I did the romantic scene right because I made it all up. I don't know how people feel when they do this. Yeah this chapter was mostly filler ha ha ha. Although I did bring up "damage" in this story. Most fanfic writers like to make Zelda closer to real life and have people actually get hurt from something that Link only loses a heart for. In all of my fanfics I like to embrace Zelda's poor logic and make an explanation for it =P. I decided to make them act all goofy in the hot spring part to show they were getting more comfortable around each other.
CHAPTER SEVEN: He returns…
First chapter I tried to make Ganondorf's characters, I wonder how I did on that is this fanfic. I decided to make Link very defensive about Zelda this chapter, although he did show signs before. I suck at fight scenes; I never give enough detail, heh heh. Maybe I will get better at them someday. The way Link felt about Zelda being defenseless was sorta how I felt when Byrne attacked her. It was like watching a puppy whine for food, it's cute and sad at the same time. By the way the hidden power Link had to make himself move was the Triforce in Courage buried deep within him. I'm going to end with a quote from my brother "Dude the story's good and all, but really it's 20 chapters and it took 7 to get the plot!" ha ha ha
CHAPTER EIGHT: Preparations
After this chapter I had to make it rated T due to complaints, I'm not completely sure it was necessary now but for some chapters later it would have definitely been necessary so it's all good. Eh…I think I did the revealing of Ganondorf's identity poorly in this chapter, otherwise it was pretty good I guess. Anyone else originally wonder why people would want Dark Ore? It melts in the freaking sun! I gave Link a weird fetish for Zelda's belly in this chapter. I don't know if it's normal or not, I had one for a girl I liked for whatever reason and I never figured out if normal guys felt the same. I don't know why I liked it rubbing and touching it either. Perhaps it's a fatherly instinct to rub a girls belly because that's where a baby would be if she was pregnant?
CHAPTER NINE: The meeting
In this chapter I couldn't think of a name for the Rabbitland rescue man. Zelda Pedia gave me "Rabbit loving man" and that's what I used. This is what's annoying about ST fanfiction compared to TP fanfiction. Every character you would ever want to use in TP has a name, whereas some people in ST are nameless. This is when this became the longest fanfic out there. Of course it stands no chance is Kerian finishes, if she goes through the trouble of finishing it, that thing could be a novel.
CHAPTER TEN: Spies
I believe this is my longest chapter for the whole story. I feel I explained the song for reawakening Lokomo poorly and had too little depth. Has anyone ever been to a desert before? I have, and I stepped on the sand bare foot just like Link. My God, it hurts. I personally liked how the swim scene went, although I may have overused it… I gave Link more complex emotions in this. I debated whether I should or shouldn't and in the end decided I would. I don't know how readers felt about it. You know I had a situation sorta like Link's except I was in sixth grade and was playing tag. I did what you would call a "tag back". Well I got her hard in the chest…you see this was ok to do to a guy and I had never watched the… "growing up" video. I thought girls didn't develop any of that until they were in their 30's. Yeah I was that inexperienced. I never bothered looking at their chests long enough to figure it out either. The girl's friend then had to sit down with me and explain it when I told her I simply didn't understand. It felt incredibly awkward ha ha ha. Yeah good thing I uped the rating to T. Zelda getting her butt grabbed by a drunk isn't K+ material. Once again I lacked names but am pretty content with Jolene III.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Ganondorf
In this chapter I have Link start writing his love letters. Even as the author of this fanfiction I have trouble keeping my mind on Anjean as a kid. I keep trying to imagine her as an old lady, so I added a little of that in this. I decided to fluff this chapter up since there was going to be the fight later and I didn't want to completely depress my readers. I got using the Sand Wand to help them from viewing a piece of artwork from DevianART. I know the grammar sucks for the Phantoms; I did this on purpose because they talk like that. Now some might wonder why I had Link and Zelda fight like that in a ZeLink fanfiction. Well simply put I wanted to make it realistic and perfect at the same time. EVERY couple fights, but the bad couples are the ones that let the fighting damage their relationship and do it constantly. Good couples hardly fight and grow closer together when they make up for it. This is how I wanted Link and Zelda to be.
CHAPTER TWELVE: The plan
God I hated writing the first part of this chapter with all the fighting…I wonder how it was for fans to read? At least they finally kissed in this chapter, ha ha ha. The readers seemed to love it. I don't know how I did in Link's letter as I wouldn't know romance if it shot me in the heart. I'm crossing my fingers that it's good. Speaking of romance my sister originally wanted me to make a romance between Byrne and Anjean since they were young now. I considered it but since I couldn't help but kinda picture them as they were in ST I couldn't do it, just felt too odd.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Story of old
It's been noticed that three days of undescribed fluff has passed in this chapter. I got one complaint about that, ha ha ha. If you want to know why I did that, it's simply because I only have so many fluffy ideas before they get old and extremely worn out. For one of the coming fanfictions I'm going to make some fluffy ideas. At the same time I'm going to make the plot. Then I will spread the plot out and sprinkle all the fluffiness on it. This way I know where to start and where to end and fit it all nicely there. I based Link and Zelda's obnoxious honey moon behavior off of my brother. The 180 in personality is pretty similar. My brother is a bit like me in speech and emotions, we rarely do either. Except he talks in a monotone more than I do. Then he got a girl and a clone of this ZeLink relationship for chapter 13 happened. I hope my memory was good enough for the OoT story. I tried to quote the Triforce story's perfectly.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: The first Lokomo
I decided to make Zelda behave immaturely here to fit with the whole honeymoon thing and to show improvements. They go from fighting to small problems they can talk over. I liked the fluffiness near the beginning too. Once again I made them grow closer from the disagreement. I also got her reasoning for doing it from my friend who would act like a complete idiot around me all the time. When asked why she did this, she told me it's because she liked it when I acted smart for her, ha ha ha.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: The final preparations
Don't know why but I felt like getting all the Lokomo in this chapter, so I did. I wonder how much I could have stretched this if I wanted to. I introduced King Bulbin in this and might bring him back for the sake of the plot. I thought the fight was pretty good between him, Zelda, and Link. Second longest chapter I think.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Restoring Byrne's memory
Tried to make the beginning a little sad and fluffy at the same time. Not sure if I did a good job on that though. Here I just realized I spelled quiet wrong for quite a while…I spell 'quiet' as 'quite' -_-
I started making the chapters shorter so I could update faster. I wonder if the readers like this or my other style better. I forgot to have Emrbrose find his timpani so I put it in this chapter ha ha ha.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Temptation
For some reason I decided I would have Link and Zelda dress like they normally did for the final battle. Maybe it's the nostalgia in me…I don't know. Don't think it makes that much of a difference. I made Link grow taller than Zelda because I used to be shorter than the girl I liked, she teased me about it a bit and it annoyed me. I always wished I was taller than she was, so I made Link taller, ha ha ha. I forgot to give Carben the whip in an earlier chapter so I did it here as well, that's what happens when you rush I suppose. Tried to make the scene with Ganondorf epic but I'm not sure if I did it right. I feel I ought to have prolonged it. I originally planned to make it so Ganondorf wanted to possess Byrne because of his Lokomo body and become one with him. However I wanted Byrne to be tempted and being possessed wasn't that tempted so I pulled a Darth Vadar instead "Join the Dark Side!" ha ha ha.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Hero's of the past
I decided for some nostalgia for the better. I did this because they do this in every Zelda game it seems so I wanted it to fit in. Unlike the others though I decided for Link and Zelda to directly reference it from other games. I don't know why I killed Alfonzo just to bring him back…I think I had a reason but I forgot… by the way the flash of pink they saw was Byrnes magic. Once again I don't know what inspired me to have them meet their ancestors, but it seems generally liked so I guess I shouldn't complain. I wonder how I did on the characterization of these old heroes. I had Tetra remark that Link isn't a lot like the hero of winds. At least I don't think so, in Spirit Tracks he seemed more mature most of the time, maybe it was the slightly deeper voice?
CHAPTER NINETEEN: The final battle
I tried to do a little hero's journey here and make Link suddenly wiser and more understanding. I don't know how I did but it sure was cheesy, ha ha ha. I stole some parry attacks as well as other fighting elements from other Zelda's as well as the wall jump and tail grabbing from Mario, ha ha ha. I brought back beast Ganon from OoT, I considered giving him dragon wings as a new addition but decided it would be stupid. I liked how the fight turned out and for some reason liked the scene where Byrne calls all the people of Hyrule to help them. Looking back the scene where Ganondorf laughs that high pitched laugh after killing Alfonzo reminded me of when Chancellor Cole laughed at Byrne's death. I don't know why though. I let Ganondorf live because Nintendo would have let him live too, they need to reuse Ganondorf at least fifty more times before Zelda dies, ha ha ha.
CHAPTER TWENTY: The End
I made it unclear when Ganondorf would appear in case I wanted him to be used in the sequel. I highly doubt he will be as I think I found a less cliché villain. Still cliché but not as much as Ganondorf. But I didn't know this when I wrote the chapter so…
Man even after all this time I keep spelling "Yeah" as "Ya"…*sigh*. I think the clapping scene for Byrne was cheesy, I'm considering on rewriting it…
I decided to end this with a cliché kiss ha ha ha.
THANK YOU
I would like to thank everyone for reading this; I would like to give added thanks for those who reviewed. I would like to personally thank zeldamaster456 (luigisonicfan456) for reviewing every chapter for this fanfiction and being so encouraging. I would also like to thank Teengamer for reviewing almost every chapter and showing me my mistakes. This probably isn't the best ST fanfiction out there (well…no it isn't really, ha ha ha) but I hope you enjoyed it and enjoy the next one as well.
FUTURE PLANS
This is a bit iffy, I might change my mind. It's going to be awhile before I write more fanfiction. My sister is playing ST again and when she's done I'm going to play. I might play more than once and I also want to buy a few more Zelda games like aLTTP and Minish Cap. For now this is my plan. I will write the rated M sequel. I will write both actually. Despite the love of the idea for the sequel I think I will do the original ST story first. It's easier than writing a completely original idea so you guys have something to read while I think of a plot for the sequel. As well I want to think of some fluff for it. Also some people don't like the idea of a rated 'M' ST story so if I do this they won't have to wait for it to be over to come back. Like I said this won't be like Kerians (not just because I'm not as good at writing) where there's a lot of new unrecognizable things, a good deal of it is going to be cannon based on memory. I might change my mind on this but that is the current plan for the new stories.
UPDATE: Adding chapters from the end of Spirit Tracks: The Final Chapter for those who don't want to read it because of its M rating. These chapters don't contain anything inappropriate.
Copy and Paste of Update from my Profile. DO NOT READ IF YOU PLAN TO READ BUT HAVEN'T READ Spirit Tracks: The Final Chapter
(May 31st 2010): I know this might shock a lot of you, but I'm actually considering writing ANOTHER fanfiction. If you haven't read Spirit Tracks: the final chapter, then let me warn you that this update contains spoilers and there's no need to rush and read it. You will have time to vote. Alright well remember when I said my cousin was looking for ideas? Well she asked for some help, and I was starting to present most of the ideas for the story. They were very basic, the basic plot line and character personalities. I ended up giving most of the ideas and she said I should write it. I said no, but continued helping her with ideas. After awhile we got really into it and she asked me to consider writing it. Well I considered it and I'm not sure. This is the story of the new heroes mentioned in the epilogue of the Spirit Tracks: The Final Chapter. I'm hesitant because this is unlike anything I have ever written. Every fanfiction I have written was Zelda (TP and ST). You see, when I wrote these I already had several developed and undeveloped characters at my disposal and an already present story, I was just building off it or (in The Legend of Spirit Tracks, the original's case) copying and adding depth to it. I have very little of that here as it's 100 years after ST and 95% of my characters would be OC. I'm not a big fan of OC either, yet at the same time it seems that there are people who wanted me to continue the series and I'm starting to get a good plot down, a less awkward one than my last. I'm doubtful that I will ever do it, but depending on what I get on my poll (and more importantly, any personal PM's I receive) I could be persuaded to do it. So tell me...do you want me to write this story which will be Zelda themed but with 95% (or more simply a lot) of OC's in it? Or would you rather me leave the series as it is? If I DO write this, then be warned I doubt it will be any time soon. Also I'm going to add the last two parts of Spirit Tracks: The Final Chapter to Spirit Tracks Sequel as well. This way people who don't like M ratings can enjoy the series to it's fullness.