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This Link cosplay has a complicated backstory. I started it in November 2021 (hence the weird ordering on the project list compared to the completion date), right before my first post-pandemic convention, but took huge breaks throughout the process because of loss of motivation and difficulties making it, amongst other things.

Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask are some of my favorite games ever. They mean a lot to me, and I'm very attached to Majora's Mask's dreary universe in particular. During the pandemic, I was kind of aimless with cosplay projects; my 10th cosplay anniversary was a big milestone that was completely absorbed by the closure of events in 2020 and 2021. In a bout of nostalgia over my progress in the hobby, I thought back to my list of dream cosplays from long ago.

Cosplaying Link had been a dream ever since I came back from my first convention, but at the time I could only really modify thrift clothes with a lot of help, or make simple props, so Link felt unachievable and I'd moved on to simpler costumes. Ten years later however, I felt finally ready to do it justice. In November, I quickly sewed up the whole outfit and made the Hero's Shield from Majora's Mask out of EVA Foam. After this, however, I had trouble assembling the scabbard, and the wig looked... Terrible, so I shelved the costume for a long while and moved on to making May and Warden Ingo.

In September 2022, almost a year later, I felt bad abandonning my dream project, and pushed on to make a "good enough" version of it. I made the Kokiri Sword out of EVA Foam and a wood dowel, skipped the scabbard and built a Deku Mask with the rest of the EVA foam instead. The boots I had thought to use for this cosplay (an ill-fated Robin from Fire Emblem plan way back in 2017) had begun peeling in storage while taking a break on Young Link, so I made some quick boot covers over my shoes out of extra matching pleather my sister found in her fabric stash. I washed the wig and re-styled it; the teasing and volume building worked out much better on the second attempt, so I no longer felt awful about that part of the costume.

The plan had been to wear it to events at some point, since it was, after all, a dream costume. But between the shirt making me feel exposed, distractingly visible dark marks appearing wherever sweat dripped, and the fact I was a grown woman trying to look like a child, this costume gave me such a hard bout of dysphoria around cosplay I just couldn't bring myself to go wearing it. Nonetheless, because I still respected the energy I put into it (again, dream cosplay), I booked a photoshoot with my favorite photographer Steven Peng Seng.

In the end, I cherish these photos a lot. Steven made me feel lovely, and I think I look wonderful in these in a way that helps me not get caught up in the details too hard. I still don't like how I look like a grown adult portraying a child (a child whose character looks very specific in my head, and it's not a feasibly achievable look for a human to pull off), but the photos help me focus on the passion I had for the character instead. I can appreciate the insane work I did on the sword and shield without thinking about the missing scabbard. Seeing these photos at golden sunset, it helps me remember the costume in a fond way.

I ended up only having the courage to bring this costume out to a Zelda concert once. But this costume contributed to a lot of negative feelings I had over my body and the hobby; a lot of it can be attributed to exceedingly hard expectations I put on myself in trying to make this a "milestone cosplay" to celebrate my 10 years cosplaying. I'm happy I'm in a better place now with the craft, but it took a while to get there and start appreciating myself in costumes again. You can kind of tell, actually, with how I started moving away from this type of cosplays not long after this. Heck, it took me a little bit until I started exploring my childhood dream cosplays again, and this time it was under the lense of mascots and fursuits, where I took away the stress of performing "how I look, how I emote" as a criteria for my own satisfaction.

Writing this now in 2025, I choose characters more carefully to avoid running into this situation again. I couldn't keep tying my satisfaction to stringent personal standards exarcerbated by cosplay culture on social media. It's an important costume to my artist journey in a bittersweet way, but I'll always be glad the photos I keep of it put it in the best light.

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