#lu spirits

Let's use food as a metaphor. Every person is a different pastry. Zelda is a cake, Impa is a croissant, and so forth. There is only one type of pastry per a person, and that's it. So Spirit has lived his entire life thinking he's the only chocolate chip cookie in the world. Then he meets Warriors and realizes he's also a chocolate chip cookie, except his has cinnamon in it. Then he meets Mask, who is a chocolate chip cookie but with walnuts.

Same cookie, different additives.

The Hero's Spirit works the same way. Spirit can tell that they all share the same spirit, but there are other traits based upon individual life experiences added to it that make it unique to each holder. Along with life experiences, traits can be reflections of significant people in a person's life, like their friends, siblings, or spouses.

Everyone has these traits too, not just the heroes. Spirits could theoretically dissect anyone's spirit to get a vague sense of what their life experiences are. I say vague because what he senses is in relation to the traditional five senses. For example, he feels warmth (touch) when focusing on Warriors. Traits can also invoke a noise, smell, taste, or visual element. So it's not like he can learn someone's life story in completion, just get hints to it.

There’s two exceptions to the above rule is age and alignment. He can tell how old someone's spirit is, and he already used that in chapter 3 to figure out he had moved through time. Just go with it.

He can also tell right away if someone is a light or dark spirit. In fact, the light/dark difference is so stark that it’s usually the first he registers in a person. It’s automatic, like recognizing a source of light in an otherwise pitch black room.

Furthermore, Spirit has to focus to get a good read on someone’s spirit. Take our food metaphor, for example. If he eats a cookie, he has to focus to identify what the spices are being used to flavor it. If he's not paying attention, he could just eat it without noticing anything beyond the fact that he just ate a cookie.

Most people do this already with their senses-- you can identity at a glance if the blob at the corner of your eye is a person, but you have to look in order to see what color their eyes are.

This is why Spirit sometimes grabs a person's hand when sensing their spirit: it's like bending in closer to get a better look.

That also means he has to know a person's spirit really well before he can pull the long-range sensing tricks that he does with Warriors and Mask. If he's going to find a needle in a haystack, he has to know what the needle looks like.

I think that covers everything. Hopefully I didn't miss something important. And hopefully I won't have to break these rules later to fix a plot hole or something (I'm joking).

So if every member of the Chain has different traits affecting their spirit... what would Spirit be able to sense?

Sky

Spirit could clock that Sky is the first Link based solely on how old his spirit is; he could actually put together the order of the timeline pretty well based on spirit alone, with one except that we'll get to later.

The predominant trait would be the sensation of wind going through his hair

There would also be minor musical elements that sound like harp music to reflect Hylia (The Goddess's Ballad), Zelda (Zelda's Lullaby), and Fi (probably one of Fi's songs)

There would also be traces of the Song of the Hero all over him

Also little zaps of electricity, though none of it hurts

Demise's Curse would also be super fresh on Sky, to the point where Spirit would actually be able to realize that it's a curse and not a normal trait; over time, the curse had gotten so thoroughly woven into the Hero's Spirit that it looks natural

Four

Spirit, taking one look at Four: WHY IS YOUR SPIRIT IN FOUR PIECES WHAT DID YOU DO????

At his core, Four's spirit is like having blackberry jam all over your mouth-- sweet and sticky

There's also a persistent heat from his blacksmithing forge

These two predominant traits are reflected at different levels based on which of the Colors Spirit focuses on

Oh yeah, he can definitely tell that the Colors are there and if he focuses super hard, he can almost hear the internal monologue; mostly he can just get a vague idea of who's in control at the moment without trying

Spirit would also find this super distracting and headache inducing

Time/Mask

Mask's spirit sounds like a ticking clock, but Spirit can't get a good read on that because there are a lot of other spirits from his cursed mask collection clinging onto him that make it hard to find Mask underneath

As addressed in story, the Fierce Deity causes Spirit a lot of pain; basically, the Fierce Deity can tell that Spirit's senses are spying on him and he doesn't like it, so he sends the spirit-equivalent of a noise back at Spirit that causes him a bit of pain

As Mask gets older and becomes the Time that we know in the present day, his spirit changes.

Time has way less spirits clinging onto him; the ticking noise is also far less prevalent

Instead, he's starts to smell more like pinewood and Malon (though, Spirit has never met Malon so he wouldn't be able to identify it)

Other notable traits include Saria’s song, the echoing marble of the Temple of Time, and the feeling of a mask on his face

Twilight

He has used dark magic so much at this point that it’s all over his spirit; at first glance, Spirit would think he’s a dark spirit until he looked closer; the traces of dark magic would probably manifest as tiny black square of Twili magic in Spirit’s vision

Twilight predominantly smells like hay and manure, though it seems to be waning in favor of the sensation of fur covering his skin and the heat of the Gerudo Desert sun

Ilia’s whistle can also be heard, as well as the echoes of Midna’s laughter

There’s also the faint smell of stale wood and alcohol meant to represent Telma’s bar

All of the children of Ordon have also left their prints on him, as well as Epona

Wind

Wind’s version of the Hero’s Spirit feels fresher than everyone else’s, even fresher than Sky’s, though the curse is as old as it’s always been; Spirit would immediately get so confused trying to figure out who’s actually the first in the Chain

Wind feels like a rocking boat; sensing him, Spirits would feel like he’s swaying in tune with the waves

Whatever saltiness from the sea that would be over his spirit is tempered by a far more prominent taste of his grandmother’s soup

There’s a feeling of water on the skin, meant to symbolize the flooding of Hyrule

Whips of tobacco smoke also hover around Wind, representing Linebeck’s smoking (I know he doesn’t smoke in canon, but let me have this) 

Legend

You know when you go on a long hike, and when you finally stop to rest at the end, your legs feels like they’re pulsing? That’s what Legend feels like

His love for travel shines clearly through every inch of his spirit, like a huge splash of color, as well as his love for music; Spirit would be able to hear a whole array of music coming from him

There’s also the soft feeling of dragging your thumb over a flower petal, representing Marin; there also a very prominent taste of salt from being adrift at sea

Other notable traits include the feeling of his uncle’s callouses and the feeling of whiskers at his nose for being a rabbit

New Hyrule is the only place in Hyrule that has rabbits, and I have seen at least one person headcanon that Spirit could be allergic to them (if you know who, please let me know); so it would be funny if sensing Legend just makes Spirit break into a fit of sneezing

Hyrule

Hyrule’s fairy magic would tickle so much, and he would sparkle as if he had a trail of fairy dust behind him

There’s also the scent of smoke stuck in the nose from numerous campfires and the feeling of dirt under the nail

There would also be a hot sensation coursing through the blood stream, meant to represent his anxiety over his blood being the thing that could revive Ganon

Hyrule knows a lot of people and all of them are important to him that, from this point, his spirit gets noisy with so many different sensations representing the old man who gifted him a sword, the moblin who befriended him, the woman in the red dress who healed him, the baker who gave him stale bread, the bar tender who laughed at his jokes-- he’s carries every single person he’s met with him

Wild

Wild is weird-- it’s almost like there was two different versions of Hero’s Spirits in him, but one had been written over and was faded to the point of barely being recognizable; Spirit would have to really dig to find out anything about the faded spirit

But Wild as it of course smells like nature, and he also sounds like nature with a quiet ambiance of birds and the breeze

There’s also the feeling of having water stuck up his nose from his time in the Shrine of Resurrection

There’s also the physical feeling of the scars on his body tensing up the skin

There’s the faint trace of the other champions’ spirits that had clung to him for a time, and they all left traces of their respective elements on him

Zelda’s voice can faintly be heard, but no words can be made out

Warriors

I actually can’t tell you more about how his spirit feels because (light spoilers) the way his spirit feels changes later in CTB

So for now all you know is that he feels like a very gentle fire

But I will say that right now, Spirit can smell the inside of the bookstore Warrior’s mother ran, but since he doesn’t recognize it, he doesn’t really notice it

Anyway, Spirits had to pass a written exam before being accepted as an apprentice engineer, so he's very studious and has a lot of drive (pun unintended?)

He went to live with his Uncle Niko during his apprenticeship in another town; Niko isn't related to him, but he's been a friend of the family for so long that everyone secretly thinks he's actually related to someone and they just forgot who

Niko is his real family, hands down. Those two are as thick as thieves and bring out the wild side in each other

A preteen Spirits used to think Niko was a little lame and kind of embarrassing, but now that he's older, he's all for Niko's weird old man-ness and has even picked up on some of his weird old man-ness himself

That being said, they're both disasters. Neither can clean or cook or do any kind of housekeeping and their shared house is cluttered with Niko's art projects and Spirit's half-finished tinkering

Growing up, Spirits had no idea he was related to the legendary Hero of Wind; Aryll died before he was born, but even in life she was filled with too much grief over her missing brother to discuss it often. Within the family, being related to the Hero of Wind is a rumor at best.

Of course, Niko knows but keeps it a secret from Spirits; once he got back from his LU-adventure, Wind told Niko about the curse of the Hero's Spirit. Then he went missing post-New Hyrule's founding, which really drove the terror of the curse home. Niko thought he could keep Wind's family from falling victim to it by not inadvertently encouraging them to follow in Wind's footsteps

So Niko kept it a secret

And obviously, that didn't work

Spirits' quest to save New Hyrule resulted in him realizing that he needed to embrace his Lokomo heritage and get a handle on his spirit powers; Anjean gave him a little training during his quest but afterwards he traveled around the kingdom to find as many people as he could with abilities like his

They were all really excited to teach him what they knew, especially the religious aspects of the abilities; Spirits is still not the most religious person, but he at least understands and embraces the cultural significance of what he is able to do

This is where he learned how to read a person's Spirit to get an idea of their life experiences and the kind of person they're like; he can also detect where a person is without having to put much effort into it

At Zelda's encouragement, he also got more sword training from the Castle Guard. She offered him a place among them, but he turned it down in favor of remaining an engineer. He still helps around as a swordsman when he can and will act as Zelda's body guard

Speaking of which, he and Zelda are 100% in love. Their relationship started out as puppy love but over the years as matured into a deep connection built on mutual respect

When he's working on designing new engines or parts for his trains, he occasionally brings his drafting materials to the castle gardens so that he can work alongside Zelda; sometimes she falls asleep leaning against his arm and he has to be careful not to shake her awake as he works

Whenever she need to go anywhere in the kingdom, she rides in his train and teasingly criticizes his conducting; he takes a lot of pride in his conducting, but he lets her get away with it since her critiques are objectively hilarious

He keeps a tiny pictograph of her taped to his dashboard

But there's a bit of a problem with their relationship, and it's that he doesn't know if he wants to be the prince consort or not. He does love her, but that would mean giving up being an engineer in favor of being stuck at the castle all of the time

Plus, he's doing great as an engineer; he's saving up to open his own garage that produces his own train designs

Eventually, he leaves for the War of Eras

His experiences with Warriors leaves him more sure than ever that he doesn't want to be the prince consort, resulting in him ending his relationship with Zelda shortly after he returns home

It hurts for a long time to be around her since all of his old feelings keep coming back, so he keeps his distance for a long time; it takes a few years for him to go back to hanging out with Zelda as friends

But now she's approaching marriage age, and he spends a lot of time when he's on body guard duty super jealous of these princes and ambassadors from foreign kingdoms who try to court her

But again, he knows he can't be in a relationship with her so he respectfully and silently pines over her (I'm just a sucker for pining, okay?)

Okay, more random headcanons that are a little less sad

Spirits likes super spicy food, but since he can't cook to save his own life, he just eats whatever he can get his hands on

He's super dirty all of the time, just the epitome of scrappy; there's always a smear of oil somewhere on his person

He actually really hates bathing and only keeps his curly hair in check to comply with train safety regulations

He's really polite and a little shy, but once he loosens up, he gets talkative and personable

He's also very contemplative; he likes conducting so much because he gets to spend long stretches of time alone with nothing but his thoughts

His trauma/stress response is to shut down; he goes quiet, loses energy, and sleeps for longer periods of time

He tends to gravitate towards socializing with people who are older than him, which gets him labeled as being no fun by his peers (despite having someone as cooky as Niko for a uncle)

Post-adventure, his best friend is Linebeck III. They're drinking buddies. Neither can really explain why they even like hanging out as much as they do

(I just like the idea of Linebeck accidentally getting attached to one kid and his whole bloodline getting forever tangled with Wind's; they're bros for multiple lifetimes)

Not only is Spirits good at designing and building new machinery, but he's great at tinkering; he can fix almost anything and will buy broken things on purpose just to have something to fix

No one really knows he's a hero; he doesn't like the attention and, at his request, Zelda did her best to keep his involvement with Malladus a secret

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~ Thanks to @squid-ink-personal, @ask-the-kids-from-the-great-sea, @snowylynxx, @raycatzdraws, @owldart, @captain-mozzarella, @losswoods, @the-wicked-bitch-of-the-best, @inked-spirit, @ghostlykidplaidbanana, @teamione, @novirp13, @artistdove, @luwyv, @soflashtastic, @justlovekarma, @macabremadness, @akwardpossum, @mochibun23, and @painted-puddle-of-soup for allowing me to use their art in my collage! More info in Part 1! ~

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First Role as Link: Spirit Tracks

Other LoZ Roles: Link (TFH)

Main LU character: Spirit Tracks Link/Spirit/Spirits/Tracks/Piper/Engineer/Engine/Engie/Train/etc. (Not technically in LU unless you count Wind, but there are multiple fanmade versions inspired by LU with various names)

Alternate LU Voice for: Wind

Some characters with the same voice:

Tetsu (Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood), Hariet, Madame Broode, Tiara, and Cookatiel (Mario Odyssey), Midorikawa Ryuuji and Matsuno Kuusuke (Inazuma 11), Andre (BeyWarriors), Young Conrad (Fire Emblem Echoes), Raven Jpn. Dub (Teen Titans)

...

In the game:

Spirit Tracks

Original Post

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Singing

"Tabidachi no Uta" from Yurushiiro CD

Translated title: "Song of Departure / A Song for Setting Off on a Trip"

Summary of the CD can be found in a previous post. Full CD here.

I recently found audiospeedchanger and decided to see what the song sounded like when pitched down 3 semitones.

Original Post with Lyrics

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"Kimi wa Boku no" from Yurushiiro CD

Translated title: "You're Mine"

I decided to use audiospeedchanger to see what the song sounded like when pitched down 2 semitones.

-3 semitones here

Original Post with Lyrics

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"Natsukusa no Nakade" from Utakata no Koi CD

Translated title: "In the Summer Grass"

Summary of the CD can be found in a previous post. Full CD here.

I decided to use audiospeedchanger to see what the song sounded like when pitched down 2 semitones.

-3 semitones here

Original Post with Lyrics

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"Mouichido Aimashou" from Utakata no Koi CD

Translated title: "Let's Meet Again"

I decided to use audiospeedchanger to see what the song sounded like when pitched down 2 semitones.

Original Post with Lyrics

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Part 1 - Click Here