Our Story

This is the abridged version of how Diamond in the Rough came to be. Written by the founder, Dani/xMarinx, as well as proofread and edited by Mandy. ----- "After the crash of “Hyrule: The Land of Zelda” in 2002 xMarinx found a site called “The Zelda Fan” (TZF) where she met AARST who helped as a moderator there. Some months later this site too crashed. During her time on TZF she had noticed the appalling lack of Malon/Link fans, Malon fans, and a complete lack of people that even knew who Marin was. During the time after TZF’s crash she explored the internet for a new forum as well as fan art. She ended up disappointed with a lack of results. Angered after her art was turned down from two web sites because it was of Malon and Link, xMarinx had had enough and she promptly created a Proboards forum and named it “Diamond in the Rough” believing that it was a proper description of her favorite female characters. Once the forum was created she asked AARST to assist her as a moderator on the forums and help with the coding and set up for the actual site. The site went up, but its popup layout was not a popular one. While AARST and xMarinx rounded up fans and welcomed them to their world xMarinx joined a site called “The Forest Glade” where she met HylianBlood through a couple pairing thread. The two became great friends almost instantly as they were the only two supporting the couple. There xMarinx also met Adella, who had the first real gallery of Malon and Link fan art as well as fan art of Marin. But the two weren’t the end of the friends that she met through “The Forest Glade”; she also met one of the most open minded Zelinkers that she had seen at that point in time. xMarinx promptly told HylianBlood and Adella of her site, where they both became administrators of the forum. It wouldn’t be until after the crash of “The Forest Glade” that Michi would join the DitR family. Adella loved the idea of the DitR site and one day surprised xMarinx by purchasing the domain www.ZeldaRomance.com and setting up a wonderful forum. There xMarinx met Mandy and Michi, and Serenity joined some time after the forums went online. The forums grew tremendously. Sometime later the site was hacked and Adella became busy with many things outside DitR and so the site experienced a lot of down time. But finally, xMarinx talked with Mandy, AARST, and HylianBlood about reopening the original Proboards for all the fans. They all agreed and the Proboards forums returned. With happenings in real life the site needed more administration so the four talked and decided that they needed smart people that had an open mind toward all pairings. This lead them to promote Michi and Serenity to moderators, but the DitR staff still had room for one more. Around this time an interesting and intelligent person joined the forums named Romantic Soldier. Romantic Soldier didn’t start off sharing her preferred couple pairing on the forum, so the staff talked and wondered about who this person was and if they were friend or someone that could be there to possibly try to cause problems for the forums as people they had encountered in the past. But soon RS, as they eventually became to be called, came to show that she was a Malon/Link enthusiast and she was then asked to join and complete the DitR staff. Since then, although the Proboards forums have not reached the popularity as the one at ZeldaRomance.com, DitR has continued to persevere; the fruition of such efforts have given rise to the current website which has only recently gone public. Regardless of how strong or weak the Malink pairing popularity is or the number of fans actively participating on the forums DitR wishes to continue onward even though characters like Malon and Marin may never again be featured in future Zelda games. DitR was made by the fans, for the fans…and as long as a single fan of Malon or Marin exists so too shall Diamond in the Rough. Make the fairytale come true!" - Dani & The DitR Staff