Bro the autism has won and now I’m wondering how Legend of Zelda can mention the fact that they had a civil war and all of the shady stuff the royal family had done in the shadow temple and in general. So, now I’m thinking of how the civil war started and I’ve seen some people think that it was started with Gerudo and Hyrule fighting but that’s not a civil war that’s just war between two nations/countries/tribes/etc (Gerudo wasn’t apart of Hyrule before the war). So, I think that Hylians were having inner conflict between themselves (hence why it’s a civil war) and the two (or however many) sides got allies to aid them and basically dragging everyone into their mess until the king was able to unite everyone into one kingdom and the Gerudos has to swear loyalty to the king of Hyrule

Idk I just love history, war, and world building so my brain is like “OHOHO BUT WHAT IF” so take everything I said with a heavy grain of salt but I wanna know what other people think about this lol

THE GERUDO POST

(aka an attempt at a critique of how gerudos were handled in BotW and before)

Oh no. TOTK being right around the corner, it might finally be time for the Gerudo Post.

(aka half of the reason why I made a Zelda sideblog in the first place)

So I want to preface all of this by saying that, as you could probably tell already, I’ve always adored the gerudos. They have fascinated my small child brain when I was 7; then the obsession made its comeback when I was 14, and now, here we are, almost 28, and I’m still thinking about the gerudos. I think they might be among my favorite fictional cultures for their potential and their understated storyline. I guess growing up in a very Arabic neighborhood, coupled with being bi-culturally latinx (?? does Brazil count?? you tell me), also always made them feel like home to me –especially when I was very young and there was not a lot of cool female representation flying around that managed to involve fiercely independent PoC women, flaws and teeth included.

This whole weird-essay-thing tries to do two things. First: analyze the place gerudos have occupied in the series, their initial problematisms and their subtextual narrative arc during the Myth Era coupled with their relationship to Ganondorf. Second: tiptoe to Breath of the Wild and poke it with a stick to see what happens –and in doing that, explain why I believe a lot of their characterization was defanged in service of smoothing their past with the hylians instead of deepening the culture on its own terms, and why I’m a little apprehensive about what that might mean for TotK even though I adore seeing the best girls at it again.

Those are the uhh terms of service??

And now, we must go back to 1998.

OCARINA OF TIME ERA

There’s so many things about the gerudos that are noteworthy and rich, and they’ve made for a complex piece of Zelda lore ever since their introduction –and when I say complex, I don’t 100% mean it as praise. The very racially charged decisions made about their inclusion have been discussed at length by the fandom, especially when it comes to orientalist and Islamophobic tropes being deployed pretty thoughtlessly in Ocarina of Time (their sigil being literally a crescent moon and star originally, the parallels are pretty obviously there).

We’re talking about a band of amazon-like, big-nosed brown women from the desert ruled by a single Scary Evil Man born once every hundred years hellbent on conquering Hyrule who they apparently worship like a god, characterized primarily as thieves, decked in jewelry and orientalist-inspired harem/belly-dancing clothing, hostile to the white good guys of Hyrule (especially men), unblessed by the Goddesses and so deprived of elongated ears (this is true for OoT –we’ll come back to that), also known as a demon tribe with their deity straight-out described as evil-looking by Navi (on my way to cancel you on twitter Navi you watch out), and secretly led by evil twin witches who can turn into a single seductress and, as two mothers, raised their Scary Evil Guy king who happens to basically be the devil.

In so few words, gerudos are the future that liberals want.

It’s worth notice, also, that Ganondorf’s characterization in this game is… kind of relentlessly uncomfortable to play through, especially before the 7 year skip. The utter assumption of depraved and evil intents from every character surrounded by dialogue that does little to hide its biases in spite of having generally very little proof to back them up –even though, in the game’s context, every character is correct to call his eyes evil and the darkness of his skin a moral judgment in on itself. The scene where Zelda demands that we believe her conclusion that the sole and only brown guy in the entire kingdom is evil and will do harm, and the game straight out refuses to progress until we concede that her dreams are prophetic and that this man must be stopped at any cost even though she has no more proof than her discomfort… hits different on replay.

I’m restating all of this not to pretend I’m making a novel and thought-provoking point, but to bounce back on a tumblr post I saw a while back (that I can’t find anymore!! I’ll link it if I find it again) –and so express what it is that gripped me with the gerudos in spite of their pretty damning depiction… and actually maybe thanks to it.

There’s a surprising amount of texture to Ocarina of Time’s worldbuilding that exists folded within the things introduced and left hanging, or in its subtext –and whether on purpose or not, I believe it is why people keep coming back to this iteration of Hyrule.

What was that about the king of Hyrule unifying a war-torn country? Why did the gerudos break the bridge connecting them to the rest of the kingdom during the 7 year timeskip while still worshiping Ganondorf, and why are the carpenters trying to rebuild it against their apparent wishes? What was that about gerudos imprisoning hylian men trying to force entry into their lands? What was that about the secret death torture chambers right next to the Royal Family’s tomb and connected to the race of people who were, apparently, born to serve them?

Nothing? Oh okay… okay… okay….

The same can be said about this strange depiction of this hostile tribe, consistently described as wicked yet suddenly friendly once you prove you deserve their respect once you... defeat them, so you now have joined them? Ocarina of Time isn’t very consistent when it comes to characterizing them as their occupation (thieves) or as a proper culture, with a king and a strange system of rulership that seem to involve at least 5 people: Ganondorf, the Twinrova, Nabooru and the unnamed random woman who decides you’re now part of the gerudos because you slashed enough of them with your sword and hookshot, which, uhh ok.

They’re but a ragtag and negligible group when discussed next to gorons and zoras and hylians, but they also clearly have their own religion and at least a 400-hundred years old history (probably far longer than this) and hints of a written language of their own. I’m not sure the game itself knows what it wants them to be, beyond: intimidating and hot and cool, but also wicked and, because of Ganondorf and the way you barge in their forbidden fortress (heh) with the explicit intent to dismantle their king, in apparent need to be saved from themselves.

Speaking of rulership and the Spirit Temple, let’s have a quick tangent about Nabooru: I always found her characterization when meeting with Child Link pretty strange. I refuse to mention the promised reward, which feeds into everything orientalist mentioned above, but I always found her moral compass so extremely convoluted for someone coming from gerudo culture. Nabooru says that, despite being a cool thief herself, she resents Ganondorf for killing people as well as stealing from women and children. Stealing... from women. Nabooru. Why are you this pressed that he steals from women!!! This feels so out of place, that the only girl of that hostile culture that betrays her king and befriends you, is the one that upholds moral values that only a hylian could possibly hold.

Either way: the strange unquestioned contempt of the game for them as a culture, mixed with the occasional bouts of heart, friendliness and badassery, makes it hard not to consider their depiction as pretty biased in favor of the hylians finding them at once exotic, scary and exciting, and could hide a more complex reality you might only get one side of –especially when you know there were originally plans for Ganondorf’s character to be more gray and motivated than what the campy final version ended up being. To be blunt: even in the context of a game for children, and maybe because of that fact, it all reads like a reductionist and imperialist/colonialist reading of a more complex situation.

This might seem like A Lot coming from a game where the actual game writing can be this overall flimsy and simplistic due to the standards of the time (it’s rough, it's so rough). But I would have never dwelt on that thought about a little children’s game if not for the mainline entries that came soon after, because... ooo boy.

The sense you’re not getting the whole story was certainly not helped by the introduction of Wind Waker Ganondorf, and the chilling emptiness of Gerudo Desert in Twilight Princess.

AFTER THE TIMELINE SPLIT

(I’m skipping Majora’s Mask, not because I dislike them in the game or think they’re not worth talking about, but because it’s a parallel universe and they’re never even called gerudos and their reality seems extremely different from their sisters in Hyrule so I think it’s okay to call them tangential and not dive too deep in this particular depiction)

Here’s something I want to highlight about gerudos and how they were characterized before BotW came along: their absence. Not only their physical absence, the lack of any gerudo character that calls themselves gerudo, but their absence from the text itself.

It’s not that Wind Waker and Twilight Princess retroactively scratch them off existence: we can clearly see Nabooru’s stained glass art in WW as well as recognize them being mentioned in Ganondorf’s final boss soliloquy, and WELL there’s quite a lot to say about their imprint over the world of TP. They are there –or at least they... were there. But nobody ever talks about what happened.

In Wind Waker, there was the deluge. It’s assumed lots of people died then, and those who survived scattered across the Great Sea. Are they sealed under the waves? Have they drowned? Is Jolene, Linebeck’s ex-girlfriend in Phantom Hourglass, a distant relative of one of the rare survivors? It’s unclear, beyond the fact that Ganondorf is the only living gerudo we see in this entire branch of the Timeline split.

In Twilight Princess, the desert which bares their name is empty. The hylians never mention that it used to be the name of a tribe: they’re not even named when Ganondorf is introduced for the first time, reduced once again to a mere band of thieves. We learn his plans to steal the Triforce in OoT were foiled, and that he may have turned to war. Then he lost the war, and was executed in Arbiter’s Ground: a strange structure in the desert, a mixture between a temple, a prison and a coliseum. What looks like gerudo writing coexists with hylian symbols, which often look much fresher. This dungeon is the Shadow Temple of TP: a prison hosting the worst criminals the kingdom has ever known, now haunted and cursed. Besides the locations, the only character that vaguely look gerudo in the entire game besides Ganondorf is Telma, a character with pointed ears that never seems to identify as anything but a hylian. What happened? Who’s to say. Nobody ever says anything. Not even Ganondorf bothers to mention them the way he did in WW –and though the game’s story is quite focused on another exiled tribe seeking revenge and dominion over Hyrule as retribution, the parallel is never explicitly drawn. So who’s to say what happened there. Who’s to say.

And in A Link to the Past and the games forward? The only mention of other gerudo characters are Koume and Kotake, resurrecting their son in the Oracles games through their own sacrifice and failing to bring anything back but a monstrosity incapable of making conscious decisions. Granted, most games in that extremely weird Fallen Timeline predate OoT and therefore had yet to make gerudos up at all. Still: canonically, between the gap of OoT and ALLTP, whatever it may be, gerudos disappeared here as well.

I think there’s something subtle and a little heartbreaking about the fact that no matter what Ganondorf does, the gerudos always end up dying out. His yearning for Hyrule, its gentler wind and the Triforce blessing its lands always costs him the kingdom that he does have already.

Now, does he care? A lot of people would argue that he doesn’t, that he used them like pawns for his own ambition and saw them as servants more-so than sisters, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Nintendo’s official opinion, but… One very powerful thing about most of Ganondorf’s incarnations (focusing on the human ones) is that he never seems to reject his cultural heritage. They could have gone for him wearing more kingly hylian stuff given the whole underlying theme of envy and pride surrounding his character, but never once does he try to look more hylian, beyond the ear situation that seems to be tied to the Triforce of Power? Either way: he is gerudo. Several of his outfits reference his mothers, as well as general gerudo patterning and jewelry. His heritage is something he proudly displays, even hundred of years in the future when there is no one left to remember what it means but him. I think it’s a very potent piece of characterization, an arc that crosses over multiple game and says something pretty intense about this character’s fate and his inherent destructiveness over the things he touches –starting with the Triforce, all the way up to his very own body and mind. His mental breakdown by the end of Wind Waker, when the king of Hyrule himself forces him to give up on the thing he sacrificed everything for, takes a new kind of weight with the whole picture taken into account.

(not to excuse genocide or general egomania-fueled madness and violence, but one thing doesn’t mean the other isn’t also relevant)

Regardless of whether this is a tragedy for Ganondorf as their uhh complete failure of a king, honestly, it is undeniably a tragedy for the gerudos themselves: a once-in-a-lifetime joyful event turned into a never-ending nightmare from which there seems to be no escape, their legacy now condemned to fade to black, leaving nothing behind but a demon boar forever laying ruin upon the world.

One may say I’m taking on the bleakest explication for the gerudos’ absence when there could be others. It’s true! Perhaps the gerudos are just chilling off-screen, completely fine, not interested in whatever is happening in the kingdom nearby and their disaster child having yet another temper tantrum about not being the Goddesses’ favorite boy. It’s possible! But regardless, what little elements we do possess as players doesn’t seem to support this, even if it remains possible –and regardless of actual gerudo lives, gerudo culture is definitively a goner in every single timeline.

Even if they did survive... Hyrule still won its unification war.

(I won’t mention Skyward Sword as they are not really a thing there, except for a butterfly that seems to suggest the Gerudo Province was a thing before the gerudo people –I don’t know what to do with this honestly– and the whole Groose situation, which, I’m not sure what to make of either beyond the fact that he may have gotten cursed by opposing Demise? And then went on to start the gerudo tribe, which ended up being an all-women group for some reason? Maybe? It’s not confirmed? I feel like it’s more of a fun tidbit than a central piece of the gerudo puzzle, so I’ll leave it there like I would a cool rock I brought back from a walk and that I don’t know where to put in my house)

Then, Breath of the Wild happened and changed things.

BREATH OF THE WILD

(Additional short note, but: while I won’t mention Four Swords Adventure, since it’s a weird one that almost nobody has played and severely messes with the Timeline, we kind of see the beginnings of what is about to happen in Breath of the Wild in this game –gerudos coming back without much explanation, then distancing themselves from Ganondorf to become friends with hylians because he was too hungry for power and now they are nice and have good reputation because they are our friendsss)

I was actually so happy to learn gerudos were making a comeback in a mainline Zelda game, and this got me more excited about Breath of the Wild than basically anything else the game involved. And getting to explore the Desert once again, meeting this new batch of impossibly tall buff girls, getting more about their language and their culture, Riju and the rest of the little girls are adorable, the grandmas are so cool, the sand seals??? sign me the fuck up??? And above it all, hanging around Gerudo Town at night and feeling as warm and cozy as little me liked to imagine how freeing it would feel, to stay there and watch the desert behind the safety of their walls in OoT… This was great. I loved it.

It was a huge compensation for the criticism I’m about to make, but did leave me with… questions regarding how their culture was going to be handled moving forward.

I’ll start with something small yet deeply revelatory, then work my way from there.

So... gerudos’ ears are pointy now.

This is pretty significant. Lore-wise, it’s been said that the elongated ears of hylians are there so they can better hear the voices of the gods. It’s considered a sign of holiness in-universe. There's a bunch of really thoughtful analysis on tumblr over that whole Ganondorf ear situation, which is a mess but also very interesting, but the short answer is: I think the absence of pointy ears was a clear design choice to originally signify them as Less Good. Even when Ganondorf gets pointier ears, they never get as long as hylians’. Worth noting: not every non-gerudo character has pointy ears: gorons, zoras and ritos (among others) do not possess this trait, and there are even some humans that have regular rounded ears in the series –though they always seem to be of lesser relevance, if not downright peasants in Twilight Princess. Pointy ears always tended to implied a strict hierarchy in the series: basically, the more pointy, the more Protagonist you become.

(also their eyes becoming green instead of the traditional yellow/golden, which looks more wicked and demonic --and cooler also tbh)

The pointy ears imply two things. From within the game, this could be interpreted in two ways: either that gerudos… converted, for a lack of a better term, and are now considered holy through their worship of the Golden Goddesses and/or Hylia, or that their mingling with hylians through tens of thousands of years had them acquiring this trait out of sheer genetic override (though they have kept their mostly-women birth rates, their big nose, darker skin –for the most part– and red hair). Probably a healthy mixture of both. Design-wise, it signifies something quite simple to the player: they are on hylians’ side now. They are good guys. We can trust them, even if they still have a little spice in them. They aligned themselves with us and against Ganon in all of its manifestations (even if he’s but an angry ghastly pig being parasitic to everything it touches in this iteration). They are on the side of Good, definitively, and will fight evil by our side.

On that note, I think it’s worth bringing out another major change from their initial iteration, which is their overt friendship with Hyrule as a whole, and with the Royal Family in particular. Despite not allowing any voe inside their walls (we’ll come back to this), their relationship with hylians is pretty neat. They have booming trade roads, travel and meet with the rest of the cultures, and are fierce enemies with the Yiga clan, who are renowned for being huge Calamity Ganon supporters. The tables certainly have turned. I want to bring out, in particular, Urbosa’s friendship with the queen and her role as the cool aunt taking care of Zelda and protecting her from evil (to be noted: I am not familiar with Age of Calamity so if I’m mischaracterizing her in any way, please let me know). The gerudo sense of sisterhood has been extended to the royals they used to fight against. I would go on and say the cultures peacefully coexist, but I think that what we’re looking at here is a case of vassal behavior, just like we used to have from zoras (in the non-Fallen Timelines) and gorons. This is a huge departure from gerudos being openly rejecting of Hylian culture in their initial iteration, and something that is worth returning to later.

Okay. Now it’s time to mention the weird obsession BotW gerudos have with romance. I didn’t take notice of my issues with their writing until I realized how prevalent of a theme that was. Now, the reason given for gerudos to refuse entry to males (of every race) has much more to do with preventing young gerudos to make mistakes than anything else, and is actively being put into question by the younger generations –which would make sense. But the amount of NPCs that either lament their lack of match, talk about their husbands (because they marry now apparently) or are invested in romance, and a very limited understanding of romance at that (heterosexual, closed, etc), makes for much more of the population that I initially expected. There’s no mention of what’s going on with their males, if there are new males being born and either exiled or abandoned, or if Ganondorf being technically still alive have have cut them off male heirs. Either way: no more kings, only girlbosses chiefs.

To have the gerudos so interconnected with Hyrule, not only through trade but through extremely coded romance where they have to make themselves palatable to a future male partner and enforce fidelity, was… a choice. The extremely brief and skippable mention of gerudos sometimes going to Castle Town in search for boyfriends in OoT became half of their personality traits in this game. We went from a race that was fiercely independent and mocking of the unworthy men who tried to mingle with them, to… this. Now I’m not saying some of the sidequests aren’t cute, or that I didn’t like the wedding, or that the grandma near the abandoned statue of Hylia (so she was worshipped at some point) clocking us and talking about her love life wasn’t one of my favorite gerudo conversations. I’m saying that the vibes have definitively changed. For the better? I’m not sure.

I once stumbled upon an article that said that Breath of the Wild gerudos were a huge improvement compared to their original introduction, because they were no longer presented as evil and hostile thieves groveling at the boot of a single man, but as a full culture allied with the protagonist and actively involved in the story, while still getting their Cool Girl Badass moment (again can’t find it anymore, I’ll link it if I stumble upon it again). I see where this comes from, but I honestly can’t help but consider it a reading that assumes something pretty major (though through no fault of their own, as the games tend to hammer this down as hard as they can), and that being hylians as the unquestioned anchor of Good.

Which, in spite of what the games want me to believe, I… feel uncomfortable taking at face value.

To me, regarding how gerudos are being incorporated in that goodie narrative, this is kind of a case of surface-level feminism trumping over colonialist/imperialist concerns. It becomes more important to perform the aesthetics of being cool and friendly and independent than scratching at any deeper problem that would risk making people uncomfortable. This is kind of Green Skin Ganon all over again: oh wait, isn’t it a little icky to have the evil bad guy being brown while faced by the most aryan-looking ass heroes of all time? Okay, then let’s take the brown guy and make his skin green so we don’t have to feel bad anymore that the conflict has racial undertones!! Solved!! There’s nothing questionable about changing a PoC's features to make it more monstrous and less human, right?

To me, it’s kind of the coward option: instead of accepting the messy reality those initial choices created (and their interesting nuances if taken at face value), let’s just… rewrite the PoC culture’s history to make it feel less uncomfortable for the white heroes. In many ways, it is an extension of what hylians have always done: scrubbing the weird and messy things about the past and shoving them deep down into the spooky well and far into the desert prison and away in alternate hellish dimensions, and then make up a very simple story where they get to feel good about themselves –except this time, it’s the fabric of the games, the literal reality, bending backward to make it happen. Which, in my opinion, makes it much worse than before. Now, there’s no conversation. The fabric of reality is changing their own history so that there is nothing to discuss anymore. Ganondorf was always evil incarnate. He never had any point. It was always 100% his own fault, his own hubris, his own fated wickedness. He was always demonic (and green, very important –having a flashback to people on twitter accusing artists restoring the TotK green skin to the original brown of wanting to make Ganondorf black, and like….. how do I put it gently…..)

And, above all else: gerudo are to distance themselves from his legacy so they can stay in the club of the Good and Just and Holy.

Because here’s the messy thing: as much as I love seeing the gerudos again in Breath of the Wild and as much I love for them to have survived the Era of Myth (??? somehow ???), this… kind of changes Ganondorf’s character arc. No longer do we have the story of a king who wanted more, either for his people, for himself or both, and led his culture to its destruction in his search for absolute Power, while remaining ironically incapable of maintaining what little he already had. This starts from him kneeling to the king of Hyrule in OoT and leads to the deluge, Arbiter’s Ground, his own mothers dying for the sake of his failed resurrection. Breath of the Wild changes this: now, the gerudo were apparently fine without him? They apparently did their own thing and became suddenly and inexplicably disconnected from his actions? I know it’s kind of implied they side with hylians at the end of OoT, but it’s honestly never really explored why they would cheer for the death of their king while never seeming to resent him before except for Nabooru –there are mentions of brainwashing for those who resist him (as well as “other groups in the desert”, tho they are never mentioned again), but it’s hardly a proper plot point for the majority of the tribe, aaaand they still die by Wind Waker in the Adult Timeline, in spite of their potential alliegance…

(again, this shift towards submitting to Hyrule actually started with Four Swords Adventure, getting crisper with each iteration)

There used to be this polite blur regarding Ganondorf’s relationship to them, how much he used them and how much he acted in their name (with arguments for both sides), and I think this messy and debatable question mark was one of the most compelling aspects of his character. Gerudos rejecting their relationship at a near-cosmic, reality-bending level, removes a huge layer of complexity to both parties… all for the benefit of making hylians come out cleaner out of this whole exchange, their moral grayness barely a whisper in the distance.

I’ll kind of go on the record and say that I suspect the addition of Demise to the canon to serve a similar purpose (at least in part): if Ganondorf becomes but the manifestation of a demonic curse, and is no longer an extremely messy character brimming with agency and drive, forcing the heavens to reckon with said agency in a way he was never meant to access, born from a complex set of circumstances from which we clearly get only a limited and biased perspective, then it becomes extremely clear that he’s a Bad in a way that isn’t worth exploring further. Even if he does have some points, he is a Bad. It’s what matters most. Not to say I even hate what this angle can bring to the table or that I want him to become Good (I don’t –I’ll talk more about why I dislike most takes on him being a helpless victim to the curse), but once again, who benefits from adding another Unquestionned Baddie to the equation to rest upon? Not him, and not the gerudos, that’s for sure.

So. Why did I, me, personally, like the gerudos in the first place?

Beyond the inherent coolness factor of their culture and the fascinating mysteries of what is merely suggested, I think… I think I loved gerudos because we were obvious outsiders. Because their rejection of Hylian culture was so sharp and extreme, their value system so different, and their writing, their religion, their relationship to power and hierarchy and worth wanted nothing to do with hylians. They didn’t need hylians, beyond them having potential resources to steal. In fact, the threat of hylians influencing their culture was such that the entry to the Fortress was forbidden to everyone (I don’t think men were ever singled out, by the way, even though they are mocked relentlessly). I think there was something inherently hopeful about this semi-matriarchy resisting the outside world, and especially its notions of what girls were meant to be –it was 1998, and every other girl character in OoT, besides Impa and Sheik that?? is another can of worms entirely, is either helpless or someone to save. For them to reject this narrow vision of femininity was, in my opinion, much more radical than what we got in BotW. Less nuanced, more problematic perhaps? But also much more powerful. Gerudo Valley is home, not to a town, but a Fortress.

Hylians were worth being resisted.

In Breath of the Wild, their refusal to let men enter their town is kind of boiled down to a fading tradition over-focused on romance, a meek little game of chase. Their entire goal seems to be finding a hylian to settle down with. Say what you will about the single man and the many girls (never explored and completely open-ended in its implications, btw), but at least it wasn’t… that. At least it opened the way for different ways for people to exist and imagine culture and civilization, outside of the heterosexual couple, the christian-infused patriarchy and its trickling down implications. What I want to say is: let my girls tell hylians they ain’t shit!! That they aren’t the end all be all of reality! This is what made gerudos so compelling in the first place! Where is that bite now? Where is that self-definition?

It’s gone, because hylians need to be Good. So we tee-hee at the creep running laps around the town, we disguise ourselves to breach their trust and infiltrate their town (though there is nuance to be had there, gender be complicated etc), we watch them pine after shitty dudes and take classes to become the perfect approachable woman and make love soups with ?? strange ingredients honestly, and we witness them get very friendly with the Royal Family they used to conspire against, dying to protect the princess against the manifestation of their ancient king reduced to a raving puddle of Bad Boar.

Hyrule, unified against him.

TEARS OF THE KINGDOM

For posterity’s sake: this post was made before the game was released. I’ll probably update my thoughts on a separate thing later on.

I don’t think gerudos allying with the hylians and burying their own legends about Ganondorf as deeply underground as they can until it blows up in their face is a bad setup at all. It’s actually pretty juicy, and there’s a ton of fascinating stuff that could happen here –even some involving gerudos taking a firm stand against him while still reconnecting with their past and the choices they made once. This is my hope with the title of the game: Tears of the Kingdoms. Let’s examine them all, account for the damage, and decide how we move forward from there with the full knowledge of where we come from.

What I am afraid of (and I already made posts about that) is the scenario where gerudos rallying against Ganondorf, which I expect will forcefully try to take back his place as their king, is used for cheap feminist points that completely fail to examine, well. Everything mentioned above. Where reality bends itself out of the way of the Goddesses, and hylians’ responsibility in any of this mess, so that everything bad is 100% Ganon’s fault and so he must be cast aside and torn away from the Cool Gerudo Girls and this is 100% justified and deserved because we are Independent Women Who Take No Shit from No Men (unless they are the king of Hyrule or any random hylian they wish to marry apparently).

I’ll say this here because it’s been burning my mouth every time I see discourse about Ganondorf and the gerudo: gerudos declared him as their king. To make a really bad comparison that I dislike: he didn’t run around to assemble girls and make a cult around himself, he was born with the cult already formed around him (and it’s not a cult, it’s just a different mode of governance –hylians also revere the Royal Family like gods, don’t they?). This heavily changes the dynamics at play. Not to remove any agency from him to do a little invasion about it, but chances are the ancestors to BotW’s gerudos fully expected him to behave in this way, at least to a degree –in OoT you see very plainly that they value physical prowess, feats of thievery, witchcraft and general violence. It’s more complicated than him being a Bad and making the poor helpless women go along with the plan uwu –even taking the brainwashing into account, AND Koume and Kotake counting as gerudos too, even if they might not be not fully innocent in shaping the culture and the man himself. If manipulation and forced servitude is the explanation given, I’ll be genuinely mad –because, once more, all the nuance and messiness would be flattened for the sake of making Ganondorf Bad and the gerudo Good (= on hylians’ side).

It bears to be said: I think feminism stances that require, not to criticize (which is fair), but to fully dehumanize and bestialize men of color to make any sense are uhhh bad, and it's worth questionning who they end up serving in the end.

The flip side of this would be to make Ganondorf a poor little meow meow that was secretly controlled by the evil Demise all along, and... I’ll be real. I really don’t think it solves our problem at all. It might even make it worse.

My problem with how gerudos have been handled thus far, being mostly connected to how they behave in relation to hylians Good, is that they’ve been systematically defanged not to threaten the status quo as much as they used to. I think it’s pretty clear why I’m not a fan of Ganondorf being a mere victim of cosmic circumstances; I have a post that goes more in depth about this, but to simplify: my man has legitimate grievances. To make him a mere puppet to Evil Incarnate would, to me, be just another attempt to erase the despotism of the Goddesses, the unjust hierarchy of the world, what hylians have historically done to the races they were in conflict with (looking at the Yiga for the most recent example…)

I’m not saying his fight is clean or even legitimate, that he isn't driven by his own sense of self-importance above anything else, or that he should win (he has no plan beyond domination and victory, that's not a future). But I think there’s something really important about having someone being willing to fully consume himself and everything around him for the simple fact that someone should resist the order of the world. Even if that makes him a heartless, cruel, and egomaniac demon-pig. Even if there’s no Hyrule left to rule. Even if his own people despise him, or are long gone and forgotten.

Is it a little heart-wrenching? Uhh yes to me yes most definitively. This is why Wind Waker Ganondorf hits so hard, and remains (I think) his favorite entry in the series so far. But… I still find this fate of eternal resistance more resonant and empowered, and far less grim, than if Hyrule’s lore absorbs his hatred and rage, gives it to another entity that would be Badder (= more opposed to hylians and the goddesses), and scrubs it off anything icky and uncomfortable, rendering it completely domesticated and non-threatening to hylian domination; rubbed of his skin color, of his complexity, of his own emotions, even made... kind of sexy now, in the same way his sisters have been made before him? I am very, very afraid of him being turned from furious and an unapologetic subject in his own legend to a "redeemed" (according to whom??) and palatable object in somebody else’s, that you now end up having to… save from himself.

Again, I want to trust that Tears of the Kingdom can walk that line and preserve everything sharp and contrasting and profound and thrilling about this fascinating setup. I don’t expect a philosophy course, this is a game for children –but it doesn’t mean Nintendo didn’t do an astounding job with similar setups in the past. Again, I’ll invoke the Wind Waker conflict, but Twilight Princess did a lot of great things as well (Zant’s speech, if you can get past the weird stretches and stumping and NNHYAAAs, is pretty fantastic) –and the subtle writing of Majora’s Mask is also proof enough this series can be complex without being impermeable.

So this is where my hope lies. Not really with BotW’s writing, which, I’m sorry to say, but I found to be below what the series has done in the past (I have no problem with the setup and how the story is explored, I think it was a great idea, but wasn’t ever sold on the actual writing the way I may have been with previous titles –it felt… very tropey to me overall, with a couple of highlights). But Nintendo has shown to know how to write compelling stories for children that know where to sprinkle its darkness and how to preserve its hope, and this is this side I’m relying on for this delicate storyline moving forward.

And now? Now… I suppose we wait and see.

(thank you for reading my impossibly long essay what the actual hell, at least I got it all out of my system, see you in part 2 for when TotK comes out I suppose aaa)

Ganon-Centric Story Idea

I have no idea whether this would be a game idea or a fanfic that someone could write someday, but I think the idea of some kind of Redemption story for Ganondorf could be really interesting to tackle.

I have had this idea in my brain for years, ever since I read a fic on FF dot net called “Cry for Hyrule”. I thought it was a really cool story, and did a good job of making Ganondorf a more nuanced character without handwaving the bad things he’d done in the past. Or trying to reframe the goddesses/spirits as evil, hateful beings who don’t actually care about the people they’re supposed to be helping/protecting.

(It also tackled some logic problems in the game it was mostly focused on, like Link being thrown in over his head so often. Or the trees the Koroks were planting to lower the waters always dying despite raising Hyrule being one of Ganondorf’s goals. This was a Wind Waker fic, btw)

I’ve always believed that people aren’t born evil, not even as the result of a curse. Which makes thinking about Ganondorf’s original motives and fall from grace really interesting for me.

He could have, at one time, had very good intentions and reasons for his actions. But then Demise’s Curse over Hyrule took those intentions and twisted them until they became unrecognizable.

Reincarnation exists in the Zelda-verse, even if it’s more of a Vishnu style incarnation/avatar situation rather than a full rebirth.

A reincarnation story built around Ganondorf himself could be really cool. And him working to redeem himself of his past actions could be a deeply moving game/story. With him trying to prove/separate himself from the actions of his past life and prove himself as a skilled/capable King of the Gerudo.

Or maybe the evil was scrubbed off from his soul enough to return him (at least partially) to the person he’d been before the curse Twisted him, and looking back at his past actions horrifies/disgusts him. I mean, he’s constantly being walloped with sacred and/or blessed weapons. The idea that, at some point, those could scrape off the evil to bring back the person he used to be seems possible. Or it being done intentionally as some kind of “weaken the bad guy by turning him back to before he got the evil power boost” type of plan.

And this change is enough that the Tri-force goddesses (or maybe even the mystery goddess the Gerudo worshipped back in OoT) are willing to give him a chance. A chance to prove himself. The chance to clean the rest of the evil away. The chance to prove he really is worthy of their blessing.

I think it would be a really cool story to read/play through. And it could be a great chance to expand Ganondorf’s personality and to explore more of the Gerudo’s culture.

I have to admit, the chance to play as Ganondorf in a jrpg type of game would be fascinating. (Maybe one of those ones with a settlement/kingdom builder thing too… For him trying to prove he really is a good leader/King.)

Or one of those branching storyline games, the sort with more than one ending that you get to by making different decisions in game. Good, Neutral, and Bad endings based on choices you make.

God, the more I talk about this, the more I want it…

(For fanfic, the idea of a story or a crossover where Ganondorf is trying to redeem himself by building a new settlement somewhere or trying to help a hero as part of his redemption could be really good.)

(I don’t know why my brain keeps chucking Naruto at me, but him accidentally kidnapping a little Naruto because of how much he looks like the brat who finally stopped/killed him and then raising/training him could be fun. Maybe the goal Ganon thinks he’s supposed to be fulfilling is finding a place to build a new Kingdom to make up for the one he annihilated/raised to the ground, but no. It’s raising this Prophecy child to do better than he would if left to his own devices.)

(Okay, I am done rambling about all this now. Please, someone either make/write this, or help me figure out enough to at least start writing it myself.)

okay but here’s a big question i’ve wanted to know since i was little playing twilight princess- how tall is zant ?? is there a way to find that out ?? i would love to know if you can find this out 😭😭

Yes, actually! Through cutscenes! (I'm not going to count any of the models used in the Zant fight as his canonical height, since he very much manipulates his size throughout it and gets very, VERY bendy)

In Midna's memory flashback, we see Zant stalking towards her menacingly.

Now, obviously, this isn't Zant's actual height; that helmet of his gives him a few inches.

He uncovers part of his face when speaking to Midna at the Lakebed scene, and then we get a good look at his full head post-fight.

Now we measure!

Zant's head is about 3.3 Zant mouths high.

And that area occupies the space just under the lip of his helmet, below the nose, and between halfway and 2/3rds the way up the side guards of the mouth area. We'll round that up to halfway to account for Zant's mouth being open.

Adjusting for the tilt, we can shave off the top part of Zant's figure based on this.

Zant is 1.4 Midnas tall!

And at the ending cutscene, we see Zelda on equal footing with Link and Zelda, as straight as we're ever going to see them both stand in the same shot.

Midna here is a little less than a fifth taller than Link, making her 1.18 Links tall.

Doing a little math here, this means that Zant is 1.65 Links tall.

Looks good to me!

So now the question remains, how tall is Link?

We get a really good view of the height of the Master Sword when he draws it.

If we put it side-by-side

That extra bit falls juuuuuuust short of being 1/11th the Master Sword’s size, so we can say it’s 0.085 Master Swords on its own. That makes Link 1.085 Master Swords tall.

Here’s where it all gets really technical.

Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess are styled very similarly, to the point that we can reasonably assume the Master Sword hasn’t been stylized to fit Link like it has in Wind Waker.

So here we have the Master Sword alongside OoT Adult Link. He’s walking here, so there’s a small margin of error for his gait.

And Link here is 1.25 Master Swords tall. A bit taller than Twilight Princess Link.

But why bring Ocarina of Time into this?

Because Ocarina of Time gives Link a canonical, verifiable height.

At the bottom of the Lake Hylia laboratory, we see this measuring stick that puts Link at 1.6 meters, or 5′3″ tall. And from there, we can reverse engineer the math.

(Some rounding has been done here, so there’s a decent 3-4 inch margin of error that these could be taller. If you want to skew on the short side, use these measurements. If you want Midna to be taller (5′9″), add 3-4 inches to each measurement (besides OoT Link himself), or 10cm, to account for the various margins and rounding that’s been done)

If OoT Link is 1.6 m, then the Master Sword is 1.28 m. (4′2.3″)

If the Master Sword is 1.28 m, then TP Link is 1.4 m. (4′7″)

If TP Link is 1.4 m, Midna is 1.65 m. (5′5″)

If Midna is 1.65 m, Zant is 2.3 m. (7′6.5″)

And there you go! That’s how tall Zant is, using Midna, Zant, Link, and the Master Sword for scale. Link is short, Midna is surprisingly average human height, and Zant is TALL.

Side note: It’s weird because my brain always put Midna as being at least a foot and a half taller than Link, just because of how she looks in this picture and how I’m used to Link being.

But being fair, my brain ALSO likes to default to Link being taller than me, and he is definitely not.

Bud I’m sorry to swing into your inbox uninvited like this but my soul is having an OOTS renaissance thanks to your content in the tag and did you say Leverage AU

haha holy SHIT this got Long. but yes. i’ve been. Thinking. (also literally Never feel like you have to apologize for sending me messages. i was Hoping someone would ask me about this. now i have an Excuse to share EVERYTHING ive written abt it :3)

Obviously, Roy is the leader/brains of the outfit. He grew up having some Strong Opinions abt what’s Legal versus what’s Right due to tragic backstory involving the death of his little brother which was definitely SOMEONE’S fault for negligence but since there technically wasn’t any illegal behavior, there were no consequences for it. Also he’s still angry at his dad bc he thinks his dad is also partly culpable (and also also just a dick). He’s the Moral Backbone of the team (alongside Durkon, more on that later) in basically the same way Nate was in og Leverage. He’s actually not the best at figuring out what people want (that’s Haley and, shockingly, occasionally Elan), but once he has that info, he is the absolute best at figuring out the ideal plan of attack to use in any given case.

Haley is still a thief. I mean she maps to Parker almost PERFECTLY. Her dad was a thief & a conman, her mom wasn’t but knew about it and mostly accepted it, but she died tragically in a mugging gone wrong or smth, which made Ian crank the paranoia WAY up and taught Haley to do the same in the name of “safety”. Let’s keep the “Ian is in Trouble and Haley needs money, Fast” which is why she signs on to the first job in the first place. She’s less acrobatic than Parker, tending towards finding (or making) weak spots in security, but she can still make a tumble check when she needs to.

Elan is the grifter who is somehow an Idiot but also not???? It baffles everyone. When he’s playing a part for a con, he’s FLAWLESS, but then the rest of the time he’s just. No Thoughts Head Empty. He probably gets lured in initially because he’s decided to try his hand at being part of a full team, rather than the two-man cons he’s been running that invariably end w his partner conning him as well and stealing half of his take. Also he likes the idea of being Crime Friends. He’s that tweet where it’s like, Roy: “after the heist is over, we split up and never communicate again” / Elan: [about to unveil his Crime Buddies Forever Friendship Quilt Puppets]: “never?”

Vaarsuvius is the hacker/gadget person. They have a Vaguely Snobby Yet Unidentifiable accent, dyed(?) purple hair (nobody has ever seen their roots) and nobody knows who they “really” are or where they came from, but they’re good at what they do so everyone just accepts the mystery. They probably got suckered into the team by their initial employer (who I’ll get to Eventually, lol) framing it as a challenge to their intellect, like, “oh, I see, you’re not smart enough to make this team work for you...” to which they were like Fucking Watch Me and also melted his computer. Anyways. They are joined (digitally) by their Intrepid Friend And Co-Conspirator (his words, not theirs), a fellow hacker known only as Blackwing, or, on certain forums, Blackwing_Bird. (In the first season, V only occasionally references him when saying they’re “calling in extra help” or smth for a particularly complex hack job. He starts showing up a little more in s2 and eventually by the start of s4 is a regular & established presence, but only appears as actions in a computer interface or output.) Elan is convinced he’s an AI, Belkar doesn’t think he actually exists, Haley pretends she doesn’t think he exists, and Durkon and Roy try not to think about it too hard, as long as B and V still get the job done.

Belkar is the hitter. He is on the team bc their initial employer got him out of jail for it. He doesn’t have a tragic backstory, he just likes doing violent crimes. As the series progresses, he grows some empathy & stuff, but really only for people who actually deserve it. Assholes still get decked. It’s all very touching. (Also he has dwarfism caused by achondroplasia. It doesn’t actually bother him and is useful in fights bc his opponents frequently have no fucking clue how to approach him, but he likes Pretending to take offense at stupid things just to see how far he can go with it.)

Aaaand last but not least, Durkon is the least involved member of the team. He’s actually a career criminal and Roy’s mentor, and wasn’t a member of the initial team that [redacted, I’ll tell you later, PROMISE] put together for a couple of reasons, the main one being that he’s Officially retired in order to spend more time with his family, which consists of his mom, his friend (not girlfriend) Hilgya, baby Kudzu, and a truly stunning number of aunts, uncles, and cousins. Roy frequently calls or visits him for advice and he Occasionally shows up to help out on local jobs, but generally he avoids doing crime if he can (as part of a deal with Hilgya, who is also a career criminal; basically, they’ve both cut back on the crime in order to provide a more stable home environment for Kudzu. But sometimes, you gotta do a little crime, and in those cases, Sigdi enjoys spending time w her grandson.)

NOW. THE BIG REVEAL YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. Who got the team together in the first place?!

The answer: Lord Shojo (or whatever Normal Person Name you want to assign him). Now this is where it gets tricky: he had them do a thing that they thought was good, THEN they thought it was BAD, but then when they confronted him he revealed that it Appearing to be bad was actually a test of character and would they consider working as basically internal investigators for him? But then he had a heart attack, so, rip. But THEN it turned out that he’d left them a bunch of money anyway and they were all feeling kind of Inspired so they formed the Order of the Stick, LLC (which, no, i am not coming up with a new name, actually, because I just don’t care. someone else can come up w a justification for that name, tho, i’m sure it’s possible). Also Miko was there and was unhappy abt their actions, and also their general existence.

Moving on. Villains!

Redcloak is the Sterling replacement, because that DEEPLY amuses me.

Xykon is a season-long main villain, probably one that Redcloak finds himself working for but then “teams up with” (read: blackmails) the Order to bring him down bc even Redcloak finds Xykon distasteful. That’s season 3, let’s say.

Tarquin is another season villain, say season 2. Nale probably shows up pretty early in s1, actually, as another recurring antagonist like Sterling but uh. Less good at it. Anyways the s2 final 3 eps deal with them (accidentally) discovering that Tarquin runs some Evil Empire Company, then trying to outplay him and take him down. Idk if Nale still dies in this version tbh.

Tsukiko is a one-off s1 villain who returns briefly in s4 alongside Miko, who has gone well and truly off the rails.

Season 1 finale has to do w Roy finally getting Vengeance for his little brother.

The vampire squad is the s4 finale villain who do smth terrible to Durkon and then get the Mother Of All Revenge served up to them by the Order.

I envision the show as being 5 seasons (like og Leverage) but I’m not going to sketch out s5 because I think it should be based off whatever happens in the current story arc, possibly involving some legacy of the OotSquiggle.

Other stuff!

The Order of the Squiggle is a legendary criminal team from the 60s who stole a BUNCH of famous shit & then proceeded to legendarily implode. This has no bearing on the plot I’ve sketched out, I just think it’s fun.

The Sapphire Guard members should probably be reworked as FBI. I don’t care about most of them but I do think that Lien and O-Chul could be like, FBI agents who Choose to look the other way while the Order does their very-much-not-legal-but-still-fair Justice Crime, and maybe even help them out on occasion.

So, the Final season-by-season outline, based on everything I’ve written so far:

s1 e1: getting the team together, doing a con for Shojo, then at the end he dies and the gang is like “dang what now?" and intend to split up except then they Don’t.

mid-s1: Nale shows up and tries to trick the Order, but then gets beat like a drum.

late s1: Tsukiko is an underling of the Villain Of The Week, winds up in police custody. But She’ll Be Back.

s1 finale: Roy’s Vengeance: The Vengeaning. also we meet Redcloak as an antagonist.

s2 e1: the truth abt Haley’s father comes out

early s2: The Two Live Crews Job but it’s the Order vs the Linear Guild and the Linear Guild ARE all bad guys.

mid-s2: Redcloak returns. ugh.

late s2: the sapphire guard FBI makes its first appearance, hello O-Chul and Lien.

s2 pre-finale: once again they’re in conflict w Nale over smth, he spends the whole episodes making Cryptic Remarks, they basically beat him (like a drum!) but then the stinger at the end is that Tarquin reveals himself and Elan is like “Dad?!”, roll credits.

s2 finale, part 1: Elan is hanging out w Tarquin bc he’s DEEP in Denial, the Rest of the team tries to take Tarquin down, but it doesn’t work.

s2 finale, part 2: Elan finally gets a clue and they manage to beat Tarquin. still haven’t decided if Nale dies or not, but I’m leaning towards yes. also they rescue Haley’s dad.

s3 e1: fuck dude idk.

early s3: Redcloak shows up, AGAIN, everyone groans. he has blackmail on them, he wants them to take Xykon down.

mid s3: The Rashomon Job but it’s about stealing the Talisman of Dorukan and it turns out that Nale was there too (“oh!” Elan says. “I was wondering why I looked so weird in all those mirrors! But it wasn’t my reflection, it was Nale’s!” “Sweetie, that wasn’t Nale’s reflection,” says Haley. “Huh,” says Elan, “so the mirrors were broken?”, cue eye rolling from everyone else.), and the Successful thief was Hilgya, who’d nabbed it from the owner before it even went on display.

s3 finale: they beat Xykon, actually factually, because he deserves to get his ass Thoroughly kicked, even if only in AU form. Lien and O-Chul are there, so are some other less helpful FBI people. There’s a bit where O-Chul Exact Wordses his way out of telling his superiors about the Order’s less legal activities without technically lying. King shit.

s4 e1: doesn’t really matter. maybe smth to do w some legacy of Tarquin’s company to set up the drama w Malack & Durkon later.

early s4: Durkon gets SENT TO PRISON. Malack approaches the Order abt this because sure they have Different Ethics but they’re still Friends. (Roy is surprised and a little hurt that he’s never heard of Malack, but he ignores that in favor of Let’s Get Whatever Fuckers Did This To Our Friend.)

immediately after that: Miko and Tsukiko return as a Team, preventing the Order from working on the Durkon situation

mid s4: Redcloak makes another unexpected & unwelcome appearance but he’s maybe a little less of a dick? the Order collaborates with Malack & his Crime Buddies (hello, Vector Legion) to pull one over on him tho, because “less of a dick” does not mean “a pleasant or decent person”, and also he was mean abt Durkon being in jail, so he totally deserved it. he still gets whatever he wanted tho, just takes a blow to his pride. also prevents the Order from helping Durkon. they’re having a LOT of setbacks wonder why that could be, not to make sure the season fills its whole length or anything, no sirree

s4 finale: something something taking down the organization, headed by Hel (yes that’s her real name), which framed Durkon for their Big Crime. Durkon goes free and Extra Firmly retires, For Good, He Swears, but says he “met someone new” who might be an asset.

s5 e1: minrah joins the team! and the episode is set in like, somewhere really snowy. that’s all i got.

the rest of s5: don’t know, don’t care, it’s open-ended until the comic finishes up.

Question from an aspiring writer:

How do you stay motivated on one project for such a long time?

I personally have the attention span of a goldfish, and whenever I have an idea I either have to write down everything my brain can spew immediately or have it be lost in the void for eternity.

Never mind going back and turning my outline into a fic or gasp editing.

Do you have any tips and/or tricks you use?

Ok, I got completely carried away with this just fyi, but hopefully I ended up answering your actual question 😂 tl;dr at the bottom.

To be honest, staying motivated is a tricky thing, one that I feel I'm still learning how to do even now and varies a bit between shortfics/oneshots and multi-chaptered fics/longfics. For a bit of background, I've been writing fanfic for about a year and a half, but I've been writing original fiction since I was seven, over a decade and a half, and I still wrestle with it. It's definitely a learning process.

One thing I wish someone would have told me when I was starting out was the power of ~scenes~ in either multi-chapters or one-shots. All writing is ultimately made up of scenes, but if you're struggling to put things together, focusing on an individual scene, or multiple short scenes, might help you focus on getting something completed, and it's something that eventually can be applied to longer works as well. Writing has been a snowball process for me and once I started getting anything completed, I felt more secure in knowing what I could write comfortably and what was out of my comfort zone, eventually getting to the point where I felt comfortable tackling bigger and longer projects and knowing I could stay with them.

OoT's interlude chapters and the snippet series are both good examples of scenes because I wrote them with that intention...even if most of them are actually two or three scenes combined. "Gai meets Hashirama and Madara", "Hashirama gets revenge on Kakashi", "Tatsuki and Hashirama pick flowers for Madara, then give them to him" etc. were all my starting points.

If you're first starting out and feel comfortable with outlines of some sort before you start writing I would encourage you to try and write down a bullet point list of your scene(s) and what you know you want to happen in it.

"Gai meets Hashirama and Madara"

* Hashirama meets Gai first, mistakes him for Lee.

* Madara is shopping for a gift for Hashirama

* Madara finds Gai and Hashirama, they spar, Gai kicks his ass, both of them love him.

This is how my initial outline looked for the first interlude chapter, technically each one of these "points" are their own scenes stuck together. Outlining is different for everyone, some people like super specific points, others even less detail than this. For me this is a nice middle that gives me a roadmap for the chapter, but allows plenty of room to naturally diverge and add detail. Play around with outlines and see what you're comfortable with/what gives you the best results.

I'm not sure of your individual situation, but if you're struggling to put together fics in general something like this might help. Doing this process again and again personally helps me stay on track and gives me a sense of progress.

This sense of progress is ultimately key and why I think motivation differs slightly between one-shots/short fics and longfics. If you confine the individual scene to a one-shot, that might give you the motivation to complete it. Even if you start writing and you get interrupted/can't finish having in one setting, bullet points sometimes help inspire me to finish because I'm not starting from scratch when I return to writing. The whole "eat an elephant one piece at a time" thing was difficult for me to learn, but ultimately proved true. Learning to chip away at something bit by bit is going to be the only (healthy) way to write longer projects you can't complete in one sitting.

For longer projects, it's a similar beast just on bigger levels and with an added dimension. I would actually suggest something similar to OoT for a starting project because it is ultimately broken up into arcs that you know and can reference, instead of making a lot of og content for a fan setting. Maybe not go into it thinking, 'I'll do a complete rewrite' but once you feel like you're ready for a longer project 30K+ or so, the rough outline method and the ability to follow arcs was what got me started when I eventually decided to make the fic multi-chaptered. Try writing one arc and keep yourself contained in that. Now the added dimension aspect in general for longfics is that you eventually want to plot individual chapters in a multi-chaptered longfic and individual arcs (character, plot, etc). This comes with practice. I honestly don't think there's a way to get around that. It's something that I'm still trying to work on and I can look back at my early work and see how I've improved, how I can recognize where things didn't go well in certain places, and how I would change them if I was writing today. That's a good thing to be able to do, it means you've grown! The other thing I find that helps with staying motivated week after week for longer projects is to roughly know where you're going and to try to be excited about a plot point/scene/chapter/etc that you're going to write. Really try to hype yourself up. For me, it's a moment that comes at the very end of the chunin arc and I start grinning even thinking about it because I know it's going to be awesome. It's always what gets me through the rough days, imagining the moment I'll get to actually write that scene in its entirety (it's definitely already outlined and I mentally play it out at least twice a week lol) and is a big motivating drive.

So far I think this is pretty standard stuff if you're an outliner and you've been writing for a few years, but the other thing motivational-wise for me is having a schedule. From reading this message alone, I would not suggest it for you right away. Get comfortable finishing small things and feeling confident that if you let an idea sit for a week or two, you can pick it back up and continue. But if you eventually dip your toes into longfics (and don't plan to pre-write everything before you publish) that routine and rhythm really helps keep me going. I've made a commitment, I've posted it online, I'm going to stick to it. No one is going to jump down my throat if I fail to keep it (this is still a hobby and having fun is the most important thing) but in my mind I should commit to it unless something irl prevents me from doing so. Don't put a tight deadline on yourself, I'd start with once a month or if you write shorter chapters every three weeks. This also would help you build up and get a readership, interaction being another big motivational key.

Also, it's important to accept that sometimes you bite off more than you can chew, and when you feel completely demotivated from a fanfic project...it's okay to drop it. It's okay to take a step back and work on something else. Maybe you'll come back to it, maybe you won't. If you can, try to pinpoint what it was about that project that made you demotivated, were you pushing yourself too much and you got burnt out, was it an ongoing series and your interest for canon lagged and so did the fic, was it just too stressful to keep juggling plotpoints, etc. and keep that in mind moving forward. Every experience can be a learning one and eventually make you a better writer that can eventually tackle those bigger projects. Don't be afraid to take on big aspirational projects, but don't walk into them blind either. Above all, and this is repeated a lot because it's true, enjoy what you write. Some days you might not. That's true with anything, but any project you take on the good should outweigh the bad.

This is my wrap up of the motivational section but I also wanted to throw my two-cents in about editing because "oh no editing" is a perspective I've seen from a lot of writers, and used to have myself, but I think is going to stifle your progress in the long run.

Here's the thing: you need to look forward to editing.

You don't have to be jumping for joy, but editing, imo, should be a positive thing. You have all these great ideas, you made it into a fic, something you wrote, and now you get to go back and make it even better! This is a tough attitude to adopt. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. It took me a long time to unlearn the negative attitude and even then sometimes I still wish the editing was already done once I type in the last period. But I've learned to at least appreciate what editing does and I try to think to myself as I'm going through and making changes things like "wow, this suddenly became so much better. X plot point that I thought of ten pages from now is suddenly being hinted at and doesn't come out of left field. The transition points are a lot cleaner, it's not so jarring anymore. I bet the readers are going to love this little detail. Here's some foreshadowing that I hope someone picks up bc it's going to come back in like 5 chapters from now" it's hard, especially when you start, but this is something you made, and now are actively making better and that's something to celebrate.

I hope this helps anon! I know it's a lot and I'm by no means an expert but I've been doing this for more than a decade because I love it and I want to help others get into writing to! I have no problem answering any writing questions you may have if you find this helpful!

tl;dr

-motivation is slightly different between short/long fics.

-starting out, learn to outline by scenes and focus on finishing small projects and getting to a point where you feel like you can put something down and come back and pick it up again in a week. Completion is key and will help you feel satisfied/know your limits.

-long projects also can work on the scene-to-scene outline but now with individual chapters and individual arcs. It's tough to balance both but comes with practice. Bit-by-bit is key, as is having 'one moment you can't wait to write', possibly a schedule if it works for you, and reader feedback are all huge long-term motivational points.

-editing is tough but learn to look forward to it instead of dreading it.

edited: added a bit more/few typos fixed

Lots of feelings and thoughts under readmore, but for those who don’t want to read it: if you are on here reading this and you ALSO have a DeviantArt you still use (even if it’s very sparingly) that you’d be willing to share with me, can you shoot a DM? I’ve decided to rekindle my old account for a lot of reasons. Or at least try it out.

It’s similar to the reason I came back to Tumblr and the reason I made my own shitty hand-coded HTML disaster website. We’re all feeling it: how shitty the internet is now. I’m trying out a lot of different approaches to find a healthier relationship to communities, and being an artist and a person on the internet.

I basically had a breakdown this weekend over probably the stupidest possible thing that made me really look at myself and what I’m doing. Or... trying to do. What the hell I’m trying to accomplish.

Because I made that OoT Link amiibo I was so proud of, and I AM SO HAPPY WITH IT. I mean, I literally made it because I like playing OoT with the Zora Tunic and Hover Boots on, so I made a figure FOR ME based on MY TASTES. And it came out SO GOOD I literally could not be happier. And I posted it, and all of my friends were like “Leo that is so cool holy shit.” Which sounds like... the perfect outcome, right?

Except my brain has been fried by Number Go Up and I just felt this emptiness and dread, and I came to a really uncomfortable and disturbing realization as to why.

Like, a lot of shit I post is kind of intentionally for the niche-est of niche audiences, so I kind of expect 99% of my content to get 3 likes from my close friends and that’s about it, as it should be. But... I think, because for once I was actually posting about something that more than 8 people in the universe care about, and (in my opinion) I made something of pretty damn good quality, I had this expectation that I’d... go fucking viral or something.

(I really, really think my couple years being addicted - and I do mean addicted in the unhealthy brain-destroying sense - to Reddit is largely to blame for this. My Yggdrasill ToS cosplay was at one point the highest voted post on the Tales of subreddit; it was easy to feel like a micro-celebrity of sorts with that kind of reaction. Quitting Reddit was legitimately the best thing I’ve ever done for my mental health but it kind of permanently altered my expectations for either Immediate and Immense Approval And Worship, or worthlessness.)

So even though I made something that was supposed to be self-indulgent, and the people whose opinions I care about all gave me glowing positive feedback, I was disappointed because I posted something that Could Be Popular and it wasn’t. And I just kind of sat with that for a second and thought back to posting really shitty fanart in middle school and having a circle of online friends who were also shitty learning artists and we would just talk about video games and draw together and... well I kind of just wondered where the hell it went wrong.

When did I start performing for an imaginary audience of strangers so often, so frequently, and so intensely that it soured my ability to be happy with one of the straight up coolest things I’ve made recently??

And the thing is... well, as far as spaces to share art, what I currently have is...

* Twitter, where there is nothing even close to an archive of past art and everything is just instant snapshots soon to be forgotten * Tumblr, where the site-wide search functions are a hot mess and I feel like I’m competing with 50% the fact that no one can find anything and 50% Mona Lisas on display everywhere under the same tags I’m using * Instagram, which somehow has both the “instantaneous snapshots and then it’s worthless” problem AND the “everything I post is competing with professionals” problem (and not just professionals at the art form, but professionals at SOCIAL MEDIA - because curating your art for interaction on social media is its own whole thing) * Discord but I’ll be real there’s baggage there I’m too exhausted to get into right now. There are some promising spaces though for community, but there is absolutely no form of archive or way to look back on personal growth * My website, which is the only space that feels right for how I want my art to be experienced, but also is completely lacking the community aspect.

So, I looked at my old DeviantArt account. I KNOW about the whole f*cking disk horse with eneftitties and I hate it so much and I’m not even going into it. But my old DeviantArt account has shit I posted in 2012 on there, shit I posted in 2008 on there, and has space for journals and groups and fanfiction and interacting with other users while also centering (or at least, it seems to me) art.

And it’s just about the only space that has felt like that, honestly. Where I can be an artist and a person, post things I like with a little story under them under whatever dimensions, even SLIGHTLY customize my landing page, join little communities of like-minded people.

I logged in and, well unsurprisingly it’s a ghost town and only like 1 person I “Watched” a billion years ago still posts. But then I turned on full FFIX brain and went to search for pictures of Freya Crescent, and in an experience I haven’t had on any other goddamn website in as long as I can remember, I received A HUGE VARIETY OF PICTURES OF EXACTLY THAT, from dates as recent as the past couple years to literally over 15 years ago. Very rough amateurish MS paint drawings showed up right next to professional quality polished pieces and they were all what I was searching for.

Like, holy fuck, HOW fucked is it that THAT experience - searching for a topic on an art site, and seeing that topic, ONLY that topic, and a huge variety of results in it - is so rare that it stopped me in my tracks?

But, like, it’s obviously sad too. It’s sad clicking through the banners of all the old groups I joined and seeing the last posts from like 2014. It’s sad that part of the reason it’s easy to find old drawings of Freya Crescent is because next to nobody has uploaded any in the past 5 years. It’s sad that eneftitties are fucking artists over so bad a lot of them jumped ship in protest, and it’s sad that I feel like I’m engaging with a side of this site that stopped really being alive 10 years ago.

But I’m giving it a try anyway. Because GOD I just want to have a place to share art that isn’t a competition and isn’t polished and professional and beautiful and might let me make and maintain friendships that I actually care about. I’m not trying to compete with pros here I’m just trying to post my things and be myself and have people who might like it be able to find it, so I can find them too. Maybe I want to join an FFIX fan club group and look at a billion pictures of Zidane and Garnet. WHO IS TO SAY.

Anyway.... this is 70% vent post, 30% desperate plea if any of you are on DA to hit me up and let me know what your username is because I would love to log in and see people I know and care about and get excited about what they’re making, instead of just seeing empty long-dead long-abandoned accounts and wondering what those people are up to.

I wanna hear about the PO3 au's the anon left out! skyclan, loner, po5. Im guessing loner is Crow/Leaf raising the 3 outside of the clans. I love hearing you talk about your au's!

aww thanks! okay, same plan as before, details below the cut.

skyclan po3: it's, uh, pretty on the nose. crow and leaf run to skyclan with their kits.

loner po3: this is a catch-all term for three aus with similar premises, but i don't have a clear/short title to differentiate them. one is leafcrow, one is mothpool, and one is just leafpool. i'll talk about each of them.

po5: this is my internal name for the jaywing au. this, if you don't remember (and why would you), is a bit of a parallel to the dovefeather/med cat dovewing au where jaykit and dovekit are siblings.

skyclan po3: "they move on tracks of never-ending light" (title song)

the au title for this in my notes was "whitewater," but i think i'm going to save something else for that. (if you're confused why i have two titles for all of the aus: when i make a big au, it usually gets a temporary title that's short and easy to search, but i replace it with a permanent title later. sometimes they stay the same, like ashes, but usually i change it.)

so my only notes on this is

crowfeather and leafpool make it all the way to skyclan with a trio of newborn kits.

and like yeah, that's basically all i've figured out.

uhhh i know skyclan will come to the lake sooner, obviously, and i know that jay's character arc plays out really differently because there's less ableism.

(even in the windclan au, jay is intertwined with ableism: in that case, it's "either you're the same, or you're not capable." but leafstar is a sensible leader who doesn't have that problem.)

otherwise, yeah, i don't really know where i'm going with this, other than i think it'll be fun to explore, since leafpool is firestar's daughter and named after leafstar.

loner po3: the common thread in all of these is what happens to thunderclan's medicine cat after leafpool leaves?

(tbf, that's a common question in quite a few aus. but it makes itself a central conflict in these three.)

loner po3 I: leafcrow. "on and on we run in loops"

uh, yeah. they run away, and stay away. this one isn't supposed to focus on the kits that much, but rather, leafpool's struggle with duty and desire.

i've got this:

“There’s a loner,” the kittypet said, her voice languid, claws extended, but with an air of ease, “named Leaf. She’s been helping out loners for, oh, a season or two.”

as a quote from it. it's my least favorite of the loner po3 aus.

loner po3 II: single mom leafpool. "between us, i'd trade you for them every time"

i've talked about this one actually quite a bit, but it's probably going to take me a while to write it. it's inspired by "butterflies and hurricanes," but instead of leafpool dying, crowfeather dies.

also, the chapter titles come from "marjorie" which is basically 90% of why it's going to take me a while to work on it, that song makes me cry a lot and uh, things are a lil Much right now.

i've got a few scenes sketched out, from holly running away, and leafpool panicking, to leafpool worrying about bringing her kits to thunderclan.

loner po3 III: mothpool. "to make a choice in all this mess"

this is the au competing with divided po3 for next po3 au to write, and i'm...i love it. (as a note, i won't write two aus for the same time period at the same time. that's why i was waiting to finish wfmisus before i got back on doahins. now it's all messy. but i get confused lmao.)

anyway, i have the least written for this, but i'm very excited. in my first warriors fic ever, "if you love me any, let me know it now", leafpool thinks this:

(Leafpool should have left. She should have found Mothwing and told her and left. Maybe pause to say goodbye to Squirrelflight. Mothwing would have gone with her, and things would be alright. Not like they are now, all tangled and impossible.)

and well. i'm weak.

i don't have a ton of concrete stuff to say about it, especially considering it's so high on the list, but i mean, i'm excited.

po5: "wing and feather"

alright, this is an old one. since it's also high on my list, i want to explain where it came from rather than what it's about, because that will cover what it's about in a broad sense, without tempting me to give away the details.

(also, w&f is a working title. much like "feather take flight," i may change my mind.)

anyway. i started getting into warriors with "cloudtail's daughter," an au where dovewing and ivypool are brightheart's kits.

in a post so old i had to go to my main blog to find it, i said this:

i also want him to be dovewing’s brother. but the au where brightheart gives birth to dovekit, anxiety child, and jaykit, blind, and feels like a failure despite the fact that its not like her half-blindness is genetic, is not this au. that is another au.

and the seeds were planted.

so right, i'm writing up ctd around when i'm first reading "flightless dove, poison ivy," which will go on to inspire dovefeather (med cat dovewing au, but as you'll see, dovefeather is the assigned working au name. after i decided i didn't like feather take flight, i reverted back to its initial working title, dovefeather.)

so i've got these two things rolling around in my brain.

dovefeather comes first, because i reread fdpi so many times and i just. i want dovepaw to stay in riverclan. i don't want her to leave. i want her to be happy. (also please! i'm still finishing ch 2 of fdpi no spoilers it's taking me embarassingly long to finish.)

but anyway, consider this a bonus au talk because explaining what po5 is, imo, requires me explaining what dovefeather is. like, in an au talk scenario. they're unrelated aus, from a reader perspective.

so i come up with this list of "things i want to be different in oots":

dovewing should be cloudtail's daughter

dovewing and jayfeather should be siblings

dovewing should be a medicine cat

dovewing should go to riverclan

ivypool should be the fourth cat (but i'm not revealing which aus this applies to bc big time spoilers)

and this creates a bit of an au matrix. pick and choose, you know? ctd is (1).

dovefeather is (3) and (4).

but i still wanted (2), and so it seemed pretty natural to make a (1), (2), and (3) au.

but that's a retrospective analysis, what really happens is, i get like fourteen "what ifs" deep, until i'm writing fic for my fic for someone else's fic. kind of.

dovefeather diverges pretty sharply from fdpi, especially based on what i've read of ch2. it takes the same core idea, and because my idea of riverclan was inspired by fdpi, there are plenty of similarities, but i think it's functionally very different, and superficially similar.

(also, hollowflight ends up in a completely different trio lmao dovepaw hangs out with rushpaw, troutpaw, and mossypaw.)

but anyway, i'm trying not to write another au of the same time period, but i just finished writing out the full outline for ashes, and the next chapter (i.e., ch 12, which i'm hopefully posting today if all goes well) gets me thinking, and i can't let it go: i want (2) to happen.

so i look at my outline for dovefeather, because the rule is, it has to be very different from this.

since dovefeather is like 70% drafted (altho that number seems low, because i suspect i'm going to end up adding a lot into the fourth chapter), i now know that was never going to be an issue, but at the time, i was very worried.

so i was like! well, that means i'm going to fuck with every part of po3, and we're going to get ivypaw and hollypaw roped in, and jaypaw is always going to be a warrior, and i think i made squilf his mentor? or maybe sandstorm lmao.

either way, it ended up being defined by jaypaw, which i didn't initially plan on. but that's po5: squilf's litter lionkit, hollykit, ivykit & brightheart's litter dovekit and jaykit grow up together.

it's got a similar vibe to ashes IMO.

okay wow that ended up being a lot i've been hyperfocusing on dovefeather all weekend, and in my head, it's inextricably linked to ashes, ctd, and jaywing/po5, so uh. yeah.

hope this was what you were looking for?

<3

LoZ MM - Woodfall 6

DS turned on after being charged and it appears my saved game info is good!  Gave myself a little MM yesterday after work, as a treat, and here is the narrative result.

(TOC here - https://rosezemlya.tumblr.com/post/624102365993304064/oot-train - and writing after the jump!)

____________

“All right,” I say, coming to an abrupt halt and turning to fully face Tatl.  All around us the crumbling, overgrown temple threatens, and above us the snarling moon looms, and somewhere in the palace we did not visit this time around, a monkey hangs over a boiling pot, but I cannot take this anymore, and so I am going to put all of that aside and deal with this instead.  “What?”

The little yellow fairy flutters back in surprise, throwing her head around as though she’s looking for whoever else it is I’m talking to.  You know. In the creepy forest temple that was completely underwater until we got here.  “What, what?” she demands, when the universe inevitably neglects to bail her out.

“Why are you staring at me?” I demand.  I say it like the weight of her stare boring into the back of my head is a recent development, but, in actuality, she’s been drilling away at my skull since I played the Sonata of Awakening and raised the damn temple out of the damn swamp.  Every time we finish a room or kill a giant dragonfly or hop my tiny ass up so I can reach into a chest that is way bigger than I remember chests in Hyrule being, she stares.  Ponderingly.  “I’m doing what you want, we’re trying this your way, so what’s with the constant judgement?”

“Touchy,” she replies with her usual acid.  Which I don’t really need right now, because this whole temple’s filled with tainted water and noxious fumes and I can’t even wear my own body without wanting to pass out within three minutes, so I’ve about had my fill of poison (or acid or whatever, I’m wearing the deku scrub mask right now, okay, metaphors get weird when you sort of are one and he (the deku scrub) puts a weird filter on my brain and he doesn’t really understand poison the way I do on account of being a tree boy instead of a flesh boy, so he probably didn’t ruin my metaphor on purpose, he probably just thought acid was a synonym for poison, I don’t know, I’m just trying to save a Goddess damned monkey, okay?  Leave me alone).

(Goddess, flesh boy?  That’s what I went for?  Really brain?  Really?!)

(Gross.)

I roll my eyes and stomp away, leaving her to huff and chase after me.  She can pretend all she wants, but I know she’s staring at me.  And so what if I am being touchy? Somewhere out there a monkey is probably boiling to death or has boiled to death or will shortly boil to death, and solving this temple and saving his deku friend isn’t going to work to save him any better than any of my other attempts have worked, and if I’m being uncomfortably honest, I don’t want it to work, not because I want the monkey to suffer, but because I don’t want her or that damn Mask Salesman to be right because I don’t want to have to deal with what that would say about me.

And what does it say about me?

I don’t know.  I have no idea.  And I don’t want to have to figure it out.

So yeah.  Sure.  I’m touchy.

So touchy that I have let my temper distract me from things I should have been paying attention to. Like the fact, which I am realizing now, that this room I have stormed into is definitely a trap, and I definitely should not have walked in here as directly as I did, and I definitely need to get out of here right now before—

—the bars slide up over the door as I turn, and it is way too late to escape.

Good to know the temples in Termina are just as lovingly designed to drive me right up the wall as the temples in Hyrule are.

There’s a sound from behind me, wet and drawn out and suspiciously like a frog but also like a frog that is bigger and angrier than I would generally consider frogs to have any right to be, and while I appreciate Tatl’s ringing of a wild alarm bell, it’s faaaaaaar too late for that.  Whatever it is lands on my back and I suddenly find myself in the middle of a slimy and terrifying grappling match.

This wouldn’t have happened, I think as the whatever-it-is applies itself with enthusiasm to the task of trying to pull the deku scrub’s head off, if Navi was here.

The thought is unexpected, and somehow hurts worse than the straining of the fibres in my currently-wooden neck, as I shriek in anger and bat with the deku scrub’s tiny hands at the thing on top of me.  You’d think the latter would distract me from the former, but no.  It all just sort of tangles up together into a giant ball of unpleasant, that is a lot to take all at once.  It’s just a lot.  

The frog-sounding-thing gets mad that my head has vetoed its decapitation attempt, and I think maybe it’s also finding this moment a lot, because it handles this disappointment by getting its claws into every accessible bit of me and going to town.  It’s biting and clawing and pulling in a rage, sending little curls of wood spinning off in the ankle-deep poison water, and it hurts, and I can’t do anything about it, because the deku scrub is too small to have anywhere near the leverage I would need, and I suddenly feel like maybe the thing trying to turn me into ribbons has the right idea about how to handle the complexity of the moment.  Like maybe utterly losing my shit is the right thing to do right now (it’s not, I know it’s not, every instinct thrumming along inside me is screaming that that would be the opposite of helpful, but what do they know?  All they’ve ever done is be based on experience and training and pattern recognition, whereas my anger is based on nothing and has a fifty/fifty chance of making everything worse, but at least it would make me feel good, so that’s what I’m gonna do).

I get one little arm free of the thing’s wild grappling and use it to rip the deku scrub mask off my face. It’s always agony when I do this, so bad that I don’t immediately realize that while the transformation has confused my croaking assailant, it has also offered it much more yielding flesh than it had access to previously and it is celebrating this discovery by sinking nasty claws deeper into me than it could two seconds ago.

After a second the pain becomes less existential, and more, like, I-am-trapped-inside-a-very-determined-cheese-grater, and I realize I’m back to myself again.  I maintain enough presence of mind to throw the little wooden mask up into the air where Tatl swoops down and snatches it up to keep it safe – we’ve done this a few times now and we’re getting good at it – before I willfully release myself, body and soul, to the viciousness of the moment and offer a demonstration of the difference between a tiny, helpless deku scrub and an eleven-year-old, half-feral Hero of Time.

To whit: I bite.

I get my teeth into the hand wrapped around my face – frogs can scream, who knew – hard enough that a spray of warmth coats the inside of my mouth and the thing reflexively loosens its grip enough that I can get an arm free, whereupon I immediately introduce my elbow to its face.

Charmed, I’m sure. Have you met its friend, Mr. Boot to the Ribcage?

The violently orange creature falls back with a string of croaks so high pitched and strung together that they can’t be anything other than angry shrieking – it is definitely a frog; a giant, bipedal, flesh-boy-sized frog – and I take a step forward to chase it down.  The only thing on my mind is how good that felt, but before I make it further than that one little step, my stomach decides it can’t wait and unleashes all that pent up violence on itself.  Instead of running forward, I find myself on my hands and knees in the ankle-deep water, retching violently.

Nayru, my mouth tastes awful.  My throat burns.  My stomach is in full revolt.  Biting it was a mistake.  Biting it was such a—

—I throw up again.

Tatl is ringing another alarm bell, somewhere near my ear.  I spit and wipe my mouth with the back of a shaking hand.  My skin tingles from the poison water (my hand, not my mouth. My mouth is burning from the poison frog, but that’s a unique sensation because why be poisoned in one way when you could be poisoned in two), but I’ve still got time before it becomes really problematic. “Where’d it go?” I manage as I stumble back to my feet, throwing a look around at the room, which is once again suspiciously empty.  I start to reach for my sword.

“Up, Link!  The ceiling!”

I snap my head upward so fast I’m briefly worried about throwing up again before the nausea passes and I can focus properly.  I pot the frog crawling around up there and I leave my sword where it is.  Instead I pull my shiny new bow off my back – child size which is… why was there a child’s bow hidden in this temple? – and knock an arrow to it as I raise it.

“Link!” Tatl snaps as I line up the shot.  “Be careful with that!  You’re going to hurt—”

The only person I am going to hurt is exactly who I’m aiming at.

The frog shrieks again as the arrow sinks into its back, sending a spray of foul blood out to race it to the ground as it falls.  I’m running forward, bow already re-slung and sword drawn, when it hits the ground. The impact sends a massive spray of bloody, poisonous water up into the air.  My brain does the math on the trajectory of the spray way too late and I do not manage to twist in time.  Not only do I wind up drenched and tingly all over, but now I’m stumbling back and crying out and rubbing at my eyes, which are burning so badly that I kind of want to die.

Any hope I had of impressing Tatl with that shot is clearly lost, as I can hear her sighing at me.  “Link, it’s just a Gekko.  And it’s so mad it’s gone stupid.  You killed a whole lizalfos in that other room, just calm down and think.  It shouldn’t be embarrassing you like—”

Whatever else she was going to lecture me about is lost because the next instant something tackles me head on and I go flying back and into the wall.  To my great surprise, I am not immediately shredded into ribbons. Whatever it is that hit me isn’t the frog – it’s harder and quieter and entirely the wrong shape, and also it immediately gets up off me and starts to move away.

I pick myself up and shake myself hard, blinking furiously to force the room back into focus.  It’s a… turtle?  No.  Dammit. A snapper.

So a really, really violent turtle.

A really, really violent turtle being mounted by the Gekko like it’s a really, really violent horse.

Welp.

I dive out of the way as the turtle turns itself into a whirling, bone-spear edged Spinning Top of Doom and the Gekko goads it to charge me.  I hit the ground in a roll and start running, but it’s an effort. The poison is starting to get to me. It’s happening faster than it has in the other rooms, but I’m a mass of open wounds, and I bit that frog, and I got stuff in my eyes and this has all gone so wrong so fast and I don’t understand why.  Stuff is… it’s harder, being eleven rather than eighteen-and-a-half, but it’s not this much harder.  It shouldn’t be like this.  Things shouldn’t be like this.

If Navi were here—

I am staring at the ceiling, and it’s probably bad that I don’t remember how I got from running away from the snapper to lying here on the ground.  It probably means I blacked out.  I have many pressing questions but focusing on any of them long enough to decide what to do about them is proving difficult.

“Link!”  Someone is shouting my name.

“Navi?” mumbles the part of me that feels mildly concussed, but the immediate hatred I feel for myself burns away some of the fogginess and starts to bring me back to myself.  

Obviously not Navi.  Navi’s gone.  She left, and I’m not good enough to come back for, or else she’s another monkey in a pot and I’m not good enough to save her.  Either way.

I snarl up at the ceiling and start trying to right myself.

“Link!  You have to put the mask on.”  It’s Tatl.  She’s flitting just above my face, holding out the deku scrub mask to me.  

“No,” I say, groaning as I manage to flip myself over and get my hands under me.

“Link!”  The exasperation in her voice is approaching an intensity that borders on a much stronger emotion.  “There’s a deku flower under you.  Put on the mask and you can use it to get at the snapper’s belly!”

I have managed to push myself up onto my hands and knees and after a dizzy second of staring I realize she’s right.  That’s why the floor seemed so soft.  I was lying on a deku flower.

It’s strange to look at it as me (flesh boy), to touch it and just feel the silk of the petals and the smooth, stiff fibres of the leaves.  This is how… this is what these flowers have always been to me.  Just flowers.  Just scent and colour and texture.  But the deku scrub… when I’m wearing the mask and I get near one of these flowers, it sort of… I don’t know how to describe it, because language is a function of experience and the people who made up the languages I speak (still just one, no matter how hard people are trying to teach me others lately) didn’t have these experiences to describe, but… it's like it pulses.  Not once, but in an ongoing pattern.  Like a heartbeat?  But not. And it’s outside the deku scrub, but… not.  There’s a connection there, on a very deep level, it’s why he can fall into the flower, like he's actually a part of it and the fact that he can walk around outside of it is just an endearing personality quirk.  Because he is part of it, in a way.  And they’re both part of some bigger thing that I can’t… that isn’t…

Look, I’m trying to explain how… why…

There are whole worlds out there that I can’t see, can’t feel or taste or touch.  There are whole other experiences and realities and contexts that I’ll never access.  I can travel through the planes.  I can travel through time.  But I’ll never go inside a deku flower and have it welcome me home the way the deku scrub does.

That tiny, wooden child might as well be an alien entity from some hostile dimension for all we have in common, and yet when I put that mask on I can feel…

There is a connection, but it’s not…

I don’t like it.  That’s the problem.  I don’t like the thing we have in common.  I don’t like sharing it.  I don’t like feeling it reflected.  Why would I want to purposefully…?

“I don’t want to,” I say.  I look up from the plant and narrow my eyes at the snapper, which is righting itself where it must have crashed into the wall after knocking me out.  It takes me a second to find the Gekko, because it got thrown super far – goddess, they must have hit me so hard – but it’s righting itself same as I am and trying to get back to its feet.

“Link, stop being a brat,” Tatl snaps, and buzzes her wings at me like an angry little bee.  Legitimate fear mars the effect, though, and she doesn’t come across half as tough as she wants to.  I wonder, despite myself, how bad I must look from the outside for the tremulous note to be there in her voice.

“Tatl—”

“I was staring because you’re better at this than I thought you would be,” she says, startling me into silence and rerouting my gaze off the frog and onto her.  She looks like the universe is a dentist pulling a tooth from her, but also like she’s somebody who doesn’t know what else to do about it. “I thought we would be in here right up until you had to play your little flute and take us back in time again. I thought it would be like with the palace.  Where we have to do it over and over until we figure out how to do it right.”  Never mind that we never did figure out how to ‘do’ the palace right.  “But it’s barely even lunch and you’ve chewed through every puzzle in here like you’ve done them a thousand times and I’m pretty sure we’ll be done by supper if you smarten up in time to stop letting a frog and a turtle beat you up.”

“I— Tatl, I told you, I’ve—”

“Done this before, I know,” she says.  “But I didn’t know know, Link.  Not until I saw you in here, okay?  So I get it. I believe you, all right?  You’re some kind of hero.  You saved the world once.  My point—”

“Twice,” I interrupt her.

She rolls her eyes with such feeling I almost laugh.  “My point is… I’m not your fairy partner, but I am what you’ve got.  Wherever she is right now, it’s not here.  She can’t help you.  But I can, if you let me.  Me,” she lifts the wooden mask, “and him.  The world is sort of at stake right now, Link.  You have to let us help you.”

Any reply I might have made is cut off by an unholy screech of a croak and whatever temporary reprieve their smashing into the wall bought us is done.  The Gekko is back on the snapper and they’re whirling their way toward us, their pace unaffected by whatever concussions they might be sporting.  Instinct takes over – not emotion, instinct – and this time I let it.

I snatch the mask in one hand, grab Tatl out of the air with the other, and slap the mask onto my face even as I’m diving for the flower.

Its petals open for me as the transformation takes hold – it hurts, because it always hurts, but for the first time I don’t resist it, I don’t fight the overlaying of some other person’s being onto my own, some other person’s essence, some other person’s pain, and that makes it… not better.  It’s never going to be a good experience.  But at least it’s… less lonely, I guess?

Down in the darkness at the heart of the deku flower, connected to the world through it, and to each other through the mask, the deku scrub and I come to a tentative accord.

The Gekko and its mount are short work after that.

Hey there ! Apparently you like video-games (or at least Smash), so what's your favourite one ?

Hookay, so… I know this is going to get long, so adding a Read More, but the short answer is: I don’t have a clear cut favorite, but some of my favorites include such well known properties as Mass Effect and lesser known ones like Sudeki. I’m not some gaming guru but I definitely have some Opinions™ about video games.

Favorite First Person Shooter: Halo: Reach. Generally, I don’t ask for much in my FPS; let me kill shit and the less I have to reload, the better. However, Halo: Reach, being at the time the 4th game in the franchise that served as the prequel to the entire series, provided an excellent story with great characters and an underlying message about the indomitable human soul.

Favorite Real Time Strategy: Halo Wars. Okay, yes, another entry from the same franchise, but!!! This one also has some fantastic characters and a great storyline, even if it’s… somewhat confusing when considering the bigger narrative (Halo in general is just messy af and retconned-but-not all to hell anyway). Still, it’s a fun, mostly intuitive RTS, which is notoriously difficult on consoles.

Favorite Horror Game: Resident Evil. Listen, this game came out when I was seven, and my Uncle let me play it to fuck with me. Nothing will be scary than those early PS1 graphics, the loading screen a constant tease of ‘what’s behind this door? Is it death? It’s probably death!’ that got me good. Fear Factor comes a close second, as though it wasn’t much of a horror game, the game mechanic of your character’s rising stress level kept me on the fucking edge.

Favorite Final Fantasy: Final Fantasy X. Listen. I don’t care how awkward Tidus’ laugh was. I don’t even mind how passive Yuna was. Blitzball was amazing and I have forgiven all sins. No, seriously, I loved the cast in FFX, much like other FF games, and Seymour was a villain I enjoyed hating with every fiber of my being, and even some of the mini games were fun, too. But Blitzball could’ve been a standalone game and I would’ve bought it. Still would.

Favorite JRPG: Sudeki. If you didn’t get a chance to play this on the original XBOX, you missed out. The characters were fun, if a bit goofy, and the high fantasy mixed with science fiction was a nice touch. What really sold me, though, was the AI. Not only could you switch between different available characters in the middle of a fight- very easily and very intuitively- but the AI actually behaved very well, saving my ass more than a time or two. In most games, AI are either cannon fodder, immortal, or require close attention/precise manipulation of their preset actions. Not in Sudeki; some fights, I could actually stand back and let my party do their work, and that was immensely gratifying. Yeah, the ending was a bit of a let down, but it didn’t erase how much fun I had with the rest of the game.

Favorite Super Smash Brothers: Super Smash Brothers Melee. Don’t get me wrong, I love a lot of the elements in the sequels but SSBM was the version I played most heavily with friends, so I have the most fond memories of it. Plus, it was before they changed Link’s moveset, which I’m still high key upset about. (I don’t like the new bombs or his new down attack.)

Favorite Series: Mass Effect. Now, one might expect Halo to be my favorite series, seeing as two of the games are some of my all time favorites, but… nah. When you take out the multiplayer element, the Halo games didn’t have much left. Yes, they had a galaxy spanning conflict with twists and turns but, honestly, Mass Effect did it better, with better world building and exploration, and a lot of interactive features that I enjoyed. From what I played of Andromeda, (long after it released, so no weird bugs yet), it continued to build on the foundation of the original trilogy, though I would’ve preferred to stay in the Milky Way, and Ryder can’t hold a candle to Shepard. Still, even what issues I have with the series (LET ME ROMANCE KROGANS, DAMNIT) don’t detract from the excellent story, fun gameplay, and intriguing mystery.

Favorite Elder Scrolls: … okay, I actually don’t like any of them, tbh. And??? I’m not sure why??? I actively can’t stand Skyrim.

Favorite Soulsborne: There is only Dark Souls, and it’s the pinnacle of ‘I don’t need my brain for this’ for me. It’s just… run around and kill things. Nothing matters. I think the main difference between this and Skyrim is the way the player character moves. ES games look so… silly. At least Dark Souls looks silly for a reason.

Favorite Sports Game: NCAA 2007. I’d rather play as a college team than a professional one. Although, NFL Blitz comes a very close second, purely because it gave no fucks and only barely qualifies as a sports game.

Favorite ‘Oh Fuck’ Game: It’s a tie between Minecraft and ARK: Survival Evolved. And you’re asking ‘how are those two in the same category’ and the answer is ‘because the only difference between the two for me is, which is going to kill me, lava or a raptor?’ and don’t ask how I die to these two things with equal frequency. More to the point, I usually play these games with friends, and thus my ‘oh fuck’ moments are witnessed by others, or I witness their ‘oh fuck’ moments. Sometimes they’re funny, sometimes they’re sad, but they leave an impact and, hey, that’s fucking impressive.

Favorite Pokemon Game: Blue Version. Yeah, it’s a bit of a cop out, but the original game I got back when Pokemon first came over to the States actually taught me a life lesson: that it is possible to play a game wrong, which is what I was doing. So, I started over, and I was much happier for it! No matter what features are added to the franchise, I don’t think I’ll ever gain such an important life lesson from one again, so it’s gonna stay at the top of the list.

Favorite Chill Game: Any Harvest Moon. Let me tend my farm. (I haven’t had a chance to play Stardew Valley, which is basically Harvest Moon but gay, so that’ll probably take the top spot once I get a chance to play it.)

Favorite Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Although there are some aspects of Majora’s Mask I liked better, OoT had fishing. Yes, that’s honestly my favorite part of the game. I love fishing in video games. Don’t judge me.

Favorite Team Game: Overwatch. Love the character designs and gameplay. Witch!Mercy still owns my soul.

Favorite Battle Royale: Apex Legends. For some reason, one of the few ‘competitive’ games that doesn’t spark my frustration when I lose. Dunno why, it’s just fun. Lightning rounds are great, too!

Favorite Hack-n-Slash: Brutal Legends. Heavy metal, axes, and guitars- everything from the aesthetic to the gameplay is fun and the story is interesting as well. The RTS portion can get a bit annoying but, other than that, no complaints here.

Favorite Fable: Fable III. I endorse any game that allows me to woo as many people as I can find who are attracted to me. Let me have as many spouses as I want, one in each city. I will marry half the kingdom, damnit, just watch me. 

Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. I know I’m missing some but I’ve sunk perhaps hundreds of hours into the games listed, so, yeah.

1-100 >B)

Voi vittu nyt :DDD Katotaan kuinka pitkälle jaksan!

Spotify, SoundCloud, or Pandora?

Spotify

is your room messy or clean?

In between!

what color are your eyes?

Greyish blue

do you like your name? why?

No, it’s what ponies and chubby 5-year-old girls in overalls are called.

what is your relationship status?

Happily taken!

describe your personality in 3 words or less

Positive, social, overthinking

what color hair do you have?

Pink!

what kind of car do you drive? color?

I don’t have a car

where do you shop?

Anywhere cheap

how would you describe your style?

I Wish I Was Cute Enough To Pull Off Those Lolita Skirts But I’m Actually Just Fat So I Guess I’ll Keep Wearing These Black Jeans Again

favorite social media account

Kyösti’s Facebook!

what size bed do you have?

120x200

any siblings?

A big bro

if you can live anywhere in the world where would it be? why?

Somewhere south because I love warm weather c:

favorite snapchat filter?

The one with the flower crown

favorite makeup brand(s)

Whatever I can throw on my face without ending up looking like a hot mess

how many times a week do you shower?

3-5

favorite tv show?

Game of Thrones

shoe size?

41

how tall are you?

173cm or 5′6′’

sandals or sneakers?

Sandals

do you go to the gym?

Yes!

describe your dream date

Pretty much anything goes if you can talk to each other

how much money do you have in your wallet at the moment?

Ugh like 10e?

how many pillows do you sleep with?

Usually two

do you have a job? what do you do?

I’m a part time hotel housekeeper. It sucks ass.

how many friends do you have?

I have about 5 really good friends♥

whats the worst thing you have ever done?

Idk

favorite actor?

Atm probaby Evan Peters

favorite actress?

Emilia Clarke? Idk

who is your celebrity crush?

Khloe Kardashian is my guilty pleasure celebrity crush

favorite movie?

I have tons!

do you read a lot? whats your favorite book?

Not anymore I don’t :( Frangipani is one of my all-time favorites!

money or brains?

Both is good

do you have a nickname? what is it?

Some people still call me ES though I’m kind of growing bored of it now

how many times have you been to the hospital?

I’ve had four operations done so I guess four-ish

top 10 favorite songs

In no particular order: Danny Ocean - Me Rehúso, Hayley Kiyoko - Pretty Girl, Happoradio - Sinä, Sebastián Yatra - Cómo Mirarte, SDP - Ich will nur dass du weisst, EXO - Hey Mama!, Antti Tuisku - Yksinäinen, Antti Tuisku - Ihan sairasta mut oikeesti me kuulumme yhteen, Ricky Martin - Vente Pa Ca 

do you take any medications daily?

Nope

what is your skin type? (oily, dry, etc)

Mixed

what is your biggest fear?

Pain

how many kids do you want?

None

whats your go to hair style?

I don’t know how to style my hair at all :D

what type of house do you live in? (big, small, etc)

A relatively big apartment building

who is your role model?

ALB

what was the last text you sent?

“Eiiiiii savo nousuun suatana!!!!” (talking about ice hockey in our BA group on Whatsapp)

what is your dream car?

I have no idea

opinion on smoking?

Hoe don’t do it

do you go to college?

Yes

what is your dream job?

Translating

would you rather live in rural areas or the suburbs?

Somewhere in between I guess

do you take shampoo and conditioner bottles from hotels?

No because they’re not moisturizing enough for my brittle hair :|

do you have freckles?

No

do you smile for pictures?

Like an idiot, yes

how many pictures do you have on your phone?

MANY.

have you ever peed in the woods?

Ofc!

do you still watch cartoons?

Sometimes

do you prefer chicken nuggets from Wendy’s or McDonalds?

I’ve never been to Wendy’s

Favorite dipping sauce?

BBQ

what do you wear to bed?

Jammies

have you ever won a spelling bee?

You silly Americans

what are your hobbies?

Gym & my dog

can you draw?

Badly

do you play an instrument?

Nope

what was the last concert you saw?

Antti Tuisku

tea or coffee?

Neither

Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts?

Dunkin Donuts

do you want to get married?

Hell yeah!

what is your crush’s first and last initial?

K and N

are you going to change your last name when you get married?

Idk

what color looks best on you?

Light pink

do you miss anyone right now?

YES

do you sleep with your door open or closed?

Open if my flatmate isn’t at home

do you believe in ghosts?

No

what is your biggest pet peeve?

Yhdys sana virheet

last person you called

My mom

favorite ice cream flavor?

Ben&Jerry’s Half Baked

regular oreos or golden oreos?

WHAT ARE GOLDEN OREOS

chocolate or rainbow sprinkles?

Rainbow!

what shirt are you wearing?

A gray sweater with pictures of fast food on it

what is your phone background?

Sailor Moon

are you outgoing or shy?

Somewhere between the two. More on the outgoing side though!

do you like it when people play with your hair?

DO I EVER ♥_♥

do you wash your face? at night? in the morning?

Yes, yes and yes

have you ever been high?

No

have you ever been drunk?

Too many times

last thing you ate?

Vitamins

favorite lyrics right now

Niin, vuokses menisin liekkeihin, parkumatta palaisin, olla parempi tahtoisin. Sinä se oot. Ja niin, vaikka halkeaisin haavoihin sinä voitehista vanhin korjaat mut kokoon taas. Sinä se oot.

summer or winter?

SUMMER!

day or night?

Day!

dark, milk, or white chocolate?

Milk♥

favorite month?

July

what is your zodiac sign

Pisces

who was the last person you cried in front of?

A friend.

Oh look! I made it through! Thanks for asking :’D

“Pretty Little Liars” S7 Ep16 Recap: Driving Miss Crazy

Previously on Pretty Little Liars, Emison declared themselves endgame, Aria joined the dark side, and Spencer was sassy AF in her police interrogation. We open with Ezria in a dance class, practicing their mambo and getting ready for their wedding dance. Ezra is feeling his grooves, but Aria is still haunted by her dastardly deeds. Evil Aria facetimes her and demands she do one more job before getting her file back. Why so desperate? The file contains a police report that Aria filled out but never filed, where she calls Ezra a predator and a criminal (girl, you’re not wrong). Evil Aria tells her that she either do the job or send Ezra to jail. Doesn’t seem like much of a choice to me, TBH.  A unity candle? And a Shel Silverstein poem? Sure brah, whatever.   Det. Marco drops in on Hanna and Caleb at the loft, where he questions them about the Radley receipt flood. We also find out that Caleb lives full time at the hotel, like he’s Eloise or something. That’s a pretty big step up from the air ducts at Rosewood High. When Marco finds out that Caleb built the Radley security system, Team Haleb finds themselves at the top of the suspect list. Meanwhile at Casa Hastings, the family is packing up boxes and getting ready to move to Harrisburg. Alison is OOT visiting Jason, who has yet to show his fake head in Rosewood since he banged Hanna’s mom. And Aria. That boy gets around. Spencer finds her old Radley baby blanket in a giveaway box, and wants to keep it. She should give it to Hanna, who can surely turn it into a stylish scarf or wrap dress. I thought Emily’s shirt said “porn, porn,porn.” I wish it did.   Hanna, freaked out after Marco’s drop in, assembles the Liars to play the board game. Mona shows up, and the Liars take umbrage with her inclusion, as if she hasn’t already saved their asses a million times. Look, I get it— Mona was formerly A, but she has had quite the redemption arc. She siphoned blood out of her tiny arms to help Hanna, she was locked in the dollhouse and forced to dress as Alison, and she replaced the windshield on Lucas’s car. She is a literal hyperadrenalized genius. Take the help, dummies! Mona of House Vanderwaal, First of her Name, Breaker of Bitches, Queen of Rosewood and the First Girls, Khaleesi of the Great Grassy Woods outside Rosewood.   Caleb goes back to Radley where he runs into Ashley Marin, who is sporting the sharpest and sleekest of bobs. She asks him what is up with the cops and the flooding, and he lies about knowing anything. My concerns are just as severe as my shoulder bob!   Spencer and her mom continue to pack up boxes, when Aria swings by with dinner. While she’s there, Aria pairs a burner phone with the house speaker system and stashes it in one of the boxes, then runs out of there like her hair is on fire. As soon as she’s gone, an audio file starts playing in every room of the house: it’s Mary Drake and Peter Hastings fighting over Jessica’s dead body…literally. Mary talks about Peter and Jessica planning to kill her, while the real Peter Hastings tries to smash every speaker he sees. During his mantrum, Veronica wants to call the police, but Spencer and Peter urge her not to. CURSE YOU ALEXA, YOU’VE FOILED MY PLANS FOR THE LAST TIME!   Meanwhile, Emily sweet talks Ali on the phone and reminds her to take her vitamins, while Mona yells at her not to forget her folic acid. Emily softly whispers “me too” into the phone, and Mona assures her that Emison is hardly a secret— she’s known they were in lurve since grade school. Mona has tracked down the fertility doc who inseminated Alison, and makes an appointment for her and Emily to go undercover as a lesbian couple who want a baby. She also tells Emily to “dress accordingly” which I guess means she wants Emily to fancy it up. Emily’s beautiful face is so confused and I love it. But I don’t have a black tie track suit!   In the next scene, they’re holding hands and sharing their love story with the fertility doc, Dr. Hamlin. Emily is wearing a stylish suit and looks increasingly uncomfortable—girl, you’re a lesbian going undercover as a lesbian…get it together! Mona tells the doc they were referred by Alison Rollins and the doc gets scared.  We would like the stylish femme discount please!   He asks them to leave, but before they go Mona swipes a magazine and peels off the doc’s home address for deeper sleuthing. This bitch is playing 3-D chess while the Liars can barely manage Hungry, Hungry Hippos.  Monily: the ship we never knew we always needed.   An increasingly panicked Hanna realizes that her fingerprints are all over the shovels they used to bury Archer, so she heads to the woods to steal them. Unfortunately, the park ranger on duty tells her that the shovels are already gone, and she’ll have to use a beer mug (JK, but can you imagine?). Spencer finds the burner phone of doom and tells Aria that she thinks Mary Drake planted it. She doesn’t know whether to trust Mary, and Aria tells her to let Mona work her magic. Spencer continues to be anti-Mona, and we all know why: Spencer likes to be the brains of the operations, the one in charge, but even her mighty Hastings mind is no match for the sheer genius of the Vanderwaal. Aria continues her guilt spiral and has no time for Ezra, who wants to pick first dance songs and decide which flower petals more accurately tell their love story. Ezra, assuming Aria’s concerns are all about him, tells her that she needs to get over their sordid past and trust him again. You know, just get over that whole thing where he knowingly slept with underage girls and then spied on them to write a book. Aria is NOT feeling it. I’ve made a HUGE mistake.   Spencer walks outside to find Marco waiting for her. He tries to get the truth from her and demand to know if she had real feels for him or just wanted a cop in her corner. She tells him that if he wants to talk, he can drag her ass down to the station and humiliate himself. I love cold as ice Spencer. She gets into her car, and Mary pops up from the backseat, covers her mouth, and tells her to drive. You know, mom things. Spencer drives them to the Lost Woods resort, where Mary tells her that she didn’t plant the burner phone. She admits to doing bad things, and we get a flashback to 6 years ago: Mary and Peter are arguing in the Hastings house, because Mary wants to have a relationship with Spencer. Peter calls her conniving and assures her she’ll never know Spencer. Then, Jessica walks in and demands to know why Mary is still there.  I really want to trust you, but you HAVE to stop liking everything on my Facebook page. It’s embarrassing.   Apparently, Jessica and Peter conspired to kill Mary with Peter’s heart pills, but Mary intercepted them and poisoned Jessica, then buried her in the backyard. Not only did Mary save her own life, but she killed the sister who falsely imprisoned her in Radley and stole her first born. She tells Spencer that she wants a real relationship with her, and asks her to run away together. After all, they’re both wanted by the cops…it can be a mother-daughter bonding trip off the grid! Caleb and Hanna invite Ashley over for dinner, but Ashley is still worried about the cops and convinced that her daughter is in trouble again. She asks Caleb for the truth, and Caleb tells her that he’s in love with Hanna and wants to marry her. This is the first Hanna is hearing of this, but she’s on board, so they all pop open some wine and toast the engagement. They had it coming, they had it coming, they only have themselves to blame!   Aria wakes up in a black and white world, dressed like a bride. She’s on a set designed like a cell block, and is shocked to see Mona, dressed as a prison guard, singing “Jailhouse Rock” while a bunch of convicts perform a choreographed beat down of Ezra. It is, in a word, marvelous. It’s fan service come to life. It’s sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows. Aria and a bloodied Ezra make their way to the altar, where Veronica Hastings is wearing a prison jump suit. She calls Aria a selfish little bitch and tells her she wouldn’t piss on her if she were on fire. Aria wakes with a start— it was all a musical fever dream! I’m now inspired to start a kickstarter for my musical stage adaptation of Pretty Little Liars. She gets a text from A.D. telling her that her reward is in the Brew.  If you had been there, if you had seen it, I betcha you would have done the same!   Aria searches the Brew for her file, looking in every book, vintage typewriter, and sugar packet. She finds an envelope under a chair containing a puzzle piece, then pops up her head to see Mona watching her. Aria quickly dons her black hoodie and hustles off to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Later, Emily and Mona bust into the doctor’s office with his mail, which reveals he recently paid off his student loans. They demand to know who bankrolled him, and he tells them he never got a name, just a donor ID number. Spencer walks in on her parents reading the Mary Drake letter. Peter is convinced that Mary is an evil lunatic who wants to steal Spencer away, but Veronica is more level headed and sympathetic. Peter also has the AUDACITY to tell Spencer that she would have done the same thing if a crazy person was threatening her family, like he doesn’t know she was stalked for years and locked in a freaking dollhouse prison. He leaves, and Veronica tells Spencer she can start unpacking: with all the scandal surrounding them, Veronica is withdrawing from the senate and giving up her seat. Yet another capable woman whose political aspirations were foiled by shitty men who couldn’t keep it in their pants. You don’t know what it’s like to be terrorized for years by a madman who blackmails you and torments your friends and family! Brah, what show are you even on right now?   Hanna and Caleb meet up in a tent in the woods, where Caleb has gone off grid. Hanna questions him about the proposal, and Caleb tells her he wants to get married ASAP. They pop some champagne, swap cigar roll rings, and have throwback sex in the tent. Spencer meets up with Mary at the Lost Woods and tells her that she can’t run away with her. Spencer really wants to go, and she wants to know Mary, but she can’t leave her friends and family behind, especially her mother. Mary is sad but understands, and asks for her forgiveness. Spencer forgives her, and tells her she needs to forgive herself. Aria pops the puzzle piece into the board game, and gets a message telling her to turn around, where she finds her file stuck in a decorative vase. Okay, it’s a procedural series starring us as crime fighting lesbians, I’m the brawn, you’re the brains. Did you drive all the way over here just to pitch me Rizzoli and Isles!?   Emily catches Mona outside her apartment and wants to talk about their next steps, but Mona blows her off and tells her to come back in the morning. Mona locks all three locks on her door and spies Emily leave through the peep hole. She then retires to her mini-lair, where she has photos, blueprints, and maps on the wall. Oh, and those shovels in the corner. Only three episodes left for Mona to crack the case! Because at this point, no one else is going to get it done. Tweet me your episode feels and predictions at @ChelseaProcrast http://dlvr.it/PKjq52

Love Flame Take Ya Life

Okay, so no more real horror story for now. Now. Let me speak as I can, and open your mind to the words yah? I. Love you. And perhaps just about everything which isn't causing me agonizing pains. Fortunately, and unfortunately, I cannot possibly know the worst kinds of realities which may or may not exist for life on Earth. I can at least acknowledge my reality for what it has been, and not throw away any decent information or experience or sum of anything which comes to me and is not directly causing me to live in a horror story. I am a very simple life form. I love peaceful quiet days and I love ecstatic and euphoric days and I very much remember the horrific times and horrific things I've witnessed. I never wish nor desire to see nightmares manifest so abundantly everywhere on Earth. But I've had to focus a lot on my self. It took me a long time to realize, but I am not a "good" human being. I am a very good machine. And until life gets violent, my survival capacity is unheard of by my own ears. I cannot say I could survive the wilds, or the urban warscapes. I can only survive really where I am, and I've always been in a sort of distorted reality. I can say to some degree, that my mind has always gotten what it thought or felt it would get. That being good or bad, more often bad because I was a realist when I was a tad bit younger. People don't walk around knowing about physiological stasis. Which is okay for now. That is my basis for if people are at all on some sort of deeper thinking type level, even if rooted in insecurity. It is lovely because soon it will be as abundant and diverse and epic as those lovely tales people hear of. Regardless of the negative side effects I've not heard people speak of, I'm sure plenty have died trying to expose the ones they notice. But also. I have a ominous feeling, but that could be thought-rot anyway. I just dislike how easy it is to go to war, but how difficult it is to obtain world peace amongst human kind that has upgraded their tech / sci trees up a bit. Currently at a point in life where I am watching it acknowledge itself and be awkward and not do what it wants. Everywhere. People. I hope everyone is okay but I know they are not. I don't know how to help really. Besides simply continue to do as I've done... It would be cool to actually find someone who will spill their creative rainbow vomit in words. I like words. Words and these emoji things. They are very nice. I've been listening to The Silmarillion. It's actually a fun little audio at 2x the speed. It is fast enough for visual imaginations to be created. They do say pictures are just lots of words. When words are consumed by my brain fast enough, I get a nice little day dream. Plus these hypnotic tones and it's really like virtual reality sometimes. I think now though I could do 3x speed cuz 2x seems slow. And I am sure there is a diminishing point but maybe I could get to like 5x if it were built into the audio book capacity. I think society kinda... mmm... looks at the archetype "Melkor" in a odd way these days. Our society perpetuates constant genocide, which includes global raping pillaging and murdering on mass over long spans of time. It sucks to live now when shit is getting even deadlier and people don't seem to get that we all gotta kinda take responsibility for the globe as our seedling planet and not just a fuckbag to cum on / inside of. But it seems people are okay with perpetuating it as long as they do not suffer their worst fears. Which it's not hard for a handful of people to cattle herd billions honestly. It's simple when you learn how to manage things and when you know the capacity of the society at any given time. It sucks to feel like I have to express such points. But humans have failed my desired expectations 100% and I love them but they're fucked up. So taking matters into my own hands, it would be much easier to just move all the necessary pieces alone. Put the globe into a sort of "Check" state. The move right before "Check - Mate" in Chess. Humans are if anything, predictable and directable. They can be molded and farmed. Which is why I do believe what has been done to get us all here is rather disgusting as a whole. Except for the fact of the matter everyone chose. But even their "choice" is ridiculous to me, because what other choices did they really have. My choice isn't popular. I really do die before I choose to live a life I cannot. Maybe cowardly in some scenarios. All in all it's gross. And I'd rather have nothing to do with it. But I am like a offspring of the world. And I owe it at least a little bit every now and then. Tax of living I suppose. I've also read the "Art of War" recently. Which is a nice little perception of reality. It is definitely fun in games, and it's fucked to see it's patterns in the world too. I've been playing Halo & Gears of War, as well as a bit of LoZ OoT. It's fun to try new things using old tools. And also I've noticed my brain changing a bit. More dreams again. More memory recollection. But kinda more trippy and psychedelic and timeless. Clocks and shit... I've lost a lot of interest in building a Empire. Especially with all this bullshit "we will kill lots of people" culty groups ruining things for people. I think we are a few decades and thousands of raids away from a cleaner, healthier, symbiotic world society. Always on the fence between numbing myself down to feel lovely or turning myself up to feel lovely. Lovely goes as it goes idk how to explains it. But I acknowledge that it is rare maybe? I'm not so sure, people say that. I don't think it is. I think it's everywhere but humans just tuned out.