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garroth-core · 1 year

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the tragedy of immortality and godhood and the persistence of love despite it, because of it, is one of the most fascinating parts of mcd and mystreet

think of irene, who murders her daughter and gives her body-turned-relic to the father, unknowingly using his daughter's corpse as a weapon, who loses all emotions after a long life. think of shad, who raises an army of the dead and tortures his subordinates, who tries to kill an innocent three-year-old for the crimes of her mother who doesn't even remember those crimes and is an entirely different person. think of the shadow knights' transformation being completed when they kill the person they love the most. think of hyria, thousands of years old and sworn to protect the sacred forest, estranged from her daughter for over thirty years when she chooses duty over family, who herself admits that "the longer you live, the more you forget how to love". you'd think gods and immortals would be the epitome of life; after all, they are alive forever. but we see they're more dead than anything. they are stripped of their humanity, their love, their empathy, leaving nothing but empty husks of souls. they feel nothing. they are nothing.

and yet. and yet and yet and yet — love perseveres. that is the biggest tragedy of it all. love is not an unstoppable force. it did not stop the horrors that befell the lives of the immortals and those around them. love is an immovable object. it stayed through the atrocities, the rage, the massacres, the murder, the estrangement. irene wished, more than anything, to feel again. she tells hyria she will slumber until the world needs her again. because before the divine warriors, before shad, and before her daughter, irene was a woman who loved humanity. shad's rampage is because of his grief, and what is grief if not love's ghost? light shining from a dead star? his love for his daughter motivates him to take alina in vengeance for her gruesome death, to go after aphmau. hyria still loves her daughter. laurence clings to memories of aphmau in the midst of his painful and traumatic transformation in the nether. sasha who has done "twisted things" admits that there are people she cares for in the shadow knight army, going so far as to side with aphmau. even laurence says she was kind to him.

and vylad. vylad, who is the catalyst for everything. vylad who brings irene back into the world because he needs her, because his brother needs her. because, though he has lost all emotion, he still remembers the one brother who was kind to him in his lonely childhood. that is literally what starts mcd!!! the key to the entire thing!!! a man's love for his brother!!!

and then we have perhaps the most tragic figure of them all: lady aphmau.

now, it's wild to me that mystreet went from silly happy fun times to aphmau is the fucking messiah (again) but i won't lie i'm so heavily invested in what happened to mcd!aphmau

after fuck-knows-what-happened, lady aphmau ascends to godhood and becomes mystreet's lady irene. it's implied something went horribly wrong in the events of mcd and lady aphmau, now a goddess and cut off from her friends and family (alina states she "still lived in an unreachable realm"), has to live on immortal and alone. but even though the world eventually forgets her, forgets her friends, forgets her sons and her daughters, she remembers. her love perseveres, even in a world empty of all she once loved.

so she makes a new world. a new world where her friends are happy and alive, where even her enemies — zane, gene, zenix, sasha — eventually befriend her own original group and lead somewhat happy lives themselves. lady aphmau lives vicariously through mys!aphmau, she states so herself. she pretends it is her who gets to have a happy, simple life. but at the end, mys!aphmau's life is not hers to live, not hers to interfere with. as she says, her aaron already died long ago.

once again, love is the key to the entire thing. she chooses to sacrifice herself for aaron. she passes over resurrection for aphmau. she has nothing to gain from this. she chooses aaron because she loves him. she chooses aphmau because she knows what it is like to love and be loved, to once have something to go home to. but her friends are waiting not on earth. so she dies, her daughter at her side.

i think what gets to me the most are the endings we see for shad, irene, and lady aphmau. we don't see the endings for the others because jesson didn't finish the series <33 but what we do see are these: simple endings. peaceful endings. quiet endings. it fucking does something to me when grand larger-than-life characters yearn for easy, uncomplicated lives.

think of what lady aphmau reincarnated all of them for, what she broke divine rules for, what she defended against the celestial cannon. snowball fights and putting on silly plays and opening maid cafes are what this all-powerful goddess wants. domesticity and wedding dress shopping and a house on the street where all her neighbors are her friends. this is what heaven is to her, not the chapel above the clouds devoted to her. what does she care about that? she's found heaven in a golden afternoon with her dearest hearts. think of shad and irene. after all the grand battles, the world-ending apocalypses, all the bloodbaths, and at the end shad goes home to irene, their daughter at his side, nothing more. they end their lives in an, to the bigger world, unremarkable suburban house save for the memories that live there, the memories themselves are indistinguishable from any memories any other person would have. simple memories of a simple childhood of a simple girl.

a simple girl who, after a battle against a demon centuries old, after finding out she's a literal goddess, is by her friend's side. the first friend she ever made. her not-alone-buddy. her life has been thrown upside down. her best friends and the love of her life have sustained irreparable damage, losing their memories, their magic, their knowledge. it is her godhood that is the cause. they sacrificed themselves so that she may bring them victory. once again, the tragedy that befell her predecessors repeats itself. godhood takes, and takes, and takes. she must feel so many emotions — guilt and grief and rage and helplessness. she must blame herself. but then she thinks of what the goddess said to her, of how people have chosen to be in her life. she looks at the friend who chooses to sit by her side as they both recover from their injuries. so she smiles upon seeing him, says it's been a long time, and reaffirms that no, she is not alone. none of them are. she does say it in some grand declaration, some striking action. her love is simple, peaceful, quiet. despite everything, because of everything, her love persists. it perseveres. it is an immovable object.

#yeah. yeah i went a bit insane #aphblr #aphmau #aphverse #minecraft diaries #mystreet #aphmau minecraft diaries #aphmau mcd #shad the destroyer #shad #irene #irene the matron

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needfantasticstories · 3 months

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Day 1: Helpless

TW: divine possession, slight body horror, traumatic flashbacks

Characters: Sun (Linked Universe), Hylia (The Legend of Zelda)

Divine Disturbance

(Connects to Hidden Heroes)

Zelda lay in bed in her Knight’s Academy dorm, her eyes refusing to stay closed. She stroked the remlit curled at her side and stared at the rafters obscured in shadows above. Only a patch of waning moonlight from the window, pale and ghostly, outlined her room.

She scratched gently behind the remlit’s floppy ear, smiling despite a twinge of jealousy at its easy rest. She knew, from seventeen years of existing as a mortal girl, that she needed sleep. It would heal her body from the day spent sparring, studying, and running around the islands as a representative of the village council. She needed the rest, but the divine within her resented it.

DO NOT LOSE A MOMENT! ARISE!

Not again… Hylia, we’re mortal now. We need to rest. Like in the crystal, Zelda thought to her former self, to the enormous ghost that lingered within her. The goddess seemed to grow more persistent every day. She dragged Zelda’s thoughts and emotions into another life at the smallest hints of her old one. A breath of mint or rosemary might send her dancing as she had in courts of old before her feet realized they were moving. It was rather embarrassing during lunch in the dining hall, but luckily Link and Groose began to clap along, causing Pipit and Karane and Fletch to tap their feet somewhat hesitantly too, and by the time Zelda became fully aware of her presence at breakfast and not the leading a Royal Ball, her friends had appeased the questioning stares with generous laughter, as if it was all a joke they had planned. Link bowed and led her to her history tutor before anyone could ask for an explanation, so it faded into another silly story the others would sometimes joke about at gatherings. Silly, spontaneous Zelda. She did not appreciate the changes in her reputation. She’d rather remain known as “level-headed” and “determined,” especially as an aspiring member of the Council.

She didn’t mind the changes brought on by the goddess’ knowledge when she finally beat both Link and Captain Eagus at sparring, to everyone’s surprise. Link guessed rightly that the goddess had something to do with it, and he’d beamed at her when she’d confirmed his theory in private. His eyes, so proud and trusting and full of admiration, made her heart ache. Who did he love, really?

More recently, a simple tune hummed by Peatrice as she passed on the road had sent Zelda’s mind into a panic, racing to the edge to leap after her hero. The Song of Mourning, she knew all of the sudden, the last she’d sung after… he’s struggling down there all alone and DEAD DEAD DEAD! She’d raced to the skydock and leapt, desperate to find him in the clouds, ready to soar on her own wings, blade at the ready to face Demise and stop him but knowing it was already too late.

Luckily, she’d come to herself as the wind whipped her shawl over her eyes. She’d resheathed her sword and called her loftwing, Indigo, to catch her before plunging into the cloud barrier where no loftwing could follow.

She grew afraid of the goddess, for the first time, and prayed to her past self that it would not happen again. The power had hummed like an earthquake inside her, and she hoped it understood.

Most of the time, if she could manage to close herself from the tides of emotions, she could get by. She could act normal. After all, how could she explain?

Gondo would present the council with the newest set of repaired robots and explain about the wonder of wires and circuits, and she could pretend she didn’t remember how to infuse a consciousness within a machine with just the right spell, if only she could access Hylia’s magic at will. It would mean nothing to them.

When Link would wonder about his predecessor, how could she spoil his day by expressing the overwhelming love she felt for a man a thousand years in his grave, a stranger to them both, while feeling that same love for the young man at her side, as if they were the same? How could she explain that she would always see their faces overlapping?

When she’d burst into tears of joy at finding a large seed on the Surface, how could she explain the faint memories of Deku trees planted and nurtured in places she knew by heart but would never find again? She wasn’t even sure if they came before her era, or after. How could she explain so much with so little?

She couldn't, so she didn’t.

Instead, she found ways to explain away the strange, divine impulses as excitement, silly curiosity, a flight of fancy, or beginner’s luck.

Link. Groose. Father. They knew she was the goddess’s mortal form, but they would never understand. So she bore the goddess alone.

Fear swelled in deep corners of her mind. Trapped. Small. Constricted. Her head stung from the pressure of condensed sunlight burning, burning, burning within it. The Sacred Springs had been excruciating but short-lived, and the Goddess had settled quickly after each cleansing, even if the goddess’s commands frustrated Zelda long after. Now, she was a mouse that had swallowed a dragon, a divine beast of dazzling power, perpetually in motion and raging, and Zelda was about to crack at any moment. Her heart beat like a drum against her ribs. Delicate webs of nerves danced and screamed at every turn of the divine mind as it struggled to comprehend this new world through the bars of a tiny mortal prison.

Sensing the danger, the power began to ease: hot but no longer blazing; pounding, but no longer bursting.

Zelda gasped, able to move on her own once more. She rolled out of her smothering, feather-filled blanket and settled flat on her back, letting the night air cool her. One hand buried in the fur of the fluffy animal still sleeping beside her and another hand pressed against her own chest, as the thud thud thud of two mismatched hearts reverberated in her palms. At last, her own thundering cacophony began to steady and slow. She breathed in and out, measuring each breath evenly.

I am still me. I am the same Zelda. Just…changed…

She addressed her thoughts to the divine ghost within. I need to sleep, Dear Hylia.

DEITIES DO NOT SLEEP.

The declaration wrenched her eyes open. She startled so sharply that her little remlit companions yowled, shot out of the nest of blankets, then scrambled under the bed.

Zelda sighed, and wiped sweat from her brow as her heartbeat picked up again. She longed to agree with the goddess. So often, sleep brought breathtaking, confusing, or nightmarish memories that left her heart longing or broken, her eyes red and swollen from weeping from the memory of loss and failure and a world nearly destroyed. Beneath it all an ocean of rage and regret: THEY ARE DEAD! THEY ARE HURTING! THEY ARE LOST! HE IS DEAD, HE IS DEAD, HE IS DEAD! HOW CAN A GODDESS OF TIME BE LATE? CELESTIAL MOTHERS, HOW DID I FAIL HIM?

The goddess supplied herself a furious answer, the waves of rage swelling, and it set Zelda’s heart racing again. I TOLERATED AND IGNORED DEMISE FOR TOO LONG. I COMMANDED THE HERO TO FIGHT BEFORE HE WAS READY. I FEARED MY SHADOW, AND MADE HIM FACE IT IN MY STEAD.

Please, stop! Quiet quiet quiet! Zelda begged the divine as it threatened to drown her. What mortal could bear such rage? Such despair? Such love? Such hatred, all at once? There was nowhere for it to go, and she could not contain it.

She tried to turn aside, to cry into her pillow, but she couldn’t move. Helpless, she realized tonight was far different than other memories. Vivid to the point of blindness, she saw a flash of light as the might of Fi’s power shot up to the sky, but her wielder needed her! NOW! Zelda…no, Hylia was falling, not soaring and barely controlled, yet still so far away from him, too weak to simply appear at his side. Tears streamed NO! TOO LATE! This despair was no longer a swell, but an electric shock. Zelda seized up at the sight of those dead-white eyes on the hero’s beautiful, serene face, and when the vision closed at last she gasped and curled tightly on herself. She had sensed every vein and sinew in the man’s body, and in what order they stopped functioning. No one should know so much about the death of another, nor should she so love a stranger, no matter how like her own Link he appeared.

The self-loathing of a goddess was more than she could bear.

Zelda squeezed her eyes shut, and they shot open again. And again. And again. The visions crowded her room. She cried for the goddess’s hurt, for her frustration at mortal limits, for memories she did not want to see, for the goddess’s anger at being trapped as a mortal, and her own anger at being swallowed by the divine. But she could not move, her body completely in the hands of the goddess, and her grief was still rising higher. If she could, she’d have screamed in agony.

Link is not dead! Her usual first line of defense from these divine, dark thoughts seemed so small tonight, and made no difference. She tried again. He’s alive! Let me rest!

Link is alright. He’s safe. You saved him!

Zelda’s assurances pushed back as weak as a breath compared to the goddess’s tempest. Usually, it was enough to redirect the momentum toward happier thoughts, and then the goddess would grace her with more pleasant or helpful memories.

Not tonight. Her assurances only seemed to exacerbate the goddess’s fury and terror. More memories flooded her, new and unfamiliar. Knights swiping blades to cut her down, giant spiders crawling closer, pale dead hands reaching from the floor, and the silhouette of a man, his laughter cruel and grating, as he stood victorious over a dark shape on the floor. A crown glistened in the space between them, and—

Please, let me sleep! she begged as another swell of jumbled images and sensations and feelings too complex to parse threatened to crash over her and sweep her away into oblivion. Her head throbbed and grew feverishly hot with the effort to keep herself in one piece as her mind pulled a thousand directions at once. Excruciating pain and exhaustion and the fierce will to live and the threat of death all wrapped in one overwhelming feeling. She was being consumed.

WE ARE SAFE! She barely kept from screaming her thoughts out loud. THE WORLD IS SAFE!

HE IS NOT SAFE! the storm shrieked back at her. THE WORLD IS NOT SAFE!

She knew that Link slept in the room almost below hers, just one off, and by this hour he would be snoring by now, safe and sound. Demise and his blade were dead.

He’s here! It’s over! It’s done! There’s nothing more you can do! Haven't you done enough?

The goddess’s wrath slowed, and the storm became a whispered song of hope at the thought Zelda had conjured of Link, safe and asleep.

And then, nothing. The storm dissolved. She’d finally shut up.

Only whisper’s of Indigo’s dreams remained, chasing skytails, mercifully free of the Goddess’s storms.

Zelda drew a slow, deep breath as her palms lifted off her sweaty hair. Has it truly stopped? Her hands lingered by her ears, ready to resume the desperate hold on her aching head. But nothing disturbed her thoughts now, and her room was starkly quiet in the pallid moonlight.

Zelda sighed in relief. At last, she could rest.

She retrieved the down-filled blanket she’d kicked onto the floor. Autumn air chilled the night, and she tucked the blanket close around her, and wiped her brow with her sleeve. Ignoring the sweat drying on her skin, she basked in the quiet and calm. Her body relaxed, at its limit. Each night, for three nights, she’d wrestled with the Goddess, and she was done.

Hylia, please be at peace, she prayed, hoping to keep the goddess appeased. It is over. Demise is gone. You saved everyone. Your hero is alive.

Even without the goddess’s urging, she would always watch over Link. Not that many threats remained: a few monsters on the Surface they’d face together, nosy questions about their time on the surface, rude comments about his lightning scars. Not that he couldn’t deal with them on his own, but his state had been fragile the first month, and she still struggled not to hover.

She owed him that much: from her failure as the goddess to her failure as a friend he’d trusted. At Hylia’s bidding, she’d thrown him into danger. The goddess had been only a blessing back then, and who was she to question divinity? She would not make that mistake again.

But Link had volunteered after he knew the truth, and he’d faced the demon that had hunted her and her people thousands of years ago. He was just a boy, barely seventeen, and he’d saved her and the world from the jaws of Demise.

She owed him the world. And all he asked for was her friendship. Not her love, or her favor, but her company.

Her mind grew heavy and thick, full of pleasant dreams: playing in a fairy fountain with tiny sisters, taking in the healing magic and soft glowing light.

Do not sleep, daughter of my soul. Take up my blade. Tear the monster asunder. Break him across the ages. More must be done. Finish it.

The new thought jostled her awake. Zelda groaned, but paused. Something was different. The goddess felt calm and aware, like a remlit ready to pounce rather than a storm. Why had the idea come after she’d already felt her mind close to the deity only moments ago?

Zelda sat up and moved to the window. Above Skyloft floated the silhouette of Sir Hawke, and she knew whoever had nightwatch with him flew below the islands, ready to catch anyone Sir Hawke might have missed.

Nothing else stirred. Her head swam as she stood, protesting at being awake for two days and counting. Her joints felt like chu jelly, weakening while she stood. Is this long enough? Are you finally resting?

Stillness followed. Optimistic, she returned to bed.

Silence. Blessed silence.

Quietness settled over Zelda’s body again as she burrowed in downy covers. At last, she sighed in relief. Within seconds she lay on the brink of sleep.

A yell from downstairs shocked her upright. She recognized the tenor of that voice.

Link.

#linked universe #linked universe fanfic #skipwrites #febuwhump 2024 #febuwhump #whump fic #whump #lu sun #hylia #goddess hylia #febuwhumpday1 #possession #traumatic memories #slight body horror

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