Rain is falling falling and memories keep flooding by they show me a senseless world a voracious world—abyss ambush whirlwind spur but I keep loving it because I do because of my five senses because of my amazement because every morning, because forever, I have loved it without knowing why.

Claribel Alegría, from “Rain”, trans. Margaret S. Peden

I think so many people are so deeply alienated from themselves that they have no clue how to exercise their free will and autonomy. For some, this alienation runs so deep that they are afraid of their own autonomy and humanity. It is completely understandable why one would have those feelings, but it can be worrisome.

I want to help others who feel this way, so here are small things I have done to exercise my free will:

Add "guilty pleasure" songs to playlists and actually listen to them (I have a ton of late 1990s-early 2000s music I listen to now proudly that I never listened to in the past out of shame)

Getting the décor item, bath set, bed spread, ect. in the patterns you like, even if it's "childish" (I got a dinosaur-themed wastebasket from the kids' décor section and I adore it)

Taking a new route to get to a place you go to often

Eat dessert first

Celebrate well, and often

Collect things that are "odd" or don't seem like an "acceptable" thing to collect (somebody on my "for you" page collects dandelion crayola crayons and it was so cool!!!!!!)

Incorporate one new piece in an outfit you wear frequently (e.g., a new chain, a necklace, ribbons, bracelets, ect.). Challenge yourself to add onto the outfits if you feel up for it.

Sing along to songs without worrying that you sound "good" or your intonation is completely accurate

Read a book from a genre you weren't allowed to read as a kid (comics, thrillers, mysteries, anything!)

Walk without having a specific destination or goal

Pick up a new craft without expecting yourself to master it or to ever be "good" enough. Get your hands messy.

I don't want to shame anybody for not feeling as though they have free will or that they are exempt from exercising it. However, I wanted to give ideas so that you might read this list and find your own ways to express your intrinsic autonomy and will. You deserve to be a person, to feel alive, not just living. That is what our lives are for.

my heart is so link shaped

you wouldn’t believe

Please tell me i'm not as forgettable as your silence is making me feel.

friend wanted to see my tumblr, and when i told him i can’t show it to him bc it’s basically my personal diary he went “oh so I can’t see it but a bunch of strangers on tumblr can??” he literally does not get me. no one will get me like the people in my phone get me

Playing Dead AU Guyyyyyyssss

I just had a random shenanigans idea...

Now hear me out.

You know those murder mystery parties right? The ones where people get together, an actor plays dead, and the groups have to figure out who did it.

Well what if.

Danny takes a summer job as the body/actor of the victim for those parties and actually is commented on being the best 'very lifelike dead body' actor and hey at least his 'medical condition' (halfa) is finally being useful for something (besides you know, fighting ghosts) he can even go hours without moving (or breathing) once he's dead so he doesn't ruin the immersion for party goers.

Anyways, what if he gets a job for a rich people's party, you know something novelty for the wealthy to have fun with, maybe it's the Wayne's hosting a party or maybe someone else and they invite the Wayne's. And the company he works for sends him to Gotham. He gets there, helps set up the clues and the other actors, etc etc.

Then the guests start showing up, Danny acts like the star of the show he is and then the lights cut out, he screams (very realistically), and 'dies' before the lights come back on. As some players come up to inspect his body however he doesn't notice how some take his pulse and actually fully think he's dead.

Point being, Danny is the 'dead' body for the murder mystery, goes to Gotham for a gig, 'dies' and the batfam think they have a legit murder happening.

HUUHH ❤️⁉️

The fandom collectively sort of agreed that Zelda was a bad cook without a lot of evidence

That was until Age of Calamity came along and actually proved the fandom right!

However, there is a side quest in Tears of the Kingdom that implies she can cook actually

And the only reasonable explanation to this is that Link taught her, obviously

....

Wings of fire dragons firebreath headcanons

I think it would be boring if all dragons had the same fire.

There are pains that have lost their memory and don’t remember why they are painful.

— Antonio Porchia, from “Voices”, trans. Gonzalo Melchor

with thanks to elvedon

People like to romanticize the relationship between Zelda and Link in a whole “destined reincarnated soulmates” kind of way, but am I the only one who thinks it would be more interesting if Link didn’t love Zelda?

Like, think of it. Hylia is a Goddess, basically Hylian Jesus, and she loves this mortal man. A hero who stepped forward to defeat a Devil in the world’s hour of greatest need. But, he didn’t do it for her, he did it for the World. Even when he binds his soul to the Triforce, locking himself in an endless pattern of reincarnation with her against the Devil Demise, it’s not because he loves her. He loves Hyrule and its people.

But that’s okay, maybe in the next life they can be?

But it isn’t. Over and over, Hylia becoming Zelda, Link doesn’t love her. He loves Hyrule. He loves to dance to its music and ride its fields and wants to preserve it against the threat of Demise. He loves different women each time, and sometimes it is Hylia’s reincarnation, but they’re never the core of his heart.

It’s always Hyrule that he loves. From it’s savage and arid deserts to the cold and harsh tundra, he loves it, and steps forward to save it each time.

Duty, he calls it. Responsibility and Purpose, but Hylia/Zelda knows the truth. He’ll never love her the way she wants him to.

Hyrule will always be Link’s first and greatest love.

Now that you're gone

To celebrate TOTK coming out lets remember what I drew when the trailer was announced

shiv was not being altruistic nor intellectually self-interested when she voted against kendall. that was pure raw visceral desperation to maintain some semblance of dignity that she felt kendall being ceo would shred her of. sometimes people do not act in other people’s best interests or their own best interests. sometimes people do the wrong thing for the wrong reasons just because it feels like the right, the only, thing to do. shiv could not let kendall be ceo. she just couldn’t. not because she wanted to sacrifice herself to “stop the cycle,” not because she made a calculation and decided tom was her best interest — because the thought of kendall being ceo and acting like That the rest of their lives when shiv earned that job, she fucking earned it, that was too much to fucking bear. watching him sit in dad’s chair, conduct that vote, grin with entitlement and cockiness and certainty — seeing that elicited a visceral painful all-consuming sensation not dissimilar to overwhelming nausea that, summed up in two words, would simply be: fuck. no. she couldn’t live with that. she just couldn’t. it’s not kind. it’s not smart. it’s just human. painfully, destructively human. because sometimes, that’s all there is to it. not just for shiv, but for everyone. god knows roman and kendall have had those same feelings, made those same self-destructing yet necessary-feeling decisions throughout the show. why does it have to be different for shiv? why can’t she be painfully destructively human, prone to impulsive ill-conceived viscerally felt actions, like everyone else? why are we incapable of allotting her the same nuance and humanity (the good and the bad), the same trauma-informed self-destructive life-ruining hamartias, as we do her brothers? why can’t we fit a whole woman in our heads?

People knock on Rhoam for being a bad dad cuz he's distant and stern to little Zelda and say how Rauru is the goat (heh) for taking her in like his own daughter. Like Zelda had her real parental connection with Sonia and Rauru. But frankly that's a little reductive.

Rauru literally descended from the heavens, married a priest, started a kingdom. Man didn't really know much strife yet. There's no looming threat of calamity or prophecy yet. Things are peaceful. Things are fine. Things are great. Zelda dropped in during this time, talking about a doom that's going to happen tens of thousands of years in the future.

This sad, lost princess.

Of course any reasonable person would take her in and calm her and tell her she is fine and listen and support her.

Rhoam not being able to be this kind of figure for Zelda is tragic. Just read this poor man's journal entries:

"It has been a year and three months since her mother passed. Perhaps she is held back by heartache too deep to heal. If the Ganon prophecy wasn't looming over our heads, I would tell her to take her time... To wait until she is ready. But our situation is dire and leaves no room for weakness—even on behalf of my beloved daughter. My heart breaks for Zelda, but I must act as a king, not a father. I must order her to train relentlessly at the fountain." Pg 4.

"In truth, I understand Zelda's feelings. Painfully so. She lost her mother, her teacher, before she could learn from her. Ten pointless years of self-training, without so much as a book or note to help her find her way... Those in the castle talk behind her back. And I, her only family, scold her for her shortcomings. No wonder she wishes to hide away in her beloved relic research. I'd love nothing more than to console her... But I must stay strong. She MUST fulfill her duty, just as we all must. Even if she comes to despise me." Pg 6.

"I have been told my Zelda went to the Spring of Wisdom... This will likely be her last chance. If she is unable to awaken her power at Lanayru, all hope is truly lost. If she comes back without success, then I shall speak kindly with her. Scolding is pointless now. I forced 10 years of training on her... and after all that, it seems her power will stubbornly awaken some other way. Perhaps I should encourage her to keep researching her beloved relics. They may just lead her to answers I can't provide. For now, I sit anxiously, more a father than a king in this moment. I sit and await my daughter's return." Pg 7. (He fucking dies and never gives Zelda this bit of closure uuuugggghhhhhhh Zelda I'm so sorry Rhoam I'm so sorry)

It sucks because most people remember the cutscenes (duh it's more immersive and important) and in the cutscenes of the first game Rhoam was mostly shown as being stern and mean to babygirl Zelda, who is closed fists explaining herself to him at the verge of tears. And in contrast everyone in the first royal family of hyrule in the second game treated her with such kindness and we can see how happy she was being there with them.

Rhoam was shackled by duty. By prophecy. By the looming calamity. And from the day he named his daughter 'Zelda' he shackled her as well.

And what does Zelda do with these shackles? She accepts them. She tolerates them. Because she loves her father and her kingdom and knows there's a power dormant in her that can stop the calamity that she must do her best to unlock. She does this dutifully. She does all the training, she does everything that is required.

But it still doesn't unlock. So she tries other ways. She isn't just going after the 'relics' because she's scholarly and nerdy and wants to learn about them. She does it because she's pragmatic. She knows her sacred sealing power isn't present in her. She knows she might not be able to control it or even unlock it in time.

So she tries this alternative approach. The Divine Beasts, the guardians. Ancient tech that was used to prevent the calamity of their time. And she awakened the tech. And her father chose the champions for each divine beast. And they were all prepared. And it's all thanks to Zelda.

And then... Fucking tragedy again. Ganon probably learned his lesson from the last time he was thwarted and immediately went for the tech, corrupting it and turning it against the new users. Against Zelda.

It's never really stated how fast it all turned to shit when the tech betrayed them (or maybe I don't remember) but every account points to it being almost overnight. The champions died. Rhoam died. And suddenly, suddenly Zelda unlocks her sealing magic.

I always always hate the literary trope of using tragedy to unlock a great power that could've actually stopped the tragedy from happening in the first place.

And it's no different in BOTW. I hate that Zelda had to go through all this to unlock her powers.

And then what happens next?

She's stuck in limbo (in an almost mocking parallel to Rauru in the next game with his imprisoning arm) holding Ganon back. For a hundred years.

This young woman had gone through so much only to be trapped with a calamity seeking to destroy Hyrule for a century.

Does she know her father died in the war? Does she know the champions died in battle? Would she know Link would survive in the Shrine of Resurrection? Would she know how long it would all take? The century she would have to wait?

I think she didn't. I think it all happened too fast. I think ultimately, she decided a stalemate with ganon was an agreeable outcome. I think in her mind she probably thought she failed Hyrule. When the divine beasts turned she must have been distraught. Distraught might not even cover it tbh. But at least... At least when the kingdom was brought to it's knees by the corrupted tech and was waiting for the final blow, she had the ability to ensure the final blow never came.

And oh boy I have a looot more to talk about regarding Tears of the Kingdom. But I do want to have a couple of more playthroughs of it to really formulate what I want to say.