#a month where we finally get to play as zelda as i should be because the entirety of totk and recent interviews and the entire attitude

[symmetrycrypt]

thinking about how much i fucking hate totk again, like sorry, it really tainted my entire love for the series that was literally my special interest for so long growing up

[genericpuff]

Lore Olympus just pulled off the biggest whiff in webtoon history.

I promised I would choose one of two headlines and of course, this is the one we wound up with. But should we really be surprised? Rachel herself seemed to be telling on herself down to the minutes leading up to the finale, fully confirming to us that yes, she's been writing this comic at the last minute, by the seat of her pants, for ages now.

(that second one was literally posted TWENTY FUCKING MINUTES BEFORE THE COMIC UPDATED.)

Welp, let's get into it. Possibly the last essay I'll ever write about this dumpster fire of a comic (but probably not, let's be real LOL)

CONTENT WARNING: DISCUSSION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AND FASTPASS SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES FINALE AHEAD!

Holy crap, where to even start with this. I knew it was going to be bad. I knew it was going to be rushed. I knew it wasn't ever going to live up to what I had hoped it would be years ago when I was still a diehard fan.

But I didn't think it was going to fall quite this hard. Despite bracing myself for the worst, Rachel has once again let my expectations down through a final display of explosive mediocrity and disappointment.

Yes, the episode is called "You're Welcome", and yes, that instant "ick" you're feeling is the exact same as what we're all feeling. This title plays into the dialogue later, but what a shitty, lowkey mean-spirited title for the series finale.

Now, before we get into the actual episode, the WT ads for this are just... so desperate and misleading.

They are trying SO HARD to hype up something that isn't there, and at the last minute to boot, because Rachel definitely hadn't written any of this ahead of time.

First off, the bit about the gods being in "eternal chaos" of course isn't a stake worth worrying over because Gaia literally does away with Ouranos in the first 5 panels.

Did you really think I was joking about that 5 panels thing?

That's it. That's the death of Ouranos. As mysteriously and quickly as he arrived, he was gone, after Gaia ripped out of him what appeared to be some purple sunny side up - but it's actually, in fact, Apollo.

And that's when we start to get some of the worst dialogue I've ever seen throughout LO. Remember when I said LO's dialogue was like Shenmue 3? Welp, the finale decided to continue that tradition and further fuel the suspicion that this entire thing was written by ChatGPT.

Oh, by the way, that "thank you, ma'am" was Artemis' first and last line of the episode. So once again, just like in Episode 248, we're completely robbed of her reaction to Apollo being a rapist piece of shit and the character development she could have had as a supporting character. The women in this "feminist retelling" really couldn't be more half-baked.

Gaia stumbles upon Persephone, and I'm not even gonna fucking bother showing the panels where Gaia says it's time to "make things right" because they literally don't matter. Why don't they matter? Because Rachel just had to get in one more pointless time skip.

We're shown a sequence of pointless images that I'm not gonna show as I don't want to waste my image limit on them, depicting Hades having a sad day because his small wife isn't with him and oh nooo what could have happened?? Did Persephone finally divorce him ??

Nah, we couldn't possibly have an actually happy ending in this comic. Instead we get a completely pointless phone conversation between Hades and Hecate-

Not only is the grammar particularly bad in this episode, but the actual script-writing is atrocious. We literally did not need this phone conversation to happen because-

-we're cutting BACK TO THE PRESENT THAT WE JUST CUT AWAY FROM FOR A 3 MONTH TIME SKIP. FOR NO REASON BESIDES SHOWING HADES BE SAD OVER SOMETHING THAT ACTUALLY ISN'T THAT BIG A DEAL, AS YOU'RE ABOUT TO SEE.

I- I LITERALLY HAVE NO WORDS. I HAVE NO WORDS TO DESCRIBE WHAT THE FUCK THIS IS. ALL I CAN HEAR IN MY BRAIN IS THE LEGEND OF ZELDA ITEM GET MUSIC-

-BECAUSE THIS WHOLE THING SUDDENLY SOUNDS LIKE SOME CONTRIVED FETCH QUEST. WHAT DO YOU MEAN HADES AND PERSEPHONE HAVE PROVEN 'TRUE LOVE' IS REAL? WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY HAVEN'T USED 'LOVE' AS A FORCE FOR DESTRUCTION?? ARE WE FORGETTING THAT HADES MUTILATED A GUY IN THE NAME OF 'LOVE'? THAT PERSEPHONE LITERALLY INVADED THE HOME OF HADES' CANONICAL FIRST WIFE BECAUSE SHE FELT MILDLY THREATENED BY HER?

This whole concept of "true love" that Rachel is trying to convey feels so juvenile especially for a series that has sold itself as being mature and thought-provoking and progressive.

HAHAHA SO FUNNYYYYYYY why does Rachel write like this. this is, at best, the writing of a 13 year old on fanfiction.net, which I SHOULD KNOW, because I WAS ONE OF THEM. BUT I'M 28 NOW AND RACHEL HAS ANOTHER 10 YEARS ON ME.

Okay, this is the part where I'm CONVINCED Rachel either just mashed this into the episode in the MINUTES leading up to its release, or she used ChatGPT or something. Because NONE of this dialogue makes any sense. Beyond how stilted and lifeless it is (seriously, this dialogue reads like something from Empress Theresa) Gaia is clearly meant to 'replace' Erebus here which I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO EVEN EXPLAIN IS SO FUCKING DUMB, but ALSO what is even Persephone trying to communicate here? "That is true, but it was a deal I was willing to make and ties me to the Underworld. Please don't change me." What? Gaia hasn't even insinuated that she's going to do anything to Persephone, why is Persephone immediately jumping to this conclusion? What does 'changing' her mean? Is she asking Gaia not to force her to sacrifice something (which she never did)? Or is she asking Gaia not to strip her of her Underworld status? Because again, why is that even something Gaia would do?

Maybe this is harsh but I'm pretty sure even Empress Theresa is more coherent than this, what in the flying fuck is Gaia talking about?

"I can just see the potential for conflict! To relieve you from the burden of the whats, the hows, and wheres." Like... okay, first of all, that second sentence isn't even a complete sentence, it's a dependent clause left hanging, but also what the fuck does this MEAN. Is she EXCITED for the conflict but then contradicting herself by saying she wants to relieve Persephone of that conflict? Or is she saying she can see the conflict it would cause for Persephone to have to perform duties in both realms and trying to insinuate that she's going to relieve her of those complications?

Here's what I think happened - I think that second 'sentence' wasn't supposed to be a sentence, but the start of the sentence to the next panel-

So with that theory in mind, the sentence becomes, "To relieve you from the burden of the whats, the hows, and wheres, you are to spend three months in the Mortal Realm to do spring and the rest of the year in the Underworld. That seems fair to me."

It's still a very poorly written line of dialogue, but at least with that fix in mind it makes sense. But man, you can really fucking tell this episode was submitted at the last minute because that's a serious syntax error that should NOT have happened in this two-time-Eisner-winning comic.

Errors aside, it's clear that Rachel is following through on having Persephone spend only three months in the Mortal Realm, rather than the traditional six. There ARE other translations that have that number closer to four, but those four are the time she spends in the UNDERWORLD, meaning she's always spending either equal or MORE time in the Mortal Realm. Of course, Rachel doesn't want her self-insert small wife power fantasy to actually have to be separated from Hades despite this being a retelling of The Abduction of Persephone, so instead of her spending three months in the Underworld, she's now spending them in the Mortal Realm, literally doubling the MINIMUM amount of time (four months) she was originally meant to reside in the Underworld.

But oh no, apparently those three months are STILL NOT SHORT ENOUGH FOR PERSEPHONE-

Of course, Rachel "Retcon" Smythe had to have her cake and eat it too. I always worried something like this was a possibility, but I never thought she would actually prove me right - not only is Persephone only separated from Hades for three months out of the year, but actually he can visit her any time he wants to, so really, they're not separating at all.

I think Rachel needs to look up "reunion" in the dictionary, because if you can visit each other any time, then that means the 'reunions' are no longer special occasions. This completely removes any semblance of depth or meaning from all of the storytelling leading up to this, all of it with the expectation that this was a retelling of the Abduction of Persephone, because that's what Rachel said it was going to be. At this point it's safe to say that Rachel has zero business attempting to "retell" mythological stories, because she doesn't even seem to grasp the concept of why they were written the way they were to begin with. Either that, or she really just doesn't care, and the only reason for making LO a Greek myth comic at all was to propel her career.

This also brings me back to those promotional ads, the other one that posed the question, "Will sacrifice be enough to bring these two back together?"

This is stating the obvious, but I need to make it perfectly clear - Hades and Persephone have never sacrificed a single thing. The only thing they could POSSIBLY quantify as a "sacrifice" is "not being tied at the hip for a few hours", because even Persephone going on the equivalent of a work trip next door is apparently enough to make Hades sad as we saw in the 3 month time skip panels. Why is Hades so sad and lonely if he can visit her any time? Why is he acting like he hasn't seen her in years when he's actually on his way to reunite with her? Why is Hecate calling to ask him if he's "okay" as if he JUST got separated from her, but actually he's about to literally go to the Mortal Realm to reunite with her?

Hades hasn't 'sacrificed' a damn thing, neither has Persephone. They've both always gotten exactly what they wanted, even at the cost of breaking the story's own established rules. Their 'sacrifice' is equivalent to what billionaires think are 'sacrifices' when they can't buy another yacht or go on that third overseas vacation for the month.

And even outside of this episode, when have these two ever sacrificed anything?

I've tried so hard to think of what sacrifices have been made by the characters within LO, and I genuinely can only think of one - and that was when Artemis chose to go to the Mortal Realm with Persephone instead of staying with her family in Olympus. That was a genuine, selfless sacrifice, made by a character who has been shelved in favor of focusing on the self-centered pink and blue airheads.

Being forced to be apart for a couple days to do the equivalent of a day job and whining about it the whole time is not a 'sacrifice'. Neither of these characters have ever sacrificed anything, they just feel like sacrifices because they have the integrity and empathy of soggy cardboard.

sigh Anyways, we're back in the present and Hades and Persephone immediately decide they're gonna have sex because ofc, and then we get this gem of a panel-

MMMMMM

FUNNYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY JOKE

For some reason it's just a common thing for people to just be in Hades' home, and they can't seem to get any privacy as a result of this, but I digress. Turns out they still need to have that coronation for Persephone.

There is... so much wrong in these three panels.

First, to state the immediate issues - why the fuck are they mentioning Apollo at Persephone's coronation? Like first of all, no shit Apollo isn't gonna be there, but also, if this is supposed to be an event for and about Persephone becoming Queen of the Underworld, then why in the WORLD is Apollo even being mentioned? This is supposed to be a "feminist retelling" where the victims are empowered and heal from their trauma, but LO once again can't try to show any sort of positive growth for the victims without bringing up the assaulters and giving them screen time. It just goes to show that Rachel's idea of "healing" is purely rooted in the revenge, and not the growth. It's a very high schooler approach to this subject, hellbent on showcasing how all the meanies from the past are losers now and life just sucked for them forever, but inadvertently proving its own point that the victims haven't and can't move on because the narrative is spending so much time on caring what's going on with the abusers. It's the "I don't care! Look at how little I care! I'll prove it to you by putting in the effort of showing you how little I care!" approach, it doesn't really feel like moving on.

It's not about how Persephone and his other victims could have grown and healed, no, Rachel always needs to highlight just how much worse the bullies and haters and abusers are doing to make the victims seem like they've healed by comparison. Don't get me wrong, I can understand wanting to showcase the downfall of a character like Apollo, but this just... isn't the right context for that? Because it's once again taking attention away from the victim to focus on the abuser. It's once again spending screentime on the voices of the oppressors rather than the oppressed.

And speaking of, what the fuck is this punishment even? I knew Rachel wasn't gonna be able to resolve this plotline properly, she never had the capability to, but ... community service? Are you fucking for real? What is this even a punishment for even? Was this EXCLUSIVELY the SA, or does this ALSO include his attempts to overthrow Zeus by poisoning him, nearly killing Daphne, Eris, Eros and Psyche, trapping Eros and Psyche in an enchanted basement, and framing his father's 'death' on his half-sister? Because if so, how in the world is anyone content with community service? He hasn't even been turned into a mortal, HE'S STILL A GOD, so what's to stop him from going "WE'LL MEET AGAIN, SPIDERMAN" and trying something else? How is this a reasonable resolution in ANY context?

This is why I talked at length about what an issue it was to hide what Apollo really admitted to. Because now we really don't know what exactly he confessed to, and thus we can never really see the point of views of the victims outside of just Persephone - and we still don't even get Persephone's, because she just walks away from him and then he gets eaten by Ouranos and next we see of him is him doing community service! Once again, any emotional development that could be given to Persephone and the other victims is stripped away to make room for the point of views of the oppressive men. In this, the two-time-Eisner-winning "feminist comic" that is LO.

And that brings us to the "where are they now" segment. Yes, as we all feared, there's a "where are they now" segment, and it's as rushed and underwhelming as we ought to have expected it to be.

There is just... so much to unpack here, and yes, all of it is delivered in the dumbest way possible that only raises more questions than answers.

So Rhea and Metis are just back and we're not gonna talk about the implications of them being alive again?

Dionysus is a 3 month year old in the body of a teenager / young adult, and his mom is just alive now because Hades conveniently got his hands on more ambrosia and brought her back to life offscreen? But somehow Triptomelus and Hedone are still child-sized relative to their ages?

How did they 'heal Zeus'? And why is he so content with losing his power as King and Apollo being sentenced to community service after making an attempt on his life? How does he feel about the letter that Hera gave him? Did he even read it?

Where the fuck is Hebe in all of this? Is she okay? Do people still think it was her who put Zeus in a coma? Or did Apollo confess to that, too?

You're telling me Hera and Echo are just in a relationship now despite the fact that Hera is literally racist towards nymphs and there is ZERO reason for them to have a relationship in the comic beyond the fans making gratuitous headcanons out of it? How is Rachel, a bisexual woman, so bad at writing actual lesbian relationships and giving them the same amount of attention as the heterocis ones without shoving them into the background as props for insincere queer rep? And what about Hera herself? How did she overcome her role as the Goddess of Marriage to finally divorce Zeus?

"Ares is still a dog!" Haha! Ares is still a Persephone simp! Happy end!

Why is Eros just standing there smiling at the camera struggling to be seen past Hedone who's just floating right in front of him? You're telling me there wasn't a better place to put her out of that entire panel?

"Hades and Thanatos have been making more time for each other. Sometimes they even have a conversation." I'm sorry, is this supposed to be funny? The man abused Thanatos for years, treated him as just a lowly employee when he was literally his adopted son, and now you're trying to play it off as a joke that they're "making more time for each other"? What the fuck is this?

TGOEM disbanded? Why? What about the women who were genuinely a part of it?

Also, Artemis and Selene are just good friends now because reasons? Because they're both affiliated with the moon, I guess? Why is Selene even in this comic-

"They are still looking for Kassandra". Who? And why? This feels like such a last minute addition to acknowledge a character that the comic spent WEEKS foreshadowing only to have her finally appear as a pointless McGuffin, but it's so last minute that it does nothing. I'm assuming it's Eros and Psyche looking for her, but like... why can't they find her? They're gods, tracking down one mortal shouldn't be that difficult LOL ???

And also, where the fuck is Leto?? You're telling me she was an accessory - maybe manipulating Apollo, maybe not - but we don't see what happened to her? Is she just back to being a social outcast then? jesus christ this comic isn't finished-

Kassandra is where the "where are they now" sequence ends, and we're treated to one final horribly written dialogue scene between Hades and Persephone, where they tell each other how much they love each other in a desperate attempt to convince the audience that this is, in fact, a romance.

There's this thing in romances called chemistry, and if you're good at writing it, you shouldn't have to write dialogue like this. You should be able to see how much the characters love each other through their actions, through their small behaviors around each other. It's not always about what they say out loud, it's about what they don't have to say, because when two people really share that close of a bond based on love and trust and chemistry, words often aren't necessary.

Hades and Persephone do not have that chemistry. It has been apparent for years now, but this final exchange really is the nail in the coffin. There are no microexpressions or subtle emotions, no subtlety in their word choice, and nothing unique setting their voices apart. It's all just "wow thank you for being such a wonderful amazing partner, you are amazing and I love you" word salad that has to do all the heavy lifting for the completely non-existent chemistry that's been at its absolute worst throughout this entire season.

And worst of all, despite this story trying so hard to be focused around Persephone, around her story, her trauma and her healing, her voice... it's still all just about Hades. In the end, she's thanking Hades, and forcing him to say "you're welcome". All of it is trying so hard to convince us that Hades has been a positive addition to her life, that she 'owes' so much to him, but we've obviously seen plenty throughout the comic that begs to differ. And even if he were a better person than he is, it still doesn't change the fact that once again, the men are being held up above the women, with the women being grateful to the men who choose them. LO can try its hardest to convince people that it's feminist, but it is, at best, reinforcing the very same structures of the patriarchal system that it claims to despise and rebel against.

We do get one line from Hades acknowledging Persephone's part in the relationship-

-and it falls so fucking flat because it's still about him and what she does for him, and because nothing about their relationship was built on any sort of organic chemistry. There was a lot more chemistry back in S1, but it was still predicated on Hades lusting after a vulnerable 19 year old girl.

Yep, and that's it. That's the end.

Except it isn't because Rachel wanted to try and be smart by including an 'epilogue' that's really just stretching the episode out pointlessly for another few panels. And of course, we had to get another time skip, just a final dose of salt in the wound, this time to years ahead when we inevitably had to reconnect with Persephone and Hades in the future after Melinoe was born.

To recap, Melinoe doesn't remember... because Hades had Morpheus erase her memories.

This plotline has really started to give me the ick because it actually feels very familiar. Bear with me here, because I'm gonna go on a bit of a tangent about my own original work, but it's because I wrote a plotline exactly like this years ago.

There's this... turning point, in Time Gate: Reaper, when the main character Uzuki is kidnapped by a Reaper (see: undead) who wants to experiment on her in the hopes that he can somehow gain her abilities to bond her soul with others (which later allows her to literally possess people after she becomes a Reaper herself). Mitsuhiro, the male deuteragonist who kickstarts the plot by telling Uzuki she's got a limited amount of time left to live (which he knows thanks to his magical death timers that mark themselves on his skin), feels an immense amount of guilt after finding out she was kidnapped by the Reapers (at this point she's been gone for three months), as they were originally after him; he worries that she was made a target simply due to him associating himself with her, and vows to rescue her.

With the help of some other spunky teenagers and anime trope characters, Mitsuhiro does eventually rescue Uzuki - but for the three months she had been gone, she had been tortured, abused, and experimented on, causing her mind to split and for her to lose any sense of awareness of who Mitsuhiro or her other friends were. She was no longer herself after the hell she had been through.

Mitsuhiro's solution to this is to have Springlock - another Reaper with motivations that are not yet clear to the cast - erase her memory. This is not a light decision that comes without consequences - for the remaining duration of the story, Uzuki is plagued by night terrors and panic attacks, unable to really remember what happened to her aside from whatever brief flashbacks her brain recalls in its haze of memory loss. She is traumatized, both physically and mentally. She has lost three months of her life and memories, and doesn't know how to explain why she's covered in scars that are still healing, why she's missing organs, why she's now blind in one eye, and why the sound of scraping metal and ticking clocks gives her panic attacks. Mitsuhiro has convinced her friends that she's suffering from memory loss due to trauma, but only he knows the truth that he forcefully took her memories away from her, without her consent. This was not the right choice to make. It was not noble of him, it was not a grand gesture of love, he made a decision on her behalf without her consent that has now resulted in her becoming a nervous wreck. Sure, she still would have had PTSD if she remembered what happened, but at least she would know why and could then seek adequate help. Without those memories, she has nowhere to begin to heal. And so we see the consequences of this throughout [AFTERBIRTH] and even the upcoming Thread of Fate. It is a long-term problem that is not going to be solved overnight, especially not with Mitsuhiro withholding information from her.

Reading about Melinoe having dreams about her experiences trapped in Tartarus with Kronos ... it felt familiar enough that I had to talk about why the insinuations of this are so fucked up. I know there are people who are gonna handwave it away as "she's just a kid", "these are gods so what does it matter", etc. but ... it just feels like such an oversight to have Hades effectively erase her memory of her trauma and then hint at them still being present in her mind through her dreams. She did not ask for that. And the fact that she's now dreaming about it all does not bode well. But we're supposed to think Hades made the correct choice, regardless.

But none of this is effectively expanded on or explained, because we get one final scene of Melinoe and Demeter visiting Persephone, who has just given birth to... Makaria?

So it turns out Persephone and Hades are just able to have biological children now. Don't know why, but of course they both look exactly like Hades.

What I was really confused by though is the fact that it's Makaria and not Brimos. Do you remember Brimos? The child that was foreshadowed in Hades' original fantasy dream sequence about his future children about Persephone?

Either Rachel completely forgot about him, or she saw all the criticism over the fact that Brimos isn't a confirmed child of Hades and Persephone (rather, an epithet that can apply to basically any Underworld god including Persephone and Hades) and that her "research" was dependent on a book she read when she was 13 and decided to axe that. But she went to the effort of establishing that all the dreams Hades had were , in fact, canon visions of the future, so good job Rachel, you created yet another plothole on top of the hundreds of others.

And that's where the series ends, on a final nuclear-family-photo of Persephone, Hades, Melinoe, and Makaria. Of course, Dionysus and Thanatos aren't present in this shot because this is Lore Olympus and only biological children count /hj

Why Rachel couldn't move the "the end" portion to THIS part, I don't know, but I'm also expecting way too much of the person who finished this 20 minutes before it was due.

So that's it. Six years and that's what we get. I didn't expect much, but I was still incredibly disappointed, as were many others who walked away from this dazed and confused. Maybe it's all the "haters" deserve at this point. But what of the fans? While many of them are celebrating this ending at best and tolerating it at worst, I can't help but think of the fans of this comic who hung on for so long in the hopes it would "pay off", just for it to go out as gloriously as a wet fart.

As for me, I have such mixed feelings about Lore Olympus ending, but none of them pertain to the comic itself. Most of what I'll miss from this comic isn't the comic itself, but the people who have made reading it every week so fun, the artists and writers who have enriched the content with their own interpretations of what could have been, and the experiences of being part of such an amazing community made up of people who are as long-term-obsessed about this piece of media as I am.

I get people who ask me a lot if it's "worth it" to be so engrossed in the LO slander, who assume that I'm going to "regret" ever being a part of it all... but from where I'm standing right now, I couldn't ask for a better view.

Even if I didn't love every minute of it, everything I have here I owe to this comic. This stupid, wonderful, boring, amazing, pile of shit comic.

[gerudospiriit]

[As an avid lover of Zelda, should I feel bad that I'm honestly not excited about Echoes? Like tbh? Money issues this month aside, nothing I've seen so far really had me salivating for it to the point I wanted it day one, and I don't feel any rush or excitement to get it. I likely WILL down the road so I can play it and see what's up but...idk man. Not even the art style they chose is my favorite so it's just been a really meh for me from what's been shown.

I think I feel bad about it because we FINALLY get a game where Zelda is the protag, and there's a part of me that wants this game to not just do well but BE GOOD, so I want to be apart of making that happen. But, at the same time, I'm honestly not thrilled with the direction it looks like they took the gameplay with Zelda (the character). I get leaning into the wisdom aspect of her lineage and focusing more on puzzle solving but...as I think I've said before, that rubs my feminist nerves in certain ways that make me squirmy (especially when the devs came out specifically saying some goofy shit like "of course she doesn't have a sword!" and went on to show she uses others to fight for her.......and the fact that it's not even really her magic she's using.......).

BUT anyway. I just needed to vent my personal feels. I do hope it's a good game and fun! At least so, maybe, Zelda will be playable in the future! I just think I might wait to snatch this game up, personally.]

[amiharana]

Do you even need me to request kpop revalink

(kpop idol revali for reference)

i'm just going to put your two asks together lmao

this idea is so big-brained and on brand. i was originally already beginning to write about link and zelda being in an idol duo (an idea i borrowed from my concepted fe3h kpop idols au LOL), but this lines up better with revalink's canon interactions ^^ maybe zelda can be analogous to IU or taeyeon or another huge kpop soloist

i'm going to continue in the assumed world where HYRULE CORP is the main company, and the companies link and revali are from are subsidiaries of HYRULE, i.e. revali is under Hebra Ent. and link is actually from a smaller, newly acquired company called Necluda Music. i'm gonna pull an olivia hye on link and say he actually only trained for one day before the managers decided they wanted him to debut, because he's actually a fucking prodigy; he passed the audition with flying colors, and the vocal coaches and dance teachers think he's already debut-ready 🫣 in contrast, i'm going to pull a jihyo on revali and have him be a trainee of 10 years LMFOAKJDHFKDJ should i pull a TWICE on RiTO and have them form via competition/survival show too?

warning for the below. this was extremely self-indulgent and perhaps indecipherable because i used so many kpop terms. but i had a lot of fun writing it.

at this time, RiTO have been rookies for a couple months now and are preparing for their next comeback with a mini album (their debut was only a single), when revali gets the news that their new sister company Necluda Music (what a dumb name, revali thinks) will be debuting a brand new soloist by the name of LINK, with who the company wants to demonstrate a better way of connecting the fans to their idol. revali is still a little bitter about having to debut in a group, even though teba and his hyungs (KDJFJKDFJD) are helping him deal with the bitterness better, so revali can't help but get a little frumpy and sour. but when he hears that this kid has only trained for ONE DAY (alexa play 'just one day' by bts) and is debuting already, he is absolutely beside himself with anger.

"what do you mean he only trained for a day before they decided he would debut?" revali screeches, slamming the door of the practice room open. kass jumps and yells in surprise, where teba and harth's eyes widen at the sound and they spin to look at revali. mimo doesn't even flinch and continues stretching. "i trained for ten years since i was a child, and this kid gets to debut like it's nothing?!"

teba relaxes and sighs. "there's nothing we can do about it, revali," he tries to say as calmly as possible, but he's already a little irritated with revali's attitude. their maknae has yet to mature. "we're not even under the same company. if necluda's ceo thinks he's ready to debut, then he debuts. and if he fails, then he fails."

"but don't you think it's unfair, hyung?" revali says, stalking into the room towards his leader. "we trained for years for a chance to debut, and he doesn't even get hours before they shove him onto the stage. what's so special about him?"

"we'll find out soon enough," harth grumbles, and turns back towards the mirror to continue stretching with mimo. "he debuts in a month, doesn't he?" mimo hums in affirmation.

"just because link was able to debut sooner does not negate your talent, revali," kass says gently. "you worked very hard to get to where you are now, and you were finally able to debut, a feat most trainees may never achieve. you are an extremely talented vocalist and dancer, and they're calling you the it boy of this generation of idols. you should be proud of yourself, you know!"

revali tries his best not to blush at the compliments, but his cheeks pinken anyway and he pouts, crossing his arms and looking away. "i suppose you're right..."

teba claps a hand on revali's shoulder. "try not to worry about it so much," he advises. "focus on your lessons and practicing the new songs. comeback is just around the corner, and it'll do you no good kicking up a fuss about that kid." revali nods and they start practicing for their new song. but try as he might to heed teba's words, revali can't stop thinking about this mysterious new soloist and just exactly how talented he could possibly be to debut so soon...

(the night that link debuts, revali is ready. he has youtube open on his laptop huddled in his bed, watching the countdown to the music video and a furrow in his brow. he's had the video open all day since he got the notification that the video would drop tonight and he's waiting. he has to know what this link kid has that his 8 year old self didn't.

it's everything. link naturally has everything that revali didn't. his voice, his body control, his charisma, all of it. begrudgingly, he has to accept that link does have what it takes to debut so soon. and that he isn't so bad looking. no, revali does not like him, KASS GET BACK HERE—)

link's debut is extremely successful, a single called 'LEGEND' with a kid-becomes-superhero concept. link has a very "boy next door" look to him, so of course the girlies are about to eat him up, he's a cutie and everyone wants to bring him home to their parents ☝️😹 bro is breaking both hyrule corp's records and industry records, he's already on par with the corporation's top soloists zelda and ganon, and fans are calling the three of them together as the "Triforce", since they're a triple threat for hyrule corp 😁 people are predicting how many music show wins link is going to get and whether or not he's going to chart on billboard and how high, longevity vs freefall, how many views the mv is going to get in 24 hours, etc

and revali is furious. RiTO is going to start losing its hype if link ends up charting on billboard or get more music show wins than their debut did. sure, the kid's good but he can't be better than revali! revali would rather die than let link be better than him.

the other members are more optimistic and try to pay less attention to link's debut, choosing to focus on their own comeback. meanwhile, every day that revali walks into the practice room, he's a little ball of burning, spitting fire, talking about how their debut was so much better than link's and that he doesn't understand the hype. but in the middle of talking shit, revali kind of accidentally reveals that he's basically been keeping up with link's promotion schedule? "i watched the studio choom video, it wasn't even that good. he's relying too much on the backup dancers and camera angles." or "apparently, he's performing on inkigayo too. let's hope that it'll be better than his music bank stage. hmph."

it's not until link does an interview on one of those variety shows when the host asks link who inspires him the most, that revali's entire life gets flipped upside his head. "ah," link says, his cheeks flushing pink and smiling shyly, "well, i have a lot of people who inspire me, like my family or zelda-sunbaenim, but the person who inspires me the most... it would be RiTO's revali-sunbaenim."

revali is watching the interview in the living room of their shared dormitory, sat in the middle of the couch in between all of his members, all of their eyes widening. his mouth drops and his eyes bug out of his head. "what?!" he nearly shouts.

mimo shakes his head. "couldn't have seen that coming."

"oh, revali from RiTO?" even the host is surprised. "can you tell us more?"

"sure," link says, beaming. "i've always admired revali-sunbae because he's a very talented performer and he was a trainee for such a long time. i remember seeing him on tv for hebra entertainment's old competition show when i was a kid, and i was so moved by how he refused to back down when the judges told him he was too young to debut. of course, this industry is not safe for children, but revali-sunbae's passion to perform and his determination to debut was so cool!" link's cheeks darken a little more and he smiles shyly at the camera again. "ah... and he worked hard and debuted well in his group, with a successful song and concept."

"haha, that's amazing, link-ssi!" the host laughs. "if revali-ssi was here or if he was watching, what would you say to him?"

"revali-sunbae," link says, staring at the camera with sparkling eyes, "thank you for inspiring me to aim high and to chase after my own dreams. your determination and talent motivates and challenges my own performance and i will always strive to perform as well as you. i hope we can meet and work together one day. fighting, revali-sunbae!" he stands up from his chair and does a full 90º bow, to which the host of the variety show laughs in surprise and claps.

"wah, you have so much respect for revali-sunbae, who would've known!" they remark. "revali-ssi, if you see this, please treat your hoobae well!"

the interview continues with other unrelated topics, but revali is still staring blankly at the tv screen, mouth still agape and eyes wide. there's just no way that happened just now. link? inspired by revali? motivated and challenged by revali?

"hello, earth to revali," harth says, waving his hand in front of revali's eyes. it breaks his gaze and he shakes his head. "are you back with us yet?"

"he had to have been lying," revali immediately insists.

"why would he lie?" mimo muses. "he remembers you from that shitty old competition show and it clearly had an impact on him as a kid. you can see the genuinity in his eyes,"

revali cringes at the memory of being on that show and how he acted as a child, but shakes his head again. "he could be saying it to associate with us and boost his popularity!" okay, to be fair that was terrible reasoning, but revali is scrambling to pull any cards to explain why link would be lying about being inspired by him. he had to be lying... right?

"i told you, revali, you're the it boy of this generation of idols," kass snickers. "of course you're going to have fans."

"shut up," revali growls, crossing his arms and curling in on himself. "there's just no way..."

but where there's a will, there's a way 😊 almost immediately after that clip of link's interview comes out, the RiTO social media accounts' notifications are blowing up asking for revali's response. fans are trending revali and link's names, and a portmanteau of them as "revalink". all the tweets are about how cute link is looking up to revali and how revali and link would make a good pair, and revali just can't stop flushing as he scrolls through the trending tags about all of these comments. and strangely, revali's managers aren't even mad about the situation. "this could be good for publicity," they say. "since link's debut was so popular, showing good feelings towards each other might make RiTO more popular too. please reply to link and say something nice to him. maybe congratulate him on debuting or compliment him, just make sure you say something nice."

so at the insistence of his managers, revali does exactly that and only that. he goes to the RiTO twitter account and tweets out a short, but polite, "@/LINK_NCM Congratulations on your debut :) Fighting! -Revali" and though he means it to be only short and polite, that is not how the internet takes it. instead, it feeds the flames of this whole #revalink thing and suddenly, revali has dating rumors with this new rookie.

kpop websites like allkpop and koreaboo are posting articles with clips of link's interview and revali's tweet with dumbass headlines like "RiTO's Revali responds to new soloist Link's plea: Are the two seeing each other?" there are analysis videos talking about how link blushed when he mentioned revali, so they must be dating, right??? like for goddess's sake, all link said was that revali was cool as fuck and that he was inspired by revali, it didn't mean that they were seeing each other! not that revali would mind if they dated. what? he didn't say that.

revali is lying facedown on the floor of the practice room having screamed for about half an hour to let go of his frustrations, but the irritation still pricks up and down his spine. teba and harth find him like that when they enter the room and rolls their eyes.

"stop screaming, you're going to ruin your voice," teba says. harth walks over to crouch by revali and pushes him to roll him over onto his back. revali lets himself get rolled but glares at his members.

"this is ridiculous," he spits from the floor. "how could something as irrelevant as a compliment spiral into the most convoluted dating rumor in the entire world? there was nothing that could have indicated i felt any sort of way towards that imbecile in my tweet so why on earth is the internet exploding with such nonsense? it's simply just...!" revali rolls back over onto his stomach and screams. "asinine!"

"keep your voice down, or we're going to get noise complaints," teba says, pinching in between his eyes. "this is just the way the fans are, which is why we have to be careful about what we say about or how we interact with other artists. there's nothing wrong with link looking up to you, but regardless of whether or not you acknowledged him would have blown up either way. if you didn't say anything, fans would think you're blowing him off and being disrespectful. and even if you said anything less, fans would still think you've been secretly seeing each other. it's impossible to eliminate speculation in environments like this." teba crouches on the other side of revali's facedown body and sighs, softening his voice. "nothing else can be done to remedy the situation other than to let it die down. just keep being polite and hope that the fans find something else to go crazy over. now come on, we're reviewing the b-side choreo today."

"this is ridiculous," revali mumbles again, but he stands up and dusts himself off. "if this is what happens when you acknowledge other idols, i am never tweeting or being nice to anyone ever again. i'm deleting that cursed app off of my phone and you can all make up fake tweets for me."

"don't be dramatic," teba responds, gently tapping the top of revali's head with his palm. "now get to stretching while we wait for mimo and kass."

you know how music shows will have idols be the hosts, introduce the performing idols, and interview them and shit? now what if link and revali get selected to host together 😊 to be honest i don't really watch that many music shows if it's not a clip of the performance i'm watching for, like i don't sit there and watch throughout the entire music show lolksdjhkd so i don't really know what the dynamics of idols hosting together is like? i do know that they usually have cards they read off of tho lol

the managers tell revali that he's going to host M Countdown or some shit and he's like Cool I guess, who am I hosting with? and they reluctantly are like. Erm. Link. and revali's eyes go wide and red with anger, he's ready to throw a fit, until teba claps a hand on his shoulder and tells him to calm down.

"i told you not to be dramatic," he says, as revali silently fumes under teba's hand. "you're making a big deal out of nothing."

"out of nothing?" revali hisses. "does mnet want me dead or do they want me to kill link first?"

teba bops him on the head and revali squawks. "don't make threats or it'll be me who makes you a first kill," he says. "just be polite and read off the cards. you're already a good actor, your fanservice was top notch even though you hated us all at first."

"i already apologized for that," revali grumbles rubbing his head. "but it's different with link."

"is it because you like him?" kass teases.

"no!" revali squawks. "because i still can't stand the thought of that upstart training only for a day before getting to debut. i don't care that he's vocally talented and has great control over his body. i want nothing to do with him!"

"i bet if he was on masked singer, you'd recognize his voice right away," kass sighs. revali screams and goes barreling at his fellow member, teba holding him back.

THIS POST IS GETTING SO LONG NOW but imagining revali finally meeting link at m countdown and link is just. so completely starstruck when revali greets him and his manager. he bows at a complete 90º angle again (he would have down a full floor bow if his manager didn't pull him up), and looks up at revali with bright sparkling eyes.

"a-ah, hello revali-sunbaenim!" link says, nearly squeaking. "it's a pleasure to meet you!"

revali bows slightly in response to be respectful, but the squeak in link's voice and his sparkling eyes... intrigue him. "it's a pleasure to meet you as a well, link-hoobaenim," he lies cleanly. but is it really a lie?

link is still staring at him in his fanboy mode, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, and his manager elbows him. "y-yes!" he stammers, jumping. "ah i'm sorry i'm so nervous, revali-sunbae, it's just really cool to meet you in person and i'm excited to work with you!"

revali hums, link's words stroking his ego just a little bit. "you haven't hosted a show before either, have you?" he says.

link shakes his head frantically. "no, revali-sunbae, this will be my first time hosting a show."

and revali stares a little bit at him. "hm. let's do well together, then, link-hoobae," he says, nodding and then turning to walk away back to his green room. "see you later."

as he walks away, he swears he hears link squeak again. "purah manager-nim, he's so cool!" and revali fights the smile trying to make its way onto his lips. cute. what? he didn't say that. he does not think link is cute. (maybe a little...)

when they start filming the MC portions, revali can't keep his eyes off of link. the blond is bright and cheery, ever smiling and enthusiastic, and revali can't help but play off of his energy. the film crew hands them their card prompts and signal for them to start talking with a thumbs up.

"hi everyone! we're counting down to the greatest acts of the kpop world here at: m countdown!" they greet together, and then link introduces himself.

"i'm the hero who will fight for you, LINK!" he says, holding up a peace sign and pressing one of fingers into his cheek, winking.

"and i'm the wings that will take you to the sky, Revali," revali says, saluting and winking as well. "and we are your brand new MCs for the season." link cheers, shaking his hands jazz-hand style.

"revali-sunbaenim," link then says, reading off of his cards, "it's our first time being MCs ever! are you nervous?"

"i'm not nervous at all," revali says smoothly, glancing at his cards. "are you feeling nervous, link-hoobaenim?"

"ah, maybe a little bit," link says, rubbing the back of his head and smiling shyly at the camera. "i'm only a rookie standing next to the awesome it boy of our generation and my role model! i want to do well!" he winks and raises a fist, pumping it into the air.

revali cringes internally. who is writing these cards? "oh, i'm flattered, but you debuted well, our favorite superhero-next door. link-hoobae, how old are you?"

"me? i'm a year younger than you, revali-sunbaenim," link says, looking at revali with wide eyes. revali can't tell if he's just acting or not, with how real the surprised look on link's face is.

"ah, well in that case, just call me hyung," he says, faking a smile. truthfully, he doesn't want link to call him hyung — they don't even know each other like that yet — but it's part of the script, so he has to read it out. revali is seriously going to chew out whoever wrote these cards. "you'll feel more comfortable if you call me hyung, right?"

and it's like link forgets his line for a moment, just staring wide-eyed and mouth agape at revali. if he focuses, revali thinks that link's cheeks are pink now. but link jumps right back into the script, "ah, yes, revali-hyung! i'm more comfortable now, thank you." he turns back to the camera, still smiling shyly. "ah, revali-hyung is so cool, he makes my heart beat so fast! which reminds me, the group who has a comeback today will make your heart beat fast too!"

so they list off everyone who's performing today and what songs, they go over who the top artists of last week were, more dumb MC skits, some short interviews with some of the performing groups, and the entire time, revali can't get his mind off of the way link said "revali-hyung". he thought he was going to hate it, but... he actually doesn't mind as much as he thought he would? weird.

when the MC filming is done, they step out of the shooting area and link immediately turns to revali and bows at the same 90º angle he did last time. "revali-sunbaenim, i'm so sorry," he says. "i didn't realize that the cards were going to say that, i won't call you hyung if you don't want me to." revali stares in surprise but link stays in his full bow.

"link-hoobae, please stand up," he finally manages. slowly, link does, but he keeps his eyes downcast, his brows furrowed into a crestfallen expression on his face. "it's fine, i didn't know either. please don't worry too much. please keep referring to me as sunbaenim when we are not on the set. thank you for being respectful of me, link-hoobaenim."

"of course, revali-sunbaenim!" link says and bows again. "i look forward to filming with you again, revali-sunbaenim!" he bows once more, which revali returns and part ways. he stares curiously after the blond who hurries back to his own green room. huh. i mean... maybe revali wouldn't mind too much if link called him hyung from now on. not that he'd admit that out loud!

anyways the longer that link and revali MC together, the more they kinda become like this compilation of eunchae and chaemin. they start ignoring the cards and just bicker (read: flirt aggressively) for five minutes straight and at first their managers and the show staff are like, PLEASE just stick to the script. but the fans are super into it because they're all revalink shippers 😭 so they just let revali and link bicker/flirt during the show as long as they follow the script and the views skyrocket because the chemistry is insane LMFAOKJDFDK

i just think. kpop idols au revalink ☝️😃

[loreweaver-universe]

And that's the episode.

That was a very fun one. I wasn't expecting a "everyone's scheming against everyone else because one person is lying and everyone else is being dumb" plot to be that enjoyable! It adds a lot to Hoppop's character that he's so into Anne's show, something for them to bond over. I hope it gets referenced in later episodes.

And hey, as much as that should have melted the phone down or at least fried its internals, now we have an in-universe reason why Anne's phone will never run out of battery again! I like when stories address stuff like that.

That'll be it for today's liveblog! Tune in tomorrow for the start of episode 4 of Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, or you can tune in to my Twitch channel today at 1 PM EST where I'll be playing Finding Paradise, the sequel to To the Moon (which left me sobbing, I highly recommend it to any autistic people who may be reading this)!

Before I go, I’d like to plug both my blog’s Patreon and my Twitch/Youtube Patreon. Patreon is my only source of income, and while I make enough to cover rent and bills (I make $800-1000 a month) I don’t make a ton of money from it and haven’t been able to save anything up for emergencies (medical or otherwise) in the last decade or so.  Every dollar helps, so if you’re willing, please consider pledging a dollar or two.

Thank you all for tuning in, and thank you to my 44 blog patrons, who make it so I can do this for a living!  I’ll see you next time!

IN OTHER NEWS:

I recently completed my first playthrough of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom!  You can see the full playlist of those streams by clicking here!

I recently completed my first playthrough of Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward!  You can see the full playlist of those streams by clicking here!

I have an ongoing first playthrough of Final Fantasy XIV that I’ve been streaming on Twitch! If you’d like to tune in when I’m live, I stream it every Saturday at 1 PM EST, and I upload my stream VODs to my Youtube channel!  If you’d like to see that playlist, click here!

If you’d like to help me pay my rent, buy me some food, or help with my bills and medicine, please use my direct donation link!  If you’d like to support me per liveblog completed every month, please pledge to my Patreon!  If you’d like to support my streams or pick a game for me to stream, you can pledge to my stream Patreon too!

You should also go pledge to Gio’s Patreon, or his Sponsus–our Discord server maintenance tech and creator of Rubybot deserves far more than I can afford to pledge to him by myself.

If you’d like more of me and my content:

My EpisodeLists master page, where you can find every show and liveblog I’ve done!

My Discord server, where you can come hang out with me and other fans, check out member liveblogs, and join community gaming guilds!

My Twitch channel, where I stream variety games every so often!

My Youtube channel, where you can check out past streams!

My ask blog, where you can send me questions and comments!

My Twitter, where I make announcements about liveblogs and streams!

My merch store, where you can get shirts, mugs, stickers, and more!

It’s your kindness and support that lets me do this stuff, and I wouldn’t be where I am without all of you to do it for.  Thank you all so much for your support, and for tuning in every episode!

[demonfox38]

Completed - Final Fantasy IV

Okay, what would you prefer to call this? "Final Fantasy IV Easy Type"? Just "Final Fantasy II"? What's in a number, anyway?

So, my sister got married!

In all honesty, this was a point of stress for my parents and me for the last six months. Not that we had any qualms with the groom! He's solid. The issue was that the wedding was taking place in Colorado. You may have heard me mention that I live in Iowa. So, okay. Just take a flight, right? And you would be right, if your family wasn't paranoid or had any available back-up help. It was my parents, three dogs, and my ass in a van for a day one way, each way, hoping to God that some emergency didn't crop up.

I drove in a hailstorm, man. In a vehicle type that I had never driven before.

And then I had to give a speech at the wedding!

Everything went about as well as could be expected! Well, minus the COVID-19 outbreak that happened afterwards. (Yours truly did not fall ill. Yay for vaccines and a functioning immune system!) But, I had to do a lot of preparing to get to that point. Readying outfits and a speech, practicing stress reduction techniques and mindfulness, accepting what I could and could not control, staying focused on the present moment. Stuff like that. Several of the games I picked this year were selected to help that process. "Super Mario Bros." was some kind of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy session. "Resident Evil 4" was…well, we all know about what "Resident Evil 4" does to one's nerves. "Baroque" ended up being a good exercise in rolling with the punches. "Star Fox Zero" and "Star Fox 64" were last minute confidence boosters, helping me to remember what I had learned. I'm sure "Lunar 2" did something as well, but honestly, sometimes you just need a break, too.

Finally free of all obligations, I decided to spend my Memorial Day weekend in total hedonism. Given the circumstances, weddings were still on my mind. "Say," my thoughts went, "I should play a video game with a wedding in it. What do I have at home for that?"

"Final Fantasy IV" and "The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask" came to mind.

I decided that the first five months of my year was enough of an anxiety attack without adding "Majora's Mask" to it.

"Final Fantasy IV" chronicles the tales of Cecil Harvey, a dark knight with a troubled conscience. After witnessing and participating in multiple atrocities, he gets it in his head that Golly Jee Wilikers, maybe his king and army sucks. Along his path to redemption, he recruits (and frequently loses) multiple people to aid him in his quest to reclass himself into a better person and maybe stop the dickheads he was working for from ruining the entire planet and its moons.

Does he succeed? Err…

Well, he fails his way up, at least.

The particular version of this "Final Fantasy" that I played was the original NTSC Super Nintendo release. Which, I'm assuming you know by now, was called "Final Fantasy II." I'm guessing if you know about this game, you know about the whole clusterfuck of the naming convention behind it, so I'm going to skip the spiel. I just wanted you to know what variant I played before we got too deep into this. Because damn, does this game have multitudes.

Name shenanigans aside, "Final Fantasy IV" is very much the younger sibling of "Final Fantasy II" in terms of overall tone and progression. Both plots toss characters aside like rejected toys the first chance they get. While "IV" is kinder than "II" in terms of fatalities, it absolutely sets up its roster mutilation as the same bloody mess as its predecessor. It just doesn't have the guts to commit to its vile deeds. Spoilers, but of all the party members that appear to die at one point or another, only one stays truly dead. It's wild, considering the multitudes that come and go.

Where "IV" gets meaner is in how much Cecil is an absolute disaster of a hero. Not that he doesn't try to do the right thing or is anything less than civil about his actions. Everything he tries to do goes to shit. Magical crystals get stolen routinely. His girlfriend gets sick, then kidnapped. His best friend is brainwashed so often that the folds of his cerebrum have gone smooth. Hell, he even loses multiple child co-stars in horrific ways. Not to mention what a disaster his family is! Absolute (multiple) shipwreck(s) of a man. Sometimes, it feels like he only succeeds because he keeps getting new rides from his friends (who then, of course, end up hospitalized for the rest of the game because that's how "Final Fantasy IV" rolls.)

What nerfs this initial experience is the translation for this version of the game. Like, we all have a good laugh about Garland "knock(ing) you all down" and Ted Woosley's particular flavor of "Final Fantasy VI"'s translation. Those at least were generally grammatically correct. This one has a lot of strange, startling errors. Like, mixing up the contracted verbs don’t and wouldn't, frequent fragmented sentences, using weird "Legend of Zelda"-esque possessive patterns (like, "sword of dark force"), and so on. It's understandable, if you look at the credits for this game and what happened to its translators. Only one out of the three did translation work for more than one game, and even she pivoted to different roles after this release. It's better than something like "Samurai-Ghost", but it is still weirdly off. It may have been excessive to get a fourth translator, but man. Another set of eyes could have helped.

I saw a line that was (to paraphrase) something along the lines of "These people can summon monsters! They're known as Callers!" And something within me became anemic.

Nintendo's archaic censorship policies did nothing to help this translation, either. It's very hard to have this overwrought story about interplanetary suffering and fatalities when the translators aren't allowed to use terms like kill, death, or dead. Not to mention how weird it gets when holy becomes white and pray becomes wish. I mean, it reads better than the average TikTok censor-dodging speech, but it's still painfully noticeable.

I'm just saying. "Earthbound" got to have a Pray function not 3 years later. It makes a world of difference to be able to say what you mean. (The ESRB may be a fussy nanny, but if Nintendo's old policy was the alternative, I'll take the fussy nanny any day. Plus, it'll also tell you how newer games will scar you for life on their website! So, wee!)

Another surprisingly wonky feature of this game is its menu system. Like, you don't usually think about menus, right? You just click on things and execute functions. There's an annoying behavior to this game's X menu that didn't sit well with me. Every time you want to use an item or a spell, you would be returned to the root of the submenu in question. So, you couldn't just sit there and spam spells or potions on someone to get them back to full health as soon as possible. It's a little nitpick, but it's one of those irritants that added up for me.

The programmer here did go on to make much better menus for subsequent "Final Fantasy" games, so credit where credit is due! There was just a little growing pain to be had with this title. And really, the battle menu is pretty solid (minus an item duplication glitch, but hey! What's a "Final Fantasy" game without that?) Being able to split spells and pick targets is a nice feature! It's simple and often overlooked, but I think it should still be appreciated. You didn't have that in the first "Final Fantasy." And it also auto-corrects attacking units targeting a dead enemy, so that's also good!

I can be a positive reviewer! I swear!

Aesthetically, this game is a bit split down the middle in terms of quality. I mean, it's the earliest "Final Fantasy" game for the Super Nintendo, and a very early Super Nintendo game to boot. So, you're not exactly getting the beautiful, consistent pixel art from "Final Fantasy VI" here. It definitely looks like something that got upscaled from the Nintendo Entertainment System. However, there are still some cool sprites in the mix. The music is usually pretty good, too! The only one that threw me off was a piece titled "Another Moon." Because, hey. I get it. The moon's gonna be a weird place to go for an RPG. But, listen to that and tell me you weren't thinking of squeaking monkeys or the farty Mansion Basement theme from the Director's Cut of "Resident Evil."

And, hey—if you need a palette cleanser, "The Lunarians" isn't a bad moon piece. Occasionally, the game can handle the moon just right!

Had I played the "Final Fantasy" games in order, I think I would have found this game more challenging. Its latter half loads up on bosses that require more advanced tactics to overcome, particularly for its optional content. I suspect that if you are playing this game, it's going to be after the likes of more popular titles like "VI", "VII", and "X". A lot of those games borrow from this game's bag of tricks. But, once you see things like Reflect Magic Spam boss and Death Countdown boss, having that tossed at you isn't going to be much of a curveball.

I'm not saying you won't ever die. It's just going to be one of those things where you'll quickly see what you did wrong, reset, and knock it out of the park. Past number crunching, all you have to contend with is bastard semi-opaque walls and donking your way around hidden paths. Hell, you might even have the skills for that by now.

Do I like "Final Fantasy IV"? Yeah, in the same way I like an average Disney animated movie. It tries to have fangs from time to time, but its gnawing comes off as more endearing than threatening. It's still a generally good experience! I just wouldn't expect you to have a religious awakening playing it.

Do I think you should play the NTSC SNES variant of "Final Fantasy IV"? You absolutely can do better. You can get versions for various consoles (like the Playstation, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and Sony PSP), as well as on Steam. The Playstation release seems to be closest aesthetically to the original release, but I do have a fondness for the audio and pixel-crunchy Game Boy Advance release, as that one is a bit closer to "Final Fantasy VI" in appearance. The Nintendo DS version is if you're into low poly 3D models, and the Sony PSP version is for those who like to smear Vaseline into their eyeballs!

Any way you slice it, you can at least get something better to read. Assuming the Vaseline doesn't damage your vision, anyway.

[game-boy-pocket]

Since Tears of the Kingdom will be a year old here in a few months, I figure I can speak freely about spoilers now. So fair warning when it comes to upcoming reblogs.

But I also wanted to say there's something that doesn't get talked about much when people bring up the whole debate over weather or not Zelda should be linear or open world ( a debate that I find to be mostly silly but I also have definitely chosen a side ).

And the thing people aren't much talking about is the final act of the game.

Once you awaken all four sages, there is an encounter with mummified Ganondorf that can only happen when all four sages are awakened... it's not the actual end of the game, because you are then made aware that there was a fifth sage. And you must find out more about it The game turns pretty damn linear from here on out. You CAN go wandering off to do side quests but you know where you should be going and the story won't progress anymore unless you do that.

There's rooms in the game that stay locked until you're in this chapter of the game. Areas you are forbidden to go to. A whole temple that doesn't do anything if you go near it before this point in the game, it's almost unlikely that you'd find the spirit temple unless you're absolutely combing the depths.

So the thing is, TOTK has already done the linearity and guided storytelling that takes place in the present, it's just a bit of a small part of the game. But to me it says that open air and linearity can actually exist in the same game.

To me, going back to linear Zelda would be very upsetting, and also very stupid, since Zelda is doing a lot better than it has in a long time, and is no longer being accused of stagnation and re-using a style of game from 1998.

But I do think that the overworld does not need to be nearly as big as it was in BOTW. Should be more condensed. And I would not be upset if we lost the climbing ability. I think they should have linear dungeons, and have more areas Link cannot immediately reach, or have key locations he cannot enter unless he meets the right conditions. But he can still reach the exterior. And I don't think this is that unlikely to happen. Aonuma clearly wants to keep going with the open air style games, but I think he also wants to please as many people as he can, so I do think that some semblence of linearity and classic Zelda designs will return, because as I've pointed out, they already played with it in TOTK.

[transgirl-gaming-thoughts]

My Thoughts On: Virtual Console

I don't think I've done this yet?

Hey there, it's Alex! Wow, seems like all my blog posts are about a decade late to the discussion? I mean, even the whole idea of a blog like I'm running feels dated in a bygone era. Oh well, i don't really care, this is fun!

I love Virtual Console! The idea of playing all your favorite older games digitally on a more modern console at a fraction of the original price is revolutionary! The Virtual Console brand started with the Wii Shop Channel where you could purchase them using Wii Points (that's a whole topic unto itself) for previous Nintendo platforms, such as the NES, SNES, and N64, but some third-party support came in the form of Sega's Master System and Mega Drive/Genesis, SNK, and even Commodore 64, what? They had some pretty niche games on here, but also many of the biggest titles like all the 2D Mario games, Metroid, Zelda, pretty much anything you could ask for! They were missing some classic N64 games like Banjo-Kazooie for obvious licensing reasons with developer Rare's acquisition by Microsoft, and GoldenEye 007 which recieved a Wii remake. Other games like Earthbound or Panel de Pon weren't available because they hadn't yet reached the level of popularity they hold now (especially in Earthbound's case).

Quick tangent here, but I still think the DSi should have gotten Virtual Consoles. I mean, it already had an eShop! There were DSiWare games being developed just like WiiWare games! Plus, they removed the famous Gameboy Advance slot (or "Slot 2" as it's officially called), so this would be the perfect opportunity to make users repurchase their favorite GBA games, and maybe GB/GBC games that were previously unplayable on the DS, and install them on the DSi! They probably could have squeezed NES and maybe SNES VCs on there too if they tried. This was such a huge missed opportunity that would've added validity to the DSi, and could've truly pushed the DS to being one of the best consoles ever, even more so than it is now. But I digress, moving on!

After the Wii came the 3DS, sporting the 3DS eShop and, you guessed it, portable Virtual Console! Yes, finally, handheld VC titles! The 3DS ended up having Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance (exclusive to Ambassador Program), NES, SNES (New 3DS only), Sega Master System, and Sega GameGear.

The GBA Virtual Consoles only had a small handful of titles released alongside the eShop, and were only available to download for free by members of the Ambassador Program, users who bought their 3DS systems before the price was cut a few months after release. They later introduced SNES Virtual Console, which is amazing! But instead of putting in effort, they said "Oh, uh, the old 3DS isn't strong enough to run SNES games, you need a NEW 3DS" and really? Is it too weak? You mean if I open my original model 3DS right now I won't see a fully functional homebrew SNES Virtual Console collection? Really? Moving on...

After the 3DS, Nintendo quickly released the WiiU as their new home console! This too featured an eShop, and Virtual Console! This time, GBA was available to everyone! They also added DS Virtual Console, which is very cool in my opinion! From what I hear it wasn't executed very well, but that's such a unique idea! They also added certain Wii titles to be downloaded and installed, sort of like a VC, but not part of that brand. Those will forever be in a state of purgatory...

And finally, we come to the Nintendo Switch, and... nothing. Nintendo has completely done away with the Virtual Console brand, and broken my heart. Instead, if you sign up for Nintendo Switch Online, their online gaming service, you get access to NES and SNES apps loaded with a bunch of retro games, but most of them are just random things most people don't care about. If you upgrade to the NSO Expansion you get N64 and Sega Mega Drive/Genesis apps, but again, so far there's just not enough games to warrant the huge price jump of the Expansion. So far there's not a whole lot of value to the service, and we're still waiting on more to justify it. Personally, I'm thinking GameCube would be good candidates for this line, and a GC app would make me instantly upgrade!

As a more recent update, Gameboy was added to NSO, and Gameboy Advance as a part of the Expansion! This is a great step forward, but its not everything they need to add value to the Expansion. Still, good job, Nintendo!

The Virtual Console name has a lot of history to it, and a lot of fond memories from gamers such as myself who remember downlaoding and playing all sorts of games on Wii and 3DS from older consoles. Today, as the brand has been done away with on Switch, and the 3DS/WiiU eShops closing, it seems that era is ending... but don't forget! With homebrew you cans till find the installable files online and put them on your console! There's also tools to make your own custom injects for the 3DS! We can still enjoy new VC for many years to come with these wonderful tools from dedicated developers.

Thanks for reading, and be sure to ask questions and suggest new post ideas in my ask box! Stay safe, stay hydrated, and God bless! Happy gaming to ya!

~ Alex

[bahamutgames]

Eastward: Afterward Thoughts

Game: Eastward (September 16, 2021)

Console: PC (Via Xbox Game Pass)

Here I am once again. Crawling back here to give my thoughts on a game I played but having to share it in shame on a side tumblr no one follows instead of proudly in the open on a big ass twitter thread! How sad!

I was going to share my thoughts in a twitter thread, but after sharing my thoughts on Warioware: Get It Together, it seems like twitter has removed the way it keeps threads nice and tidy on the home page. Basically resulting in everyone having to see my thread about the game full force whether they like it or not. And I don’t want that because A) it’s annoying. And B) some games I talk about have huge spoilers. Like this game! So I figured until that little issue gets resolved I’ll just share my thoughts here... where no one visits... and no one follows... Just like the sad city of Potrock Isle, am I right fellow Eastward heads? (That’s what we call ourselves)

I suppose it’s for the best. As always, this is NOT a review! These are just my thoughts and feelings after finishing the game. If you’re interested in this game at all, please consider playing it! This should not be taken as a major critique of the game and will just be me spitballing my feelings.

SPOILER WARNING FOR EASTWARD AHEAD! I WILL BE TALKING ABOUT THE FINALE AND ENDING A LOT!!

Opening

So, I’ve had my eyes on Eastward for a while now. The only issue is that I knew it was going to be, for lack of a better term, a “Zelda Like”. Which is generally not a genre I like very much. But the art and sprites and general aesthetic of the game was SO amazing I absolutely could not keep away! And after an accident that lead to me buying gamepass for an extra month (it was an accident I swear) I figured I might as well go ahead and play Eastward. I did struggle a bit with the genre but I made it through and ultimately I had a pretty good time with it!

Stuff I liked

Where to begin? This game is AMAZINGLY CHARMING! Maybe one of the most charming games I’ve played in a while. It has, hands down, some of the most amazing sprite art I’ve ever seen in my life. This game looks SO good it’s nuts! Here’s some screenshots I took that look that hopefully can demonstrate even a little bit how good Eastward looks

The combination of 2D sprite art mixed with the more realistic lighting kinda makes my lizard brain go nuts. In short, the game looks REALLY FUCKING GOOD. Almost every little thing in this game is lovingly handmade by some of the most talented sprite artists I’ve ever seen. Animations are stunning, backgrounds are incredibly detailed and full of life. The visuals ROCK!

The music is also particularly really good and has a ton of fantastic songs that really stuck with me. It has a lot of nice fast paced music and a lot of slow and mysterious music. But it all really does feel like one OST, like all the songs really go together. It’s another aspect of the game that’s just amazing!

I also LOVE the story and characters! It has a lot of themes similar to Gurren Lagann. People live miserably underground. Someone has seen the surface but gets picked on cause they’re stuck underground. They reach the surface but shit’s fucked up there. But of course instead of Beastmen and Mechs. Eastward goes a bit more of a lowkey route with cities filled with people, beautiful nature, and an evil smoke spewing train controlled by a factory where they make humans... It’s a lot of crazy shit but I do love crazy shit like this in my stories. Figuring out the mystery behind Charon and the Human Factories and Sam was all really exciting and made for a really compelling story!

And of course the characters are what made the story so nice. Of course John and Sam are my absolutely favorites! They are SO cute! But even side characters like William and Daniel. Alva and Isabelle. They’re all super charming and everyone has a GREAT design. No one has a better design than John and Sam though.

The gameplay itself is also very good. Again I struggled a lot with it at some points. This is just not my speed. And I do think this would have been GOTY for all time if it was a turnbased RPG (I think a lot of games would be the best game ever made if they were turnbased JRPGs instead). But still I enjoyed it enough. Some combat was pretty fun, some of the bosses were very cool. And some of the puzzles were challenging but pretty fun to solve. I particularly liked cooking a lot of food with power+ properties and just crushing boss battles with all my strength!

And then the game itself is just filled to the brim with so much charming stuff. I love the weapons like the guns and bombs, I love the you use a frying pan instead of a sword. The save points are fridges you freeze your memories in. I love that you can cook, and gather ingredients and try to make new recipes and season them with different spices to get different buffs. I love the super unique and cool enemy designs. I love how charming and memorable and unique every single NPC in the game is. No repeating NPCs as far as I can remember. Everyone is unique. Some games have bonus card games or sports minigames. But Eastward has a full blown roguelike RPG in it! I didn’t beat it, but it’s there and it’s SUPER charming!

So, yeah! This game is REALLY good! Easily one of if not the best looking game I played last year. Amazing soundtrack, fantastic story and characters. It’s all really good! It’s clearly a game that a TON of work went into. I can tell tons of talented people poured their soul into this game. Down to the website where they have cute little clay figures of some characters! It’s made with love.

Stuff I didn’t like

However, just like any other game. Eastward isn’t perfect. I could go on about little things. I think some of the dungeons are really infuriating. Old Town in particular was a real headache for me. I think WAY too many of the enemies towards the end of the game charge you then run away so you can’t hit them, it’s so annoying and time consuming. I think the game can be a little too raunchy and edgy at times in ways that aren’t really fun? Sometimes it is. But not all the time. I think the game can be TOO detailed sometimes and it actually makes figuring out where to go a little difficult.

But no, I COULD go on about smaller stuff like that. But I think I mostly just want to talk about the finale and ending. While this game was great, and stays consistently quirky and charming until the very end. With amazingly high quality sprite art and music until the very last drop. But honestly, I think this game totally loses focus towards the end. Particularly, the moment you reach Ester City, Eastward almost completely lost me.

I saw others saying it was the Monkollywood Train. And while that section wasn’t that great. With a forced stealth section that goes on a little too long. And being a really random scene. I actually thought Monkollywood was fine and honestly, the weirdness of that area didn’t feel out of place from the rest of the game. I guess Ester City also isn’t out of place. But it certainly is where the game loses itself in my opinion.

So the whole story up to that point was about finding out what was going on with Charon and the Human Factories and the origin of Sam. And I like that a lot. And I liked that once you reach New Dam City, it’s about living life and running jobs through the city. I liked that a lot. It was different from the main goal but it still related to Charon right? But once you hit Ester City, man. It suddenly becomes all about the tower. And time travel. And time loops. And I honestly kind of forgot Charon and the Human Factories were still what was happening. The whole game suddenly becomes about Alva and Isabelle. Which is fine. But like, it’s about them for most of the finale. And they’re not even there for most of that finale!

And then suddenly we jump back to the human factory and charon out of nowhere! I do think the final dungeon being inside Charon was great. And it’s not that I think the whole Ester City stuff was bad necessarily. But it absolutely was BORING as hell and slowed my playthrough to a crawl. It feels like they suddenly through a bunch of plot elements in I was too stupid to understand. And sadly I feel like this kind of carries into the whole ending. It feels like NOTHING gets answered or explained.

That’s not entirely true. We do see what becomes of some characters. And I don’t think the game needs to answer everything to be good. I think it’s good to leave some mystery. But. What became of Charon? The human factories? What was Sam exactly??? Did we save the world? Is everyone dead? I assume not based on the ending but like... What happened? I don’t understand anything that happened! I feel like this is maybe my fault and Ester City was so boring that I struggled to pay real attention to the finale so I couldn’t understand it. I honestly feel like the ending would have been better if when John sees Sam again, Sam just drops the big lead she’s holding and the game just ends right there. Like you already didn’t show enough of the ending, you might as well show even less and make that shot give me some clue in to what happened to John and Sam afterward.

And just in general. I didn’t like the final boss. I thought it was upsetting how the whole finale of the game randomly became quickdraw minigames. I know they were prepping you for it the whole way through with minigames but I wanted the final boss to be a real fight! I cooked all this food with power+ seasonings! And I didn’t really get to use it!

Final Thoughts

It’s hard to explain. The whole game still feels fine. I still like it. I still think it’s incredibly charming. I still think it’s one of the nicest looking games ever, I still think it’s absolutely worth your time even if you don’t like this genre! But I can’t help but feel like the ending was massively rushed. Like it needed more time? Or that it needed more planning. If the ending just worked a little better with the rest of the game I think this would have been perfect. The game had small pacing issues the whole way through though, so maybe I should have seen it coming. But still! It’s sad!

Regardless, Eastward is an amazing game that clearly had a lot of love poured into it. So I don’t regret playing it. And I think I might honestly want to cosplay as John eventually. I still think John and Sam are amazing protagonists (I was waiting the WHOLE game for her to call him dad UGH... maybe that’s just me.) Eastward was absolutely worth my time and I’m glad I played it even with the underwhelming finale. I’ll certainly be interested in any follow ups they make for the game in the future. We’ll see.

===

Thank you for reading! It’s been a while since I’ve written up an afterthoughts on tumblr. But it’s looking like I’ll be doing this here for a while since I kinda can’t on twitter at the moment. It’s a little harder for me to keep my thoughts confined over here so it makes writing these posts more difficult. But I’ll do my best, because I love talking about video games!

As always you can follow me on twitter to keep up with me, my art, and my game playing habits! That’s it for now! Go out and play a game you wouldn’t normally try!

[graelynde]

Introductions

Hello there! Welcome to my first blog. Like, ever.

Even having lived through the early days of the internet; I still have never organized my thoughts or works in any meaningful way.

So this is my first!

-

Born and currently living in Texas. Looking to move to WA sometime this year, however.

I am a feller with many hobbies and interests that are constantly changing, but lets list some out!

My Wife - my wonderful partner of 7 years has helped me to discover so much about myself and without her this blog likely wouldn't exist! While the topics I post about or the art I share may be personal in nature, or explicit, I must state: This is not an invitation to approach me in a romantic or sexual way. My wife and I may both be attracted to all kinds of people or creatures, but we are very much in a committed one-on-one marriage.

Bideo Game - WoW, Valheim, Zelda, BG3, Like a Dragon, Elden Ring, etc etc etc. I have been playing games since I was 3 years old. I have a few things to say about them.

Music - I have always had an interest in music and in the past few years have pursued music composition as a serious skill for my future. I would say being a composer in the Film/TV/Games industry would be my current life goal.

Art - I love to sketch and draw, in particular I enjoy drawing human anatomy, male & female. I enjoy heavily stylized arts, and have a particular interest in graphic design. (I work as a Dashboard UX Engineer irl.)

There are likely so many things I am forgetting, as my memory is pretty weak sometimes. Though hopefully if you've read this far, you can get a rough idea of my interests.

Finally, I'll get right into it with my first post!

2024 has someone been one of the most challenging yet rewarding years in my 31 years here on earth.

From Loss, Purpose

In January of this year, we lost one of our cats. Sansa was the definition of a cat that should be on the cat food bag. A long-haired tuxedo, she was smaller in stature and had unknown health complications that manifested while we were away at AGDQ.

Devastated we returned home, no longer filled with her neurotic peeps and screams and yells for food/pets/play. She had this habit of absolutely singing the song of her people while you were already overstimulated, or are actively talking over discord.

Life felt different. I felt hopeless, and had such a hard time returning to work from the combination of post-con depression, and the loss of one of our beloved pets.

Something strange happened though, because after that first day back things slowly got better. Not just "back to normal" better. Because how do you define what "normal" looks like without a "normal" key fixture? Normal has to change.

My wife and I suddenly became aware of just how much weight we had put on since we first got together. How little we were taking care of our bodies or general appearance. Some of our favorite clothes didn't fit, we didn't feel good or look good.

We started small by working diligently to keep a consistent diet, with a consistent meal structure. Then we started incorporating exercise (Running & Lifting for me, Biking for her.)

Here we are just about 3 months later and we have both lost a significant amount of weight and we feel so much better.

I miss our baby Sansa more than words can say, but I am thankful that she was a catalyst for us to change our lives.

Along with Sansa, there is another motivator for me, personally. Born and raised in a very conservative south Texas family, anything other than straight was an absolute no go.

Back in December of 2023, a friend of mine made the unwise decision to purchase Yakuza: Like a Dragon for me. Oh boy. I'd always had a passing interest in the series, but didn't know where to start. Having become a huge fan since, I am very thankful for that gift.

I went on to buttchug that entire game right before infinite wealth came out in January, and have since moved on to the older games. (Currently in Y0)

All this is to say; when you play a video game where for the greater part of 100 hours and you have someone like Ichiban or Kiryu or Tendo constantly ripping their tailored suits off to reveal perfect male anatomy with gorgeous skin and intricate tattoos, you don't walk away the same.

Like, look at that MFer.

It helped me to realized that for most of my life I'd been suppressing my attraction to men. I found out I was Bi thanks to the funny haha silly Japan crime game and the schizoid-moment bloke himself, Ichiban.

The Rock-Bottom Dragon

I will admit I clocked Ichiban incorrectly from the very start. It's not my fault though! You cannot tell me when you see this promotional art that he does NOT look like a total fuckboy. I'm sorry.

But what I found was resonance with someone that I never expected. Homie literally said "when I grow up I'm going to just be the hero from Dragon Quest." Then just proceeded to grow up and be the hero from Dragon Quest.

I wanted to be him. I have always thought of myself as a kind, selfless person, but he made me realize I wasn't. I only was when it suited me. This guy's brother literally tried to use the full weight of the Japanese Government and Criminal Underworld to kill him and all he can say is "that's ok bro I still love you as my brother."

A quote from the games that has stuck with me since, and helped guide me in times of uncertainty:

“Once you’re at rock bottom, the only way forward is up. But the bottom doesn’t have to be all dark and gloomy. If you can stand and look up, you’ll see the light of hope there.” - Itchy Balls Katsudon

Though I wanted more than his heart of gold. His physique was extremely inspiring to me. The kind of sleeper build, where in a suit he looks just like your average dark haired tall man. But when you pull the suit off, you can see such definition in his anatomy. It's just so visually interesting to look at. (In both Horny and Non-Horny ways!)

So I decided fuck it, Ichiban has inspired me to steal his look. Eventually I will share more of my fitness journey, and in a more concise manner, but here is a comparison shot from February 3rd, 2024 to today.

I think the gains I've made are pretty clear! In the first photo I weighed roughly 210, while today I weigh 188!

Yes that is a JJBA tattoo.

Anyway, I'm yappin and I should be getting back to work this morning. I wanted to yap some too about Baldur's Gate 3, but for now that will have to wait.

Thanks for having me Tumblr, till next time.

Grae.

[pointofreturn]

professor's pet, pt. 1

I was always a model student. Always the teacher’s pet.

Intelligence was my earliest form of worthiness. People told me over and over how smart and well-spoken I was. In second grade, I was placed in a third-grade reading class. Gifted for fourth grade. I read books instead of playing with the other kids and spent middle school lunches with my nose between Edgar Allan Poe poems or Faulkner short stories. I aced every advanced English class, received praise for even the shittiest papers, and received perfect scores on state writing tests. I completed both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English with a focus on American Literature. I was accepted and offered full funding to two prestigious Ph.D. programs at famous southern schools. And I would have finished my doctorate if not for this dreaded tale I’m about to tell you.

Naturally, as a reader, I am also a writer. Mother saved all of the stories I wrote through grade school. I won an award in fourth grade for a story about a purple hairbrush. I wrote and illustrated a children’s book about squirrels with family conflict. All of the creative stories have one thing in common—they are infused with bits and pieces of my life.

I’ve always been one to speak from experience.

Writing was always something I enjoyed and I was objectively good at it, but my internal doubt ruined my ability to properly see my potential.

*

His name surrounds me months before I ever see him. He’s one of the more popular professors, and I’d come to learn that was for good reason. I started taking classes at Another University because I was determined to finally finish my bachelor’s. I started talking to people about the research I was interested in, what I liked to read and write.

“You have to meet him,” they say.

“You two will really get along. You’re so similar!”

“Have you talked to ______? He might be interested in picking your brain.”

I’m accepted to the honors program where I’m tasked with writing my first thesis. I settle on a comparative study on F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald’s tandem novels, This Side of Paradise and Save Me the Waltz, arguing that Scott’s patriarchal plagiarism and creative control directly contributed to Zelda’s mental and physical disabilities. It wasn’t profound, but Zelda’s novel is my favorite book ever, so I had to write about it. All my professors and peers tell me I should get his input on my work.

How I sometimes wish we hadn’t been pushed to cross paths.

How I sometimes wish I’d never met him.

*

After I decided to save myself, I finished inpatient treatment and figured the best way forward was to go back to college. I’d gathered a handful of credits from the two schools I’d been to previously and even though my heart was originally called by a music or art major, my head determined that I should be practical. English, I thought, was a path that could lead me to an attainable career in teaching or editing but would still allow me to engage with my creativity.

And given that it was my best subject, it made sense.

Several of my English professors had a profound impact on my life. My first creative writing teacher was at the local community college I said I’d never go to but have my associate’s degree from. He was in his early forties and kind of looked like Jason Bateman if you squinted the right way. His class was nonfiction-focused, so we spent a lot of time writing about ourselves. Easy enough. During our final meeting, he told me I should keep writing about my life. I’d had other people tell me to write a book, but he was the first to suggest writing a memoir, the first to suggest that my chaotic life was worth talking about.

I had an English professor in Tampa who assigned the book that taught me the truth about chattel slavery and the Native American genocide. He looked like a mix of Albert Einstein and Eugene Levy, always smelled like stale cigarettes and coffee, and was a notoriously hard grader. He was the first to give me a C on a paper, but he let me revise it and pushed me to be a better academic writer. Later, he awarded me a coveted A- on a paper about southern high schools teaching intentional misinformation on the Civil War and slavery. His only criticism was that I was too emotional, that I brought too much of myself into the subject.

After another health incident, I had to move back home, once again, but I was impatient to finally finish my bachelor’s degree. It had been nearly five years since I graduated high school and I was starting to feel behind in more ways than one. I transferred to Another University.

I grew up going to classes with Mother at AU. Another school I swore I would never go to and now have two degrees from. I distinctly remember a class she brought me to when I was four or five years old. We did a taste test—bitter, salty, sweet, sour. Each flavor was on a toothpick and we had to place the wood on a different section of our tongue to see where we got the strongest reaction. I have no idea what it was supposed to prove. But I loved the classroom, I loved watching the professor, I loved the feeling of belonging with the other students.

Another University birthed and destroyed my academic life.

*

I sit in an office with Josephine, my honors seminar professor. She is youthful and beautiful, blonde with a full, bright smile and spring-water eyes. Josephine will come to be one of my favorites over the years, one who sticks with me through my master’s thesis.

We’re waiting for her to introduce me to him.

“I think your project has a lot of potential,” she affirms. “I’m really excited to hear what he has to say. You have aligned research interests and I’m sure he’ll have some source recommendations for you to take this further.”

I smile and nod. I’m always nervous about meeting new people, but he responded politely enough to my email asking for a meeting. I was just getting in my head.

Josephine shuffles some papers around on her desk to break up the awkwardness. A figure passes outside her door.

“Oh! Dr. ______!”

I turn around to catch a glimpse of feathery blonde hair and the tail of a tweed coat. His body backtracks a few steps and stands in the doorway.

The world goes quiet.

Who are you? Did I know you from somewhere before?

I now completely understand his popularity. His looks alone are enough to tempt any of the academically needy English girls. Who wouldn’t want to sit alone in his office, listening intently to anything and everything he has to say about what you’ve written, all while secretly hoping for a hint that he’s interested in more than just your paper. His charming personality and hospitable mannerisms were just the cherry on top of a seemingly perfect package.

Josephine speaks again, beaming between the two of us stopped in time. “This is Mollie Steven, the undergraduate honors student you’re meeting with this afternoon.”

He opens his mouth and honey whiskey comes out.

“Mollie.”

He says my name and I don’t know if I’ll hear anything in the world ever again.

He leads me to his office and we sit down to have a conversation about my thesis. I can’t remember a single detail of the conversation but I will always remember the way he looked at me. I’ll always remember the way he shifted uncomfortably in his desk chair, obviously nervous. Despite the gossip I hear about his effortless confidence and charm, able to flirt with a light pole and all that, he stutters over his words and lets me lead the conversation. I think he asks a few questions about my personal life—where I’m from and went to school, normal things like that.

I knew immediately that there was a mutual attraction between us. And what was worse, some kind of instant, magnetic connection. Sticking your finger in a light socket and all that. I was still dating Seb, but this was the first man I’d felt something for in years. He felt something for me too, however fleeting or insignificant.

Our “story” spans over six years. It doesn’t have a happy ending, but why would I have ever expected it to?

[solarwonux]

89.  “Just let me finish this level and I swear I’ll go down on you all night.”

93.  “Fuck…did we use protection?”

twitch streamer!wonwoo x f!reader

w.c: 3.9k (honestly I think I forgot what drabbles were clearly lol)

warnings: some angst, smut, mutual masturbation, some slight panty stuffing, oral sex (f receiving), unprotected sex, pregnancy scare, talks about plan b

note: excuse me everyone I literally love gamer and twitch streamer Wonwoo, but not everyone does. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this one if you want more twitch!streamer wonwoo let me I will be happy to oblige, I have MANY ideas. Enjoy and please let me know your thoughts. 

p.s send me a prompt for either svt or bts or both. I will also happily oblige to that lol

Masterlist || Drabble game 

Watching Wonwoo play Zelda was not what you had expected when he had texted earlier asking you to come over. “Just let me finish this level and I swear I’ll go down on you all night.” He whispered against your lips in a half kiss when you walked in through his front door.

That had been over an hour and three completed levels ago. It was an empty promise long forgotten as he kept himself immersed in the game, talking enthusiastically about his day and random things his brain would conjure up on the spot. It was like you didn’t exist, and for the most part to his viewers, you didn’t. It wasn’t like you were his girlfriend or anything. Even if you were, you valued your privacy more than anything in the world. You preferred to work on your own things in the background away from his camera whenever you were over. This was something the two of you had mutually agreed to. 

Casual hangs and casual sex.

Lately, your relationship had become the product of most of your stress. You never knew where you stood with Wonwoo. Sometimes he would literally invite you over to keep him company while he streamed only to kick you out the second he finished. “I’m too tired, you should go.” He would say pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, “I’ll see you later.” 

Of course, those moments were overshadowed by the soft touches he left imprinted on your skin. By the sweetness of the words he shared with you and only you whenever he wasn’t working. It made you want more. More of him, more of his attention, and more of whatever was going on between the two of you. But that was something you refused to bring up afraid that the only one harboring feelings for the other was you. 

Heartbreak was not in your plans for life, at least not for a while. 

You sighed, throwing your phone down onto the couch. Your patience was wearing thin. Maybe it had to do with the fact you were already having a bad day, and Wonwoo’s indifference towards you wasn’t helping. When you had gotten his text earlier, you couldn’t help but feel all giddy inside. The two of you hadn’t seen each other in a few days with work schedules being all over the place and not aligning. It was something to look forward to, not necessarily because of the sex--which was always amazing. But you really just wanted to talk to him. Lay down with his arms wrapped around you while you complained about work and how frustrating your coworkers were being.

By the looks of it, you weren’t going to get any of that, not even what he had promised when you had first walked in. You were tired, your clothes were starting to annoy and you wanted to cry. If it wasn’t for the fact that his front door was in line with his camera, you would’ve left already.

Wonwoo could sense something was wrong with you. Every time you sighed it felt like you were punching him in the gut. He really meant what he had said when you walked in earlier. He also meant the quiet I love you he mumbled underneath his breath when you walked past him and into the living room. He wasn’t sure when he had fallen in love with you, just that months ago he had woken up and you were the only thing he could think of. Every time he held you in his arms the three little words bubbled up in the back of his throat, wishing he could bring himself to finally say it, but his fear held him back. Afraid that you didn’t feel the same way.

“Alright, you know what I think that’s enough for tonight.” Wonwoo smiled into the camera, trying to keep up with the chat as they begged him not to go yet. “I have to go, my girlfriend is over and I want to spend time with her. Anyway, same time next week Monday guys.” Wonwoo nodded, stopping the stream. Once he was positive that he had turned everything off he felt his shoulders relax and leaned back in his chair. He closed his eyes for a second before opening them again, the panic surging through his veins was unbearable. He turned around in his chair meeting your equally shocked face.

He royally fucked up. He just confessed to his audience without meaning to confess. He had told his audience that you were his girlfriend and he hadn’t even asked you yet. The surprise and speech he had worked on all week, the reason he took a break from streaming until tonight, was for nothing. He had gotten ahead of himself and he didn’t know what to do now. Or how to fix it.

“G-Girlfriend? Wait you have a fucking girlfriend?” You stood up from his couch, blinded by anger. “What the fuck Wonwoo, when were you going to tell me? Before or after you fucked me?” You shouted, your heart was beating fast as you turned around to gather up your stuff.

Unbelievable. Here you were distracted, thinking about how cute he looked while he blamed his failure on his character. The pout that had formed on his lips as he pushed his glasses up his nose and blew out a raspberry, moving aside the strands of his newly dyed blonde hair. The frustration you had felt earlier, forgotten, replaced with admiration. Only for it to come back after what he had said, this time fiery red and ready to burn everything it touched.

“Stop, no wait, I don’t have a girlfriend. At least not yet.” He spoke fast, his words blending with one another as he quickly made his way to you. He grabbed hold of your laptop and held it against his chest.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better, did you just call me down to ignore me and then fuck me one last time before you called it quits!” You said in disbelief reaching over for your laptop.

Wonwoo turned around facing away from you. “No that’s not...that’s not what...fuck, calm down please and just let me talk.” He pleaded as he sat down on his couch, your laptop still clutched tightly in his arms. It was your prized possession, it held the first three drafts of the novel you were working on. He knew you well enough to know that you hadn’t backed anything up no matter how many times he told you to do so. So, he was positive that as long as he held onto it like his life depended on it (because it did) you wouldn’t leave without it.

You crossed your arms in front of you ”I am calm, but I don’t know if I want to listen to what you have to say.”

Wonwoo cringed, he was more nervous than what he had intended to be. He had an entire speech planned. Wrote it down, even got Jihoon to proofread it. He had performed it in front of his bathroom mirror every morning and night. He thought he had it in the bag, pumped up his chest a few times before opening his front door to you earlier. Yet, the second he saw you, he forgot everything he had planned to say. This is mainly why he had spent such a long time streaming. Hoping that the distraction would somehow help him remember.

It didn’t.

“Wonwoo, I swear if you don’t start talking in the next five seconds I’m leaving and suing you for holding my laptop hostage.”

Wonwoo sighed and slapped his forehead lightly before turning to look at you, “okay, I don’t think that’s allowed bu-”

“It is if I say that you stole it trying to steal my work, I don’t know I’ll find a way.” You shrugged, earning a glare from Wonwoo. You knew he hated whenever someone interrupted him while he was in the middle of saying something. It was something you would do to him out of spite, but in your humble opinion this time he really did deserve it. Though, it didn’t make you feel as good as you had hoped, “fine sorry, you can continue.” You sighed and sat down on his coffee table.

Wonwoo put your laptop down and leaned over his elbows taking your hands in his. “I love you and I want you to be my girlfriend. I know we agreed to just keep this casual but I can’t help the way my heart literally feels like it’s going to fall out of my ass whenever I’m with you. So yeah, I don’t have a girlfriend yet, because I haven’t asked you to be my girlfriend yet. But there’s no one else, only you, and I’m so-”

Wonwoo was cut off when he felt your body land on his, knocking the air out of his lungs. You hugged him, straddling his hips and burying your face into his chest, giggling. It felt like a weight had been lifted from your shoulders and you felt awful for assuming the worst and jumping to conclusions.

“Ask me ask me ask me ask me.” You bounced on his lap like a child. He groaned doubling over in pain.

He placed his hands on your hips to keep you from moving, “No now I know you’re actually trying to kill me.” He smirked and left a sweet kiss against your lips. A low chuckle running past his lips as he took in your pouting face, “fine, my love, my baby will you please be my girlfriend?” He cocked his head, his hands playing with the hem of your t-shirt.

“Yes, but only if you give me my laptop back and keep the promise you made me earlier.” You smiled innocently, playing with the hair on the back of his neck.

Wonwoo smirked, his hands made their way underneath your shirt. “No to the laptop, you work too much and I’m determined to back up everything on a hard drive later.” He rubbed his thumbs over the skin of your hips, slowly inching closer to the button of your jeans, “not sure I remember the promise I made earlier though, can you remind me?”

You kissed him slowly, tugging on his shirt, “you said you would finish a level before going down on me all night, and it’s four and a half levels later and I’m still waiting.” You whispered against his lips, before pulling away and bringing his shirt over his head, taking it off, throwing it behind him, aiming for the laundry basket, missing it completely, making you sigh. 

“Well you didn’t give me enough time to answer, but that can be arranged.” He pecked your lips, pushing your shirt up and over your head, throwing it behind him. “You’d have to step into my office though.” 

“Wonwoo, baby, don’t ever call your room your office.” You rolled your eyes and got up from his lap. 

He chuckled, shaking his head and stood up, “oh no that’s not what I meant, room comes later. Tonight we start in my office.” He says cheekily, pointing his thumb towards his gaming setup. Your eyes grew wide as saucers, only making him laugh harder while he pushed you towards his gaming chair. 

“Wait, you’re like not going to turn the camera on are you?” You said as he pushed you down to sit in which you obeyed. The colorful lights from his gaming setup kept you distracted as Wonwoo got down on his knees in front of you. 

“Nope, I’ve just always wanted to eat you out while you sat on my gaming chair. But maybe one day in the future if you want. You can take over my stream and play animal crossing while I secretly eat you out on camera.” He smirked, the evil glint behind his soft eyes sent shivers down your spine. The little exibitionist in him coming out. You’d be lying if you didn’t find the thought of it exciting. 

“One day.” You breathed, lifting your hips, helping him as he pulled down your pants. 

Wonwoo sent you a wink pushing your thighs apart with his hands, “We can also play overwatch together. That cute little vibrator you keep hidden in your bedside drawer, stuffed inside your pussy.” He placed his index finger over the wet patch that had formed over your panties, pushing in slightly. “And everytime you die I up the speed, see how long you can last before you have me begging to turn off the stream so you can cum.” Wonwoo kept pushing his finger in you, your panties sticking onto you like second skin. 

You threw your head back, digging your nails into the arms of his leather chair. “F-Fuck how long h-have you thought about this?” You lifted your hips as he added another finger. 

“Right now, or maybe a few times when you’re not around.” He leaned down kissing your mound lightly, “but seeing you like this, sprawled out, wet and waiting for my mouth is reinforcing those fantasies.” He worked his fingers diligently, pushing the thin material of your panties inside of you. He couldn’t wait to stuff you full with his cock later. 

You let out a whimper as his mouth traveled down to your clothed entrance. He removed his fingers licking up a stride, before taking one of your lips into his mouth and biting down on it gently. “W-Wonwoo please I want to feel your mouth.” 

“You are, aren’t you?.” He looked, staring at you through the rim of his round glasses before repeating his actions again making you whimper. “Take your bra off, play with yourself for me.” He left a chaste kiss in your inner thigh and sat back on his heels. He palmed himself over his black tracksuit pants as he watched you slowly unclasp your bra, letting the straps slide down your arms. You were teasing him, he knew this but he didn’t care. Seeing you get undressed for him was one of his favorite past times, especially because you always went extra slow for him. 

You threw your bra, not caring where it landed. You rolled your palms over your nipples, soft sighs running past your lips as you kept your eyes trained on Wonwoo. “Want to feel your hot tongue fucking me Woo.” You spread your legs even further pinching your nipples. You moved your hand down your body, your index finger playing with the seam of your panties. “Is this one of your fantasies? Me touching myself, sitting here?” You said, tilting your head to the side, moving your hand into your panties and running your index and middle fingers over your clit slowly.

“Yes.” He hissed, pushing his hand into his boxers grabbing onto his cock. “God, you make me so hard.” 

“Let me see please.” You arched your back, your fingers getting faster. Wonwoo nodded, wasting no time to free himself, his hand wrapped tightly around his length. His index finger connects with the small bead of precum that had formed, showing you how sticky and ready he was for you. 

“Want to taste?” You nodded letting out soft moans as you lifted your hips, into the palm of your hand, sticking your tongue out for him. “Fuck.” He cursed getting up on his knees, bringing his index finger up to your mouth. You closed your lips around it, swirling your tongue over the tip, savoring the salty substance. 

You pulled away with a pop, taking your fingers out of your panties and bringing them up to his lips. He took them in, moaning around them. “Do I taste good?” You said taking out your fingers from his mouth, moving them over his lips, wetting them further. 

“I’m going to have to take a closer look.” He said lowly, pushing your panties down in a haste. He spread your legs, licking up your slit, teasing your hole with his tongue. Being in between your legs was his second most favorite pastime. He savored every moment of it. Sometimes he would prolong your orgasm, keeping you on edge, so that when you came, your sweet substance would coat his lips, spilling down his chin and neck. It was the most beautiful site, one that only he had the privilege in witnessing. 

“Mmm, your tongue feels so good Wonwoo.” You pinched your nipple while tugging on the roots of his blonde hair, pushing his mouth closer. 

He moaned, slurping up your juices like you were his last meal. He wrapped his mouth around your clit, pulling it between his teeth before letting it go. “I want to be here forever but I don’t think I can last any longer without being inside of you.” He pushed two of his fingers inside of you. The feeling of your wet walls wrapped around his thick calloused fingers made his cock twitch. 

“B-But I-I want to cum.” You pouted, arching your back away from his chair, pushing your hips further into his hand. “Please, I’m so close already.” You pant, the knot in the pit of your stomach threatening to break. 

“Oh honey, you will. I’ll have you coming undone more than three times tonight.” He stated with determination and brought his mouth down again, closing his lips around your clit. He sucked harshly moaning sinfully. He fucked you faster with his fingers curling them upwards, reaching the soft mushy skin inside of you. 

“W-Wonwoo f-fuck don’t stop I-I’m so close.” 

Wonwoo let go of your swollen bud, slowing down his fingers as you clenched around them. “Look at me, I want to watch me while you cum.” You agreed with a pleasure filled sigh, watching as he pushed back his glasses. The sight almost had you coming undone. 

He put his mouth on you again, increasing the pace of his fingers. Babbles coming out of your mouth as you pulled on his hair, motivating him to go faster. The squelching sounds coming from your wet, hot pussy sounded like music to his ears. He bit down on your clit lightly, sending you over the edge, your cum coating his fingers, while you moaned his name in a sweet sinful prayer. His eyes burning holes into yours, the sight was award winning, his cock begging to be milked out. 

Wonwoo continued, riding out your orgasm. Until you felt the oversensitivity overcome your body “W-Woo, s-stop please.” You pushed his head carefully with the palm of your hand. 

He kissed the inside of both of your thighs before sitting up on his knees, taking your face into his hands. “You always look so pretty when you cum.” He pecked your lips repeatedly, before wrapping your arms around you hugging you tightly. “I love you so much.” He kissed your temple. 

“Why do you always get so mushy every time you make me cum?” You laughed gently, running your fingers down his back, making him shiver.

“You bring out in me, I can’t help it, stop complaining. I’m giving you time to recover before I bend you over my desk.” 

“Not complaining. I love it.” You kissed his cheek. “And I love you.” You whispered in his ear, taking his earlobe, pulling it between your teeth.. He groaned, swallowing hard, his getting tighter around you.

“My desk, then my couch, then my bed, then the shower, and then my bed again.” 

The sun had started to rise. It was five in the morning and your body was suddenly overcome with sleep, when Wonwoo pulled out of you one last time. He had kept true to his promise, literally fucked you the entire night, christening his apartment, except his kitchen. “If we have sex in the kitchen, the only thing I’ll be thinking about while I’m cooking is your mouth around my dick.” He said as he pushed you into the wide window of his living room, making you laugh. 

“Do you have to work today?” He placed a delicate kiss against your collar bone, laying his head on top of your chest. 

“It’s Saturday, why would I have work on Saturday?” You smiled sleepily, running your fingers through his hair. He sighed happily, pulling his sheets over the two of you and cuddling into you further. 

“You’re always working, I just wanted to ask.” He shrugged, raising his body enough to leave a chaste kiss against your lips. “Take a break today and I promise that by the time you wake up again I’ll have all of your files backed up into the harddrive I bought you.” 

You shook your head, placing both of your palms against his cheeks, squishing them. “Do you know how sexy you sound when you talk about computers.” 

“Nope, but you once told me to divide you in half when I was explaining finances to you. Now that I think about it, that statement can go both ways.” He smiled laying down on his back, bringing you along with him. Your eyes growing wide when you felt it running down your thighs. You sat up in panic, removing the sheets of your body to see if your silent hypothesis was correct.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, confused.

“Wonwoo, fuck...did we use protection?” 

Wonwoo pushed the covers away with his feet, sitting up quickly. He looked between your legs, his eyebrows furrowing in concern, “You’re on the pill still right?” 

“We changed my formula, I had to stop taking it for a few days.” You threw yourself down on his bed covering your eyes with your hands. The tears pooling against your eyes. You felt the bed dip next to you. Wonwoo took your hands in his, revealing your tearful eyes to him making him sigh. 

“Baby, don’t worry.” He kissed your cheeks repeatedly before sitting up again, “I’ll run down to the convenience store, get a plan b while you go take a bath. I’ll join you when I get back.” 

“W-What’s happens if I take the plan b and still miraculously end up pregnant, it’s only ninety five percent effective.” 

“Then I’ll be with you every step of the way. I meant what I said earlier, I love you so much and I plan to marry you and have kids with you one day. Don’t worry.” 

Your heart felt full. The butterflies erupting in the pit of your stomach. Wonwoo and you had shared many intimate dreams and desires before, but this one felt different. This was a dream the two of you shared and it made you feel at ease. “Okay, okay I will, just hurry up please.” 

Wonwoo scoffed, getting up from his bed, slipping on his sweatpants and sweatshirt. “Baby please don’t underestimate me. I’ll be back before you know it.” He leaned down giving you one last kiss before jogging over to his front door. “I love you.” He shouted, opening the door. 

You laughed sitting up on your elbows shaking your head, “I love you, now hurry I can feel your child cooking in me.” 

“Impossible, it takes roughly twenty four hours for my sperm to fertilize one of your eggs, and it’s literally been thirty minutes. Therefore you wou--”

“Wonwoo shut up just hurry.” 

“Okay I love you.” He said while closing his front door. You laughed shaking your head falling back on his bed. Your entire body was aching and though you were a little scared, given obvious circumstances. You had never felt so much warmth and happiness in your life. 

[midzelink]

What’s Going On with the Ears in Hyrule?

(Or: A Needlessly Comprehensive Deep-Dive into the Myst-EAR-ious Duality of Round-Eared Humans and Long-Eared Hylians, a Very S-EAR-ious Write-Up)

As some of you may remember from a few months back, I made an off-hand comment about my ideas surrounding the disparities between the different types of ears we see in Hyrule’s human citizens, and my desire to further expand on that at a later date.  No, that was not a joke, and yes, I am finally Doing the Dang Thing.  So!  Let’s get started.

Long-time fans of the series will know that Hylians are a race of humans in the world of The Legend of Zelda with long, elf-like ears.  Hylians most always dominate the land of Hyrule in nearly every installment in the series, with round-eared humans only making their first appearance in Link’s Awakening, a game that - spoiler alert - was all a dream in the first place.  And though plain old humans again appear in the lands of Holodrum and Labrynna in the follow-up Oracle games, it is very in keeping with the theme of this blog that their most notable appearance happens to be in Twilight Princess.

Though it is never remarked upon in-game, Link is the only Hylian in a village filled with humans, such as Ilia and Rusl, leading the player to assume that he was not Ordon-born.  Other notable examples include Ashei, who hails from the mountains, and even the inhabitants of (New) Kakariko (though only three in number) are all mere humans.  The Hylians of this game seem to be centralized around Castle Town, with notable members including Telma, Shad, and Auru of the Resistance, and naturally, Zelda herself.  Yet as I’ve already stated, the fact that there are two different sets of ears among the humans is never even a topic of conversation; it makes you wonder why the developers bothered to make the distinction at all, and indeed, plenty of fans have never even noticed that such a disparity exists. I certainly didn’t notice when I was ten years old, playing through Twilight Princess for the very first time - but we’ve come a long way since then, and I am delighted to finally be able to tell everyone why I think this disparity exists, and how it has bled into other aspects of the series.  Let’s back away from Twilight Princess for a moment; all good theories have a beginning, and this one is no different.  To understand where this all began, we must look thousands of years into the past, to Skyward Sword.  More specifically, this all started...

...with this guy.

Yes, Beedle.  That Beedle.  But before we can even jump into how he relates to any of this, we must travel further back still, to the very opening cutscene of Skyward Sword.  

In this cutscene, we hear a very dumbed-down tale of how Demise invaded the surface world that was ruled over by the Goddess Hylia; to protect the sacred relic placed into her care by the Golden Goddesses, Hylia rends a piece of land from the earth and sends it skyward, leaving the Goddess Sword and the Triforce with it.  Together with the remaining peoples of the Surface, she seals Demise away, and millennia later the events of Skyward Sword transpire.  The entirety of this cutscene is not in and of itself very important, but I would like to draw everyone’s attention to one particular line uttered by the narrator during this sequence:

“To prevent this great power from falling into the hands of the evil swarming the lands… The goddess gathered the surviving humans on an outcropping of earth.”

It is worth noting here that - though the word “Hylian” itself only appears in reference to the shield which bears its name - Skyloft is comprised entirely of people with long ears.  Keeping these things in mind, let’s go back to Beedle.

Beedle is, by all intents and purposes, a fairly unremarkable character in Skyward Sword.  That is to say, outside of providing Link with goods throughout his adventure, he bears no significance on the plot in any capacity, having only a single sidequest that involves retrieving a pet beetle (snickers) of his, for which the player’s reward is a small sum of Gratitude Crystals.  But there is one, throwaway line of completely optional dialogue you can trigger towards the beginning of this sidequest, and it is upon this line that the entire basis for this theory has been built.  When meeting Beedle on his home island apart from Skyloft for the very first time, the player is given the option...

...to comment on his accent.

[after selecting “Your accent!”] “Hmmm? The mellifluous timbre of my voice sounds different to you?

...Perhaps a touch, I suppose... But pray, what does it matter, hmm?”

What’s important to understand about accents is how they come about to begin with: namely, slight differences in pronunciation and rhythm of speech evolve over time as the language (in this case, some form of ancient Hylian) spreads to different locations.  And of course, everyone who uses spoken language has an accent, but Link’s remarking upon Beedle’s is an indication that his pattern of speech is different from his own.  In most other games, this would be unextraordinary - but in the context of Skyward Sword, where humanity has been isolated to a (relatively speaking) small outcropping of earth in the sky, it becomes extremely noteworthy.  No one in Skyloft should have “an accent,” because theirs is a society and culture so small in scale that they should all have the same accent.  Beedle having an accent makes sense if, and only if...

...he’s not from Skyloft.

And if he’s not from Skyloft, the logical conclusion would be that he must be from the Surface.  In almost any other circumstance, this assertion would be smashed to smithereens by the sheer fact that getting to Skyloft without a Loftwing - companions blessed only to those who live in the sky - should be an unattainable feat. And yet, of all the people in Skyloft, Beedle is the only one who could have achieved such a thing... 

...because his shop - which conveniently doubles as his house - is an electricity-powered flying machine.  Within the context of the game, such a contraption seems almost nonsensical; if he were from Skyloft, why would he not just set up shop in a permanent location?  Even if he wanted to live on a smaller island by himself, the people of Skyloft could simply use their Loftwings to reach him (which they still need to do, anyway!).  Indeed, the existence of Beedle’s Shop makes far more sense...if it already existed by the time he arrived there.

Which brings us back to that introductory cutscene.  The narrator states that Hylia gathered up all of the surviving humans (notice the use of the word humans here) onto an outcropping of earth and sent them skyward, and on a surface level, this seems straight-forward enough - but with the revelation that Beedle is very likely from the Surface himself, it’s very obvious that this is nothing more than a bold-faced lie.  Some humans were left behind - they couldn’t all possibly have fit on such a small piece of land - and those humans were the ancestors of Beedle, in some way, shape, or form.  What became of those humans is another matter altogether (one I will address briefly), as the Surface we explore in Skyward Sword is perfectly devoid of human life, barring Impa.

Now, let’s bring it back home: remember how I said that all Skyloftians have long ears?  That was a bit of a white lie, though only if you count Beedle among that number.  In truth, Beedle’s ears are obscured by the bowl cut of his hair - but this is true for every game he appears in, and the general consensus is that they’re round.  This would make Beedle the only round-eared human in the entire game...and he, coincidentally, happens to be from the Surface.

Before I go any further, I’d like to establish a very base reasoning for the existence of long-eared qualities in the human races of Hyrule.  Hylians are far from the only ones to bear long ears, what with the trait also presenting themselves in the likes of the Sheikah and, by the era of Breath of the Wild, even the Gerudo - though it is exceptionally notable that in Ocarina of Time, the Gerudo have round ears, and Ganondorf is no exception...at least, at first.

Y’see, what’s especially notable about Ganondorf is that he is the same exact character is each title he appears in, and in The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, his ears are long.  This was actually something I only noticed quite recently, upon which I then fervently began scouring for information about his appearance in Ocarina of Time to try and make sense of it all, and the results are...very intriguing, to say the least.  Below is a comparison of Ganondorf pre-timeskip vs. post-timeskip from the original Nintendo 64 version of the game:

As you can see, his model has changed in a number of ways, but... Well, I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.

Amazingly, his ears got longer, which is...an interesting choice from a design perspective.  Of course, it leads one to wonder why - and far and above the most significant thing to happen to him in the seven years between these two appearances is his procuring of the Triforce of Power from the Sacred Realm, a relic of the old gods.  Evil or no, Ganondorf had forged a bond with a god unlike any had before him, and for some reason, this elongated his ears - so much so that by the time of Twilight Princess and The Wind Waker, they are indistinguishable from your typical Hylian’s.  It is notable, too, that the Sheikah (who have always had long ears) also bear a special connection to the gods, living to serve Hylia and, later, her reincarnation as the princess in the Royal Family of Hyrule.  

“They say we Hylians have big ears in order to hear the voices of the gods.”

So now, keeping everything I’ve talked about here in mind, I think it appropriate to go over the series of events that likely transpired, beginning from Demise’s invasion of the surface world:

In a bid to keep the Triforce out of evil’s grasp, Hylia formulates a plan to send both it and the Goddess Sword out of harm’s way.  She selects - perhaps by chance, perhaps by choice - a not insignificant number of humans to live on this skyward isle, but naturally not all of them can make the cut.  These chosen humans would go on to found Skyloft, a land whose culture revolves heavily around the reverence of the very goddess who saved them and enabled them to live in prosperity (the existence of the Wing Ceremony, the Statue of the Goddess, etc.), while the humans who remained on the surface, left in a world scarred by war and ravaged by monsters, sought new lands, becoming the ancestors of people who would found Holodrum and Labrynna, to name a couple.  In their reverence of Hylia, the people of Skyloft would develop long ears, as even the Sheikah had - but the humans left on the surface world...would not.

That is to say, the Hylians we see in almost every major installment of the series are the direct descendants of the people of Skyloft, and round-eared humans are the descendants of the people Hylia left behind.

Of course, not all humans fled from their homeland - though we see none in-game, it’s important to remember that we also see no Sheikah aside from Impa, though we know they are great in number.  Beedle was, undoubtedly, one of these very few stragglers, and with stories of a land beyond the clouds on his mind - legends that have been passed down over countless generations - he sought to find this paradise by any means, through sheer blood, sweat, and tears (but mostly sweat, if that cycling is any indication) if necessary. In the end, he was successful, and he lives among the people of Skyloft fairly unassumingly - yet he also lives apart from them, on his own island because, at his core, he is not one of them, and never will be.  He doesn’t get all of this Hylia stuff, and frankly, he doesn’t care - so long as he can chill on his own little crop of land with a full belly, a full wallet, and his pet beetle, that’s really all that matters.

And speaking of Hylia - the reason they are called Hylians is because they are the descendants of those chosen by Hylia, even if the knowledge of Hylia’s existence has largely been lost to history by the events of Ocarina of Time and beyond.  (In a very similar vein, it is my belief that Lake Hylia also gets its name from her because the crater that would later become that very lake was formed...when she lifted a gargantuan outcropping of earth into the sky.)   Hylians largely dominate Hyrule for so much of its history because the people of Skyloft were the ones who founded it - yet by the era of Twilight Princess, we see that a great many of the humans who had moved onto different lands have slowly but surely made their way back towards the place they once called home.  

But I would be remiss to neglect to go back to Breath of the Wild; this game is a much more peculiar case, taking place in an era many millennia after any game that came before it, where reverence for Hylia is once again commonplace - so much so that statues bearing her resemblance have been erected in every town, village, and city across the country.  Humans are once again practically nowhere to be seen (except, again, perhaps for Beedle), and even the Gerudo, who have now long intermingled with Hylians for the sake of having children, have inherited the trait (perhaps in part due to the fact that some of their own may worship Hylia, if the statue in Gerudo Town is any indication).  In every single instance, no matter where you turn, these long ears seem to be a direct correlation to the people’s connection to the gods of Hyrule - but rather than their ears being a predetermined factor in how strong this connection may be, it seems that their faith is what influences this trait to rise to the surface, over how ever many generations or centuries that just might take.  (Ganondorf Dragmire, who lives in a castle and inherited a relic of pure godly power, is an outlier and should not be counted.)  As Shad so eloquently states in Twilight Princess:

“Hyrule was made by the Hylians, who, as we all know, are the closest race to the gods.”

And as long as we’re talking about Shad, I’d love to begin wrapping up this post by bringing things round to Twilight Princess once more - specifically the context in which Shad says the above quote, which is far and away one of the most peculiar instances of casual lore-dumping in the entire series.  The quote in its entirety from the North American version of the game reads thusly:

“At the moment I'm absolutely entranced by the sky beings known as the Oocca. Yes, according to legend, Hyrule was made by the Hylians [...] But also according to legend, long ago there was a race even closer to the gods, and some say these creatures made the Hylians. When they created the people of Hylia, they simultaneously created a new capital, a city that floated in the heavens.”

What Shad is saying here is extremely farfetched, particularly for those of us who are familiar with the Oocca.  But in truth, this was a minor mistranslation on Nintendo of America’s part; the original text from the Japanese version of the game clears actually reads much more like this, when translated correctly:

“The common opinion is that Hyrule was created by the Hylia people, the race closest to the gods, but...truth be told, there's also a theory saying that in ancient times, there was a race even closer to the gods than the Hylia people, and THEY created it [Hyrule]. And they, simultaneously with the birth of the Hylia people, created a new capital, a capital that floated in the heavens.”

So the Oocca - the bizarre, Cucco-like creatures who inhabit the City in the Sky - did not create the Hylians, but rather established the kingdom of Hyrule itself in the world that the goddesses created.  But even with this mistranslation squared away, that still sounds incredibly odd, especially taking the events of Skyward Sword into account; we know that the people of Skyloft are the ones who inevitably found Hyrule, because we see the beginnings of this happening at the end of the game.  Funnily enough, it seems that the very line that was mistranslated in the North American version of the game...was the result of mistranslation itself.

In-universe mistranslation, that is.  Millennia of history being told, written, lost, and found, translated again and again and again, until it barely resembles its original state.  What likely happened was that the Oocca, who live in the sky, were wrongly credited with the creation of Hyrule because the Hylian people who would go on the found Hyrule also came from the sky, as they were the people of Skyloft.  Shad’s claim that the Oocca were “a race even closer to the gods" than the Hylians may not be entirely unfounded, however, as it is incredibly likely like the City in the Sky we see in Twilight Princess is what remained of Skyloft after its human inhabitants abandoned it; the Loftwings that the people of Skyloft had for so long relied on would go on to evolve into more sentient beings, suspending the city above the clouds long after Hylia’s magic had worn off - and Loftwings were, as the people of Skyloft believed, beings bestowed upon them as a symbol of the goddess’s divine blessing.  In this sense, it is somewhat true that the City in the Sky and the Hylians were created at the same time; when the Skyloftians abandoned their home to live in a new land where they were not long after christened the Hylians, the skyward isle that they had left behind found a new purpose, and a new “city” was born.

Of course, maybe Shad was off his marbles (even if the Oocca are evolved Loftwings, there is still much about them and their connection to the Sheikah that remains shrouded in mystery), but the crux of this entire narrative is that the people of Hylia, the Hylians - at least, up until Breath of the Wild is concerned - were the descendants of the people of Skyloft, and Beedle’s eccentricities in the context of Skyward Sword are rather convincing pieces of evidence that this did not comprise all people of the formerly-known-as “Land of Hylia.”  It is therefore only natural that a conclusion could be drawn about where the distinction between the two peoples comes from.

But in the end, even if this can answer the question of why there are round-eared humans alongside long-eared ones, it does not answer the ultimate question of what this distinction means.  Why does a connection with and a faith in the gods elongate the ears of the people it touches?  The Zelda Encyclopedia states that “in the past, Hylians were able to wield magic of considerable might,” a trait that could possibly distinguish them from your typical human being - but the canon nature of the Encyclopedia is...shaky*, at best, and downright disrespectful at worst.  Link and Zelda are two Hylians we see wielding abnormal abilities, but their power can be explained with their respective pieces of the Triforce, not to mention the countless magic users in Hyrule and beyond who aren’t Hylian.  Even if there was a time when the Hylians had special abilities, those abilities have long since faded. They are no no taller, no smaller, live no longer than their round-eared counterparts; they are, in every aspect aside from the length of their ears, in every way identical.  To finish the quote by the unnamed Hylian man who speaks to a young Link in the Castle Town Market in Ocarina of Time:

“They say we Hylians have big ears in order to hear the voices of the gods...but I've never heard them!”

So...there you have it.  I must admit that it is entirely possible that the people of Skyloft had developed long ears before their ancestors had been sent to the heavens - after all, the Sealed Temple was, in millennia past, a temple erected in her honor.  Yet this would also make the story of Hylia gathering the “surviving humans” in order to save them all the more grim; could the gods be so callous as to save only those who respect their divine might? One cannot help but think of the Great Sea in The Wind Waker - for in a world populated by the descendants of those who were chosen by the gods to survive the coming floods, it is difficult not to notice that ears of the round variety are once again nowhere to be found.

And yet, when you get right down to it - though some Hylians seem to rely on their lineage as “the closest race to the gods” to maintain an image of self-importance - the difference between a long-eared Hylian and a round-eared human appears to be, ultimately...only that.  And unless we see our round-eared friends return in a potentially future title, and the difference remarked upon, that will likely be how things remain.

Until that time, I will continue to do my best to fill the gaps with which we have been left - even if, at the end of the day, I’ve written nothing more than a meaningless, nine-page word jumble...about ears.

EDIT (5/9/2020): It has been brought to my attention (courtesy of @heartenvy​​) that there is a mild inconsistency with the narrative that Beedle could be from the Surface: namely, the “unbreachable” Cloud Barrier, something Hylia herself created to divide Skyloft from the Surface and keep its inhabitants and the Triforce safe.  However, I would argue that the Cloud Barrier is not a physical barrier so much as it is a mystical one, meant to both keep its location secret (the barrier itself is completely invisible from the Surface) and to ensure the people of Skyloft remain complacent in their isolation (believing Skyloft is all there is, they remain there, and in so doing their long-forgotten secrets are kept safe). Zelda is pulled through it long before any proper portals are actually opened, and I would argue that the portals (that is, the pillars of light that appear when we place the corresponding tablets) are largely a gameplay mechanic meant to keep the story linear, as in a real setting Link would have simply ridden his Loftwing to and from the Surface and would have been able to fly anywhere he chose.  It’s possible the barrier acts to keep out evildoers, specifically (which would explain why Ghirahim had to summon a vortex to pull Zelda through it, where he could reach her), or, not unlike the Isla de Muerta in Pirates of the Caribbean, Skyloft could very well be “an island that cannot be found except by those who already know where it is” - which, to me, makes the narrative of Beedle finding his way there all the more entertaining (the dude must have been, like, super determined).  In any case, I stand by what I’ve stated before: that Beedle is from the Surface, as his accent and the peculiarities of his shop make too strong a case to ignore.

*              *              *              *              *

*The Zelda Encyclopedia states that Termina is a Dream World, despite Link’s Awakening having already done this and in a much more satisfying way.  I can’t take anything it says seriously.

(Special thanks to @ghiirahiims​​ for the high-res screenshot of Beedle, and shoutout to @gaybellatrix​​ for in no small part convincing me to finally sit down and write this all up.)

[aurathian]

My Hero

For @zelinkweek2021 day 3 Flight: Free Falling

Read it here on AO3!

“Hey! Get back here!”

Zelda sprinted after Link, bearing a toothy grin (well, as toothy as it could get, considering she was missing a few teeth) and waving a stick in the air. He was far quicker and much more nimble than her, leaping down nearly the entire flight of stairs leading from the Knight Academy to the Bazaar. She scurried down them, careful not to trip over her own feet and then the precarious folds in the rugs on the ground. Link’s foot caught on one of said folds and he stumbled just enough for her to reach out and almost graze his shoulder.

He lurched forward and rolled on the ground, dodging her fingers by an inch, before continuing to sprint. She groaned, fighting to not shout one of the bad words her father taught her to never say (even though she would watch his ink spill over his paper, and he would say one himself), and went as fast as her little, stubby legs could take her.

She was envious of the fact that he was faster than her, considering he was shorter by a few inches and younger by a few months. Teasing him about his height was one of her favorite pastimes, but she was the only one who could do it, given her protectiveness over her best friend Link. They’d been friends since they were fresh out of the womb, or so she’d been told by her father, and their bond was unbreakable. Whatever that meant.

Now that they were enrolled in the Knight Academy, they’d soon have less time to play, so they were together as much as they could possibly be, scrounging up their last moments of free time. That also brought some unwanted attention, namely that of Groose.

Groose was a pompous, snotty, drooling kid of about their same age, with a ridiculous hairdo he refused to change and a crush on Zelda herself. The boy never stopped picking on Link, which is where she developed her protective nature, but he also never stopped flirting with her. She was thankful she could hold her own ground, unlike her best friend, who happened to be a bit of a crybaby at times.

Link leaped down another flight of stairs and this time Zelda followed suit, landing square on her feet before taking after him again. She cornered him against the wall of the lighthouse on the side of the plaza, gasping for air and laughing.

Thrusting her stick forward and tapping him in the chest, she beamed triumphantly.

“You’re it!”

She took off toward the wooden deck at the edge of the plaza, the sound of his footsteps and laughter getting closer behind her.

“You’ll never catch me!” she taunted before diving off the deck. Her hope was that Link would dive after her and they’d call their Loftwings and chase each other in the sky, but then she had an idea. She’d prank him, make him worry for her, and not call her Loftwing. It would give him a real scare, she thought. So, she let herself fall, let the wind whip through her hair as she spread her arms and embraced the clouds.

What was taking him so long? There was no reason for him to not dive right after her. But then, finally, she heard his shrill whistle and prepared to sound off her own. She raised her fingers to her lips and—

A flash of crimson red swept her up into its feathers and scrawny arms tightened around her form, and she screwed her eyes shut as the wind battered against her face. Then, she was descending, slowly, softly, carefully, before finally being lifted off whatever had carried her.

She opened her eyes as she giggled, glancing up at the face of Link, who was red and sobbing and teary-eyed.

“Um, are you okay?” she asked as he set her down and cried a little more. Her giggles persisted until she realized he was seriously upset. Why didn’t he find it funny?

He opened his mouth to say something in that quiet, meek voice of his, but he was interrupted.

“I saw that!” someone yelled, followed by rushed footsteps. Groose stepped onto the scene, tall and intimidating, arms crossed and glare aimed at Link. “You were just gonna let her fall off the edge? You didn’t even try to go after her!”

“Groose, stop—”

“But Zelda, he let you fall!”

Link’s puppy-dog eyes zipped back and forth between the two of them, lips pursed and quivering. Then, another voice came.

“Just what is going on here?”

Zelda’s gaze rose upward slowly, climbing the large frame of the man in front of her now, eyes widening in horror.

Her father, headmaster of the Academy.

“Hello, father,” she mumbled.

“Zelda, care to expl—”

“Link let Zelda fall off the edge and waited forever to go save her!” Groose blurted, face almost as red as his hair.

Headmaster Gaepora sent Groose a sharp glare before calmly turning back to his daughter. “Zelda, care to explain what’s going on here?”

“Um… I…” She fiddled with her thumbs, eyes darting everywhere but her father, and burst into tears. “I’m sorry! It was a prank!” She buried her head in her hands as her father’s hand came to rest on her shoulder. “I thought it would be funny if I spooked Link and didn’t call for my bird. I thought he would just chase me, I didn’t know he would…” Glancing back at him, he was still a shaking, sobbing mess, but the redness in his face was gone. “I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t ever joke about falling off the edge again, Zelda,” her father scolded in a scary, stern tone. “Do you know what happens when you fall beneath the clouds?” She shook her head. “Exactly. And we don’t want to find out.”

“I’m sorry, father.”

“You should apologize to him, not me.” He nudged her to turn and face Link. “And after that, you’re going to your room for the rest of the day.”

“I’m sorry, Link,” she murmured. “Can you forgive me?”

He didn’t respond, only staring wordlessly as he wiped at the last of his tears and offered a weak smile.

“Come on now,” the headmaster coaxed. “Let’s go.”

And he led her away.

—

Zelda laid on her bed in her room at the Knight Academy, clutching a wood carving to her chest and staring at her ceiling as she listened to the quiet hums of Karane, her neighbor.

She held the carving up. Link had made it for her, and it was a vibrant blue, modeled after her Loftwing with edges he made sure were curved so she wouldn’t cut herself or get splinters. Normally it found its home atop her desk, but that night it rested over her heart as she thought of him and how horrible she felt for her prank.

A knock came at the door and she yelled for them to come in. It creaked open, and inside stepped Link. His cheeks were still puffy and his eyes were still red, but he was smiling nonetheless.

“Oh, hi, Link,” she greeted, putting the carving down on the blankets. “What are you doing here?”

He sat on the edge of her bed as she grabbed a pillow and crawled next to him.

“Look, I really am sorry. I didn’t know it would make you that upset.”

“It’s okay,” he whispered. His voice was raspy and quiet, one you had to strain to hear. Hearing him talk was rare, and Zelda revelled in every moment he did.

“Why were you crying so hard?”

He plopped down against the blankets on her bed. “I thought your bird wasn’t coming and you were gonna fall below the clouds and die.”

“I was just joking,” she reassured him.

“I know, but I didn’t think so. So I went after you. I was so scared.”

“Oh.”

Link scratched the back of his neck. “Groose really let me have it after you and your dad left,” he said. “Chased me around and everything. But I got away.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

Silence hung in the air between them, stifling and suffocating, until Zelda finally spoke up.

“Thank you for saving me,” she mumbled, a blush hinting at her cheeks. “You’re my hero.”

And she didn’t see it because she was too busy hiding her face in her pillow, but he blushed too.

[quillandink333]

Scarlet Carnations ~ Epilogue

BotW Link X Zelda ~ Detective AU

Rating: T

Word Count: 1.7k

WARNINGS: death, murder, loss, trauma, blood and gore, terrorism, organized crime, self-harm

Summary: Inspector Zelda Hyrule, assisted by the faithful Constable Link Fyori, is infamous for cracking the most confounding of cases in a town dominated by crime. Her latest assignment is to solve the murder of her own godmother, Impa Sheikah, the late CEO of Sheikah Tech. Incorporated, while staying under the radar of the dreaded Yiga organization.

Part I • Part II • Part III • Part IV • Part V • Part VI • Part VII • Epilogue • Masterlist

The first couple of weeks following the incident that had taken my long-lost mother from me was misery in its purest form. Link and I didn’t speak, not even by phone, during that whole stretch of time. In fact, I could rarely bring myself to answer the phone at all. The memory was still too vivid, the wounds still too fresh.

He’d gotten off scot-free in the end as he’d been deemed to have acted in the defence of others—namely, of me. It wasn’t long before I learned of his plea, that if I hadn’t come along quietly, I would have suffered the same fate that he’d brought upon her, and they had believed him. How I felt about this was still something I was struggling to wrap my endlessly pounding head around.

As dark and deep as this seemingly bottomless pit of despair that I’d found myself plummeting down was, however, someone did eventually toss a rope down for me. The time I spent apart from Link gave me the opportunity to properly reconcile with those whom I myself had wronged: Auntie Purah and Paya. The former and I found comfort in our mutual grieving, and even as Paya had never really known my mother well enough to mourn her loss (though, arguably, it seemed no one had ever truly known her), she was more gracious and understanding than I or anyone else would have been, which only made me regret even more deeply my past transgressions toward her.

One day, during one of our continual conversations, she shifted to the topic of the Yiga leader’s executioner. How she could even think of him at a time like this was beyond me, but I digressed. I told her everything from start to finish. It was the first time I’d allowed myself to talk to anyone about it at length. As I spoke, she listened calmly and carefully. Despite what I’d have liked to believe, she had always been the more levelheaded one out of the two of us, save for when it came to discussing things about herself.

By the time I finished, I’d begun bouncing my still healing ankle back and forth, which I’d crossed over my other leg to keep it from touching the ground. I didn’t stop even after I noticed what I was doing.

“It’s painfully clear to see how conflicted you are about all this.” Coming to sit beside me on the sofa in the Sheikahs’ sitting room, Paya placed an affectionate palm on my thigh, bringing its restless jittering to a halt. “I understand how hard this must be for you. But the way I see it, there’s only one question you need ask yourself at the end of the day.”

Whatever she was about to say, it wouldn’t be an easy pill to swallow, would it? I straightened my posture. “And what would that be?”

“Between the two of them, who do you think was the better person?”

She was looking me dead in the eyes, her hand still resting upon my leg. I uncrossed them.

I’d never thought to compare the two before. What reason would I have had to do so? But now that she’d mentioned it, I hadn’t realized how few memories I even had left of my mother, and the ones that remained were blurry and vague beyond any hope of being recovered. If only she hadn’t left me with the Sheikahs all those years ago, maybe I could have remembered more clearly what kind of person she had been.

On the other hand, Link had always been there for me. Even during the times when circumstances had driven us apart, the thought of him was what had kept my flame burning strong and hot throughout each arctic day, and what had protected me from myself, keeping me from doing the irreparable. He had stayed by my side to the bitter end.

No matter how I’d reflected back on that day previously, the sight of his steely, focused stare and the sound of his crazed breaths, short and sharp, had been ever dominant. But now, I recalled the way those eyes had then glazed over with unadulterated horror. How his arms had shivered as they’d clung to my broken form and how they’d continue to cling for what would feel like millennia until the rest of his unit would finally stumble upon the scene.

My stepsister-of-sorts gave my leg a soft squeeze as I looked back at her with a tremor in my lip. “He s...saved me,” I whimpered. “Didn’t he?”

After a month apart, I made plans with Link for a night out on the pier, where we would celebrate the end of the Organization. The ice cream I’d promised him was at the top of my list of priorities for the evening. Tonight was a dessert-first night anyway, I’d decided. From there, we went and found ourselves a bite to eat at a seafood restaurant within walking distance. I’d hoped eating with him would feel like old times, but he hardly spoke a word throughout the whole meal. I tried lightening the mood with some banter, but this proved ineffective when he brushed off everything I said with mere one or two-word replies.

It wasn’t until I’d gotten us both a bit of something to drink that he finally broke the silence. “Have you...” he started, but lost the confidence to continue.

I perked up at the sound of his voice, wanting to hear more of it. “Have I...?”

“A-Ah...” His fingers poked at the copious amount of chips piled onto his plate next to the practically untouched fillet of fried fish. “I was just wondering if you’ve thought about what you’re going to do now, since...you know...you’re not a detective anymore.”

“Ah, right. That.” I took another sip of my drink, its contents long having fled my memory. “Actually, my auntie talked about it with me and she said she’d consider letting me inherit the company once I’ve acquired the proper education. So to answer your question, I’m thinking about going to school for engineering.”

His brows rose. “Oh! My, that’s—” He cleared his throat. “That’s brilliant. I’m happy for you.”

I thanked him with a hesitant grin, then asked, “How about you? Do you plan to stay on with the force, or...?”

“Ahh, well...” What little there’d been of an upward turn in his lips vanished. “I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. It’s something I’ve been mulling over for a while now. Whether to stay on and honour my father’s work, or...whatever other options are available, I suppose.”

“Do you want to hear what I think?” He raised his head. “I think you should do whatever you think would make you happiest. That’s what you’re father would have wanted, I’m sure.”

This finally, finally, got a real, unsubdued smile out of him. And I intended to milk that smile for all it was worth.

After dinner, I dragged him back down to the arcade on the pier, where I managed to ring a few laughs out of him while we were still a bit tipsy. We steered clear of the toy gun target-type games, favouring other stands like the ring toss where he won me a plush frog that I could only just get my arms all the way around. His aim was spectacular, especially for someone who wasn’t entirely sober. Not only that, but I could never have imagined how sweet and charming he would be like this. For a fleeting moment, it felt as though we’d gone back in time again. That, or the light from the setting sun was playing tricks on me.

But by the end of the evening, he’d reverted back to that quiet, reclusive version of himself that I’d quickly grown to detest. We were out on the docks now, facing the sea. The breeze carried a mist of saltwater within its bows. I breathed it in, soaking up the feeling of it hitting me softly and coolly in the face. A hint of pink in my partner’s cheeks caught my eye, and I wondered whether it was the cocktails or my arms, which were currently wound about his waist from behind.

“Beautiful sunset,” I tried, hoping I could get him to spare me a glance at least. “Isn’t it?” But to no avail. He only continued to gaze westward at the rippling flames reflected in the water. “Hey...” Before I knew what I was doing, my palm had found the warmth of his cheek, and there was hardly an inch or two of distance between the tips of our noses. Without giving myself time to think, I tilted my head, leaned in, and started to close my eyes.

But when I realized he wasn’t doing the same, I halted. On the contrary, he’d been leaning back and away from my advances, his back so rigid and shoulders so stiff it were as though he would sprout wings and bolt were I to make any sudden moves.

“What’s wrong?”

A harsh, jagged exhale. “Zelda, I just can’t—” He grabbed both my wrists and wrenched my arms off of him. “I’m sorry. We can’t do this.” He was bent over the railing, arms folded in on each other. “Not now,” he said, dwindling, “after I’ve gone and...murdered your only family.” A weary chuckle shook him by the shoulders before he raked his hands through his wind-tousled hair.

I fell into quiet thought for a moment. Then, taking a long, thorough breath, I placed a feather-light set of fingertips atop his own. “That woman was never my family.” I’d made up my mind. Figuratively or otherwise, my real mother had moved on a long time ago. And it was time I did the same.

Link must have seen the resolve in my eyes or heard it in my voice, because now he was looking back at me openly, his body turned to face me. Though there was still an air of uncertainty lingering about him as he ran the crease of his cuff between his fingers again and again. But when I brought my arms around him and held him close, he sank into my lips, returning my embrace at long last. A lone pair of tears fell from my eyes the moment they fluttered closed—a culmination of all past ordeals—and as they fell, I couldn’t help but smile.

[labelleofbelfastcity]

fig and gorgug’s excellent adventure

word count: 1.7k

read on ao3 here!

“Bill, my most esteemed colleague…”

Fig looks over at a quietly snoring Gorgug, his face softly lit by the shadows of Bill and Ted on her crystal. Even after a year of knowing each other, a few months of which were spent in a cramped cell together, she hadn’t known he snores. It had never been quiet enough, she had never been quiet enough, to notice that about him.

If Fig focuses, she can feel the rumble of the tour bus against her back, and, if she leans her head against the metal wall by her shoulder, the vibrations of tires over asphalt rattle around in her skull. They’ve only been on the road for a week, with just two concerts under their belts, and Fig is already kind of exhausted.

It’s a lot. The managers and the calls home and the makeup assignments for missed schoolwork. She probably wouldn’t even be doing the latter, but Gorgug spends his allotted midmorning time sitting at their extremely tiny table, with papers of Barbarian Theory and Engineering 1 scattered around him, and she’d feel like an asshole to just watch.

Fig hasn’t been sleeping well, either. The little bunk seems to press in around her, shoving her into an even smaller version of herself. Which feels stupid to complain about, because Gorgug is over a foot taller than her, since his growth spurt over the summer, and he’s sleeping just fine.

As if to prove her point, Gorgug shifts in his sleep, curling closer into Fig’s side. It’s just past one in the morning, and they have a gig tomorrow so Fig should really be sleeping too, but she’d felt like crying, for some reason, alone in her bunk. She’d crawled into Gorgug’s, instead, and pulled up Bill and Ted while he blinked blearily at her. It didn’t take him much longer to fall back asleep—now with his arm tucked around Fig’s shoulders—and Fig continues to hide from her emotions by watching Ted philosophize.

“Hey, Gorgug,” Fig hisses, burrowing her head into his chest in a way she knows will stick him with her horns. “Gorgug.”

“Hrmgh,” he grumbles, shifting more so that Fig can’t really poke him anymore. “Go to sleep.”

“No. Gorgug, hey. Come on, dude, I have an idea.” She doesn’t, really, more the idea of an idea, just like how Bill and Ted only operate on negative brian power and a pretty homoerotic bromance.

Homoerotic. She must’ve texted Kristen too much yesterday.

“Sleep is my idea,” Gorgug says, but it’s more of a sigh and a yawn wrapped up together and stretched like a yawning cat.

Fig’s brain unhelpfully supplies an image of sleepy Riz—ears cocked all funny and pupils absolutely giant. She shoves it back into the little chest lovingly marked “Bad Kids” that she’d constructed the second they drove away from Elmville because Fig is great at compartmentalizing and hiding her feelings. Totally.

“I’m bored, I want to do my idea.”

“You’re watching Bill and Ted.”

“No, I’m not. I’m talking to you.”

“Then stop talking to me and go to sleep.”

Fig huffs, about to say something just into the realm of mean, but then she feels Gorgug smile against the top of her head, and she relaxes a little.

“What’s your idea?” He asks, still sleepy, but also endearing in that goofy and sweet Gorgug way.

There’s a pause, while Fig tries to come up with her idea. The bus trundles along and Bill and Ted continue to kidnap historical figures. Finally, she says, much quieter than is warranted, like it’s some big secret she’s been holding close to her heart, “I’m gonna find a chronomancer so we can go back in time.”

“Like Augefort?” Gorgug yawns again.

“Absolutely not, Augefort doesn’t have Rufus energy.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“Maybe not a chronomancer, then, but like, someone who’s fucked with time, ya know. It would be cool to hang out with someone who’s fucked with time.”

“Like Augefort?” Gorgug says, before amending, “No. Wait. Rufus.”

“Yeah, Rufus,” Fig agrees. “Except if Rufus were hot, I think it would be more fun if our Rufus was hot.”

“Rufus is already hot. He’s got… sunglasses.”

Fig giggles and Gorgug snorts too. “You need your eyes checked, dude.”

“We watched the,” he yawns, “the Matrix last month. That’s what you said about Neo.”

“Uh. Neo is Keanu Reeves so just, automatically hot. Which. Speaking of. Bill and Ted are right there, dude.”

Gorgug laughs, quietly, voice still gummy with sleep, as he pokes her gently in the side, “I thought you liked older men.”

Fig makes a face that is very scandalized and very affronted. “That doesn’t mean I like Rufus.”

Gorgug shrugs, as best he can while in cuddle-mode. “I don’t know…”

Fig huffs and whacks him on the arm. “Maybe we should go to sleep.”

“Works for me,” he says, and settles back down.

“Hey. Hey! Don’t go back to bed, Gorgug. I’m still talking.”

He grumbles and turns his head even further into hers, trying to shield his eyes from the crystal’s light. “Watch your movie.”

“This is our movie, Gorgug. It’s ours.”

“It’s too late for it to be ‘our’ anything.”

“You’re no fun, you know that? No fun.”

“I’m sorry,” Gorgug says, way too sincerely for her to continue down that line of teasing.

“Hey, no, it’s fine. You’re tired, I should let you rest.”

Gorgug’s hand moves where it’s on her shoulder, rubbing over her sleep shirt, and then pausing, “Hey, is this mine?”

“Um,” Fig says, because it is, in fact, his. He’d left one of his Owlbears t-shirts on a chair, right after they unpacked all their stuff onto the tour bus, and she’d thought about it for approximately three seconds before snatching it and chucking it at her pile of clothes.

That first night, neither her nor Gorgug had gotten any sleep, sitting on the floor of the bus between their bunks, anxiously going over lyric and style choices for the next night’s show. So the shirt had waited until after their first concert, when both of them had been too tired to do much more than change out of sweaty, smoke-filled clothes and fall into their respective beds. It had smelled comfortingly of the Thistlesprings’ homemade fabric softener, but Fig’s varying states of cleanliness have not helped the smell stick around.

Now, though, cuddled up against Gorgug’s chest, she doesn’t miss the shirt’s smell. It’s nothing compared to the real thing.

“It’s okay if you took it,” Gorgug says, cracking a small smile. “It looks better on you anyway.”

“Since when do you have an eye for fashion, Mr. Hoodies-In-Summer?”

He reaches around and pokes her on the cheek, “Hey, my hoodies are a catch for women ages thirteen to twenty-eight.”

“We did sell, like, a literal ton last night,” Fig says, snorting.

There’s a lull in the conversation. Bill and Ted shred some sick air guitar.

“...It’s a little weird,” Gorgug says, eventually, in that introspective tone of his that promises paternal questioning.

“What is?”

“That we’re sophomores in high school and have so many people, like, caring about us. Or, I mean, watching us. Like, I guess we’re famous, or something? That’s weird.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“I guess I never thought about it like that.” Fig’s been too caught up in the whole being famous thing to think about what it means for her, a fifteen year old, to be famous. She isn’t a fan of thinking about it, actually, and decides to put it off even further. This is why Gorgug’s the thoughtful, considerate one.

“That’s probably why you’re better at songwriting than I am,” Gorgug muses. “You just do what feels right.”

Fig shifts a little, so she can look at him better, his features cast in the shifting colors of the crystal. “Dude, that’s like all drumming is. Like, just playing your emotions and not overthinking it. And you’re literally the world’s best drummer.”

“Oh,” Gorgug laughs, “I wouldn’t say that.”

“You are. What other teenager gets to go on a tour while they’re still in high school?”

“Um. The Jonas Brothers?”

“I mean this in the nicest way possible, but if you compare our music to the Jonas Brothers again I will stab you with my horns.”

“I really don't think they’re poky enough to do that—”

“Stab, Gorgug. With force. You wouldn’t like it.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll take your word for it.”

“Wo-ah,” Ted says, on the crystal.

“Wicked,” Bill chimes in.

“What if we talked like them at our next concert?” Fig asks, “Just come out with full Bill and Ted voices and keep them up the whole show.”

“That sounds… hard.”

“No, it would be fun! Like, um,” Fig switches into the voice, drawing out her vowels and smiling dumbly, “we’ll totally get babes like this, dude.”

“You can get princess babes,” Gorgug says. “I’ve got Zelda. That’s basically the same thing.”

“Oh my god, you’re too cute,” Fig burrows closer to him, back in her usual voice.

She can tell Gorgug’s blushing by the bashful tone of his silence. “Um, thanks. I should probably call her tomorrow.”

“Do you mind if I join too? I really like her, she’s nice. And sick as hell.”

“Yeah, that would be fun! We can show her our set, maybe.”

“Totally! If school wasn’t on right now we could’ve brought her along.”

“I don’t know, wouldn’t that, like, Beatles us?”

“Did you seriously just mention another boy band? Also, beyond that, did you use the Beatles as a verb?”

“Er.”

“Sometimes, I wonder how you ever made it into the punk-rock scene. And then I remember that I invited you.”

“Thanks for doing that,” Gorgug says, wrapping his other arm around Fig’s shoulders. “I never really said it before, but, thank you. This has, um, it’s meant a lot to me.”

“Oh, it’s nothing, dude.”

“It’s, like, kind of everything right now, Fig.”

“Oh.”

“So, I guess, um, thank you. For inviting me to join a band with you and taking me on tour.”

“I, uh… Of course. Thanks for being my drummer, Gorgug. I’ll always take you on my adventures.”

“And I’ll always go with you.”

Bill says, “Excellent,” on the crystal screen, smiling at Ted with big eyes.

Yeah, Fig thinks, as Gorgug sighs and smiles into the top of her head. Excellent.