Crying over the thought of no one remembering Link’s birthday. Like after the 100 years, Link wakes up and realizes one day he cannot recall his birthday.
To his dismay, neither Impa, Robbie, Purah nor Zelda recall his birthday. He acts as if it isn’t a big deal, but he’s always finding himself quite sad when celebrating the birthdays of others.
Sidon notices at his own birthday celebration that his Hylian friend has a sense of sorrow. One that isn’t possible to rid of with his famous smile and flex. When Sidon approaches Zelda, she reveals that Link cannot recall his birthday, and that no one who knew him 100 years ago seemed to remember or take note. Sidon looks sympathetic towards the revelation, but then he has a thought…
Moments later, it becomes rather apparent that Sidon, the literal 10 foot tall birthday shark, has slipped away from his own party! A search begins around the domain. Where did he wander off to?
While looking around, Link finds himself being the one to enter Sidon’s room. He hears a flipping of pages, and he curiously notices Sidon looking through a journal. Before Link’s presence gets known, Sidon smiles his famous smile, and shouts “I KNEW IT”!
Link walks over to the happy shark man. Wondering why Sidon dipped from his own celebration to read a… paper journal. One that seems… familiar. Mipha’s journal?
Sidon, seeing his friend, scoops him up in excitement! Shouting over and over a date that wasn’t too far off in the future. Link looked confused, and when Sidon noticed said confusion, Sidon smiled. “Your birthday, Link! Mipha… she wrote it down! I knew she would!”
Link looked puzzled for a moment. What did Link’s birthday have to do with anything? But then he understood… his birthday WAS remembered. It had a date again. It wasn’t lost. Sidon couldn’t help but show the page of Mipha’s diary that spoke of Link’s upcoming birthday. Of the plans she had to surprise him despite the calamity looming.
Link couldn’t help but tear up at his smiling tail-wagging friend. Sidon looked concerned, thinking he did something wrong, but the tight hug Link gave him said otherwise. He thanked him. Repeatedly. And Sidon only began to smile again. Immediately beginning to ramble off birthday plans for his dearest friend.
But to Sidon’s dismay, Link cut him off. Telling him that it’s not Link’s birthday they should be celebrating right now. That Sidon has a party to get back to. Sidon only pouts playfully before readying to return to the celebration.
After the two do, Link couldn’t help but catch himself looking towards Mipha’s statue throughout the party. A few looks paired with a smile, but a few… a few felt tied with tears.
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do you have recommendations for introspective fiction? :) i've been craving for something for my brain to much on that will also cause me pain, but i honestly have no clue where to get that. any advice?
Hello! I had trouble finding ideas at first because all the introspective & thought-provoking books that came to mind were nonfiction (diaries, etc—especially when it comes to women writers) but here are 10 suggestions, with excerpts :) Note that I took your "cause me pain" request seriously; these are not exactly feel-good reads.
Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse
Man is not capable of thought in any high degree, and even the most spiritual and highly cultivated of men habitually sees the world and himself through the lenses of delusive formulas and artless simplifications—and most of all himself.
For it appears to be an inborn ... need of all men to regard the self as a unit. In reality, however, every ego ... is in the highest degree a manifold world, a constellated heaven, a chaos of forms, of states and stages, of inheritances and potentialities. It appears to be a necessity as imperative as ... breathing for everyone to be forced to regard this chaos as a unity and to speak of his ego as though it were a one-fold and clearly detached and fixed phenomenon. Even the best of us shares the delusion.
Notes From Underground, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Why, suffering is the sole origin of consciousness. Though I did lay it down at the beginning that consciousness is the greatest misfortune for man, yet I know man prizes it and would not give it up for any satisfaction. Consciousness, for instance, is infinitely superior to twice two makes four. Once you have mathematical certainty there is nothing left to do or to understand. There will be nothing left but to bottle up your five senses and plunge into contemplation.
The Book of Disquiet, Fernando Pessoa
I asked for very little from life, and even this little was denied me. A nearby field, a ray of sunlight, a little bit of calm along with a bit of bread, not to feel oppressed by the knowledge that I exist, not to demand anything from others, and not to have others demand anything from me — this was denied me, like the spare change we might deny a beggar not because we're mean-hearted but because we don't feel like unbuttoning our coat.
Ishmael, Daniel Quinn
All sorts of creatures on this planet appear to be on the verge of attaining self-awareness and intelligence. We were never meant to be the only players on that stage. [But] man is the first of all these. He is the trailblazer, the pathfinder. [….] Man’s place in the world is to be the first without being the last. Man’s place is to figure out how it’s possible to do that—and then to make room for all the rest who are capable of becoming what he’s become.
The Lady and the Little Fox Fur, Violette Leduc
Her hope was stored in a safe place. On tiptoe, avidly, she gazed through the windows. ... She was filled with a fixed determination to pay the next month’s rent, to sally forth once more to the pawnbroker’s, to offer him the clothes off her back, to sell her teeth, ... but at all costs to go on living against the panes of strangers’ windows.
She bumped into women hurriedly buying food for their dinners; she was breathing the oxygen meant for people who had spent their day working. To cry out that it was impossible for her to begin her life all over again would be useless.
The Last Summer of Reason, Tahar Djaout
The city with the many forms of iridescence that once danced on the foam ... is now a field of merciless thorns. Love is a recumbent effigy, a dead tree. Song flees into exile. ... Books—the closeness of them, their contact, their smell, and their contents—constitute the safest refuge against this world of horror. They are the most pleasant and the most subtle means of traveling to a more compassionate planet.
The Royal Game, Stefan Zweig
They did nothing—other than subjecting us to complete nothingness. For, as is well known, nothing on earth puts more pressure on the human mind than nothing. ... There was nothing here that could release me from my thoughts, from my obsession with them, from my pathological reiteration of them. And that was exactly what they intended: I was to choke and choke on my thoughts until they asphyxiated me.
Dawn, Elie Wiesel
[Words] serve only to give meaning to our actions. And our actions, seen in their true and primitive light, have the odor and color of blood. This is war, we say; we must kill. ... And what else can we do? War has a code, and if you deny this you deny its whole purpose and hand the enemy victory on a silver platter. That we can’t afford. We need victory, victory in war, in order to survive, in order to remain afloat on the surface of time.
Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler
All our principles were right, but our results were wrong. This is a diseased century. We diagnosed the disease and its causes with microscopic exactness, but wherever we applied the healing knife a new sore appeared. Our will was hard and pure, we should have been loved by the people. But they hate us. Why are we so odious and detested? ... Whenever had a good cause been worse represented? When and where in history had there ever been such defective saints?
All the Lovers in the Night, Mieko Kawakami
The job that I was doing, the place where I was living, the fact that I was all alone and had no one to talk to. Could these have been the result of some decision that I’d made? I heard a crow crying somewhere in the distance and turned to the window. It occurred to me that maybe I was where I was today because I hadn’t chosen anything. I had faked it the whole way. ... I was so scared of failing, of being hurt, that I chose nothing. I did nothing.
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hey, quick question but what if Eddie hadn’t just said “make him pay” at the end? what if he’d actually done it, screwed up his face and his single scrap of courage and kissed Steve hard, one desperate press of lips before he stepped back out of Steve’s space? Only…
Only Steve’s not gay. He’s not. Not that there’s anything wrong with it if Eddie is, but he isn’t. Steve likes girls, is kind of hung up on one girl in particular, actually, and she’s standing right behind him watching this go down, and oh, God is this awkward now.
He squares his shoulders, gives Eddie a nod that he hopes conveys something like “sorry” and “it’s okay” and “I’m not gonna punch you when this is over, man, I’m really not,” but Eddie’s eyes cut away and he clears his throat and then Nancy’s saying, “Steve? Steve, we need to go.”
So Steve goes.
Steve goes, trudges through the woods with Nancy radiating uncomfortable energy all down his side, and Steve’s got a pit in his stomach and a scorch mark on his mouth where Eddie’s lips left a fucking brand, the kiss repeating on a loop in his mind. He starts thinking about how he’s probably about to die, how he’s gonna die feeling all upside down in the Upside Down and it’s a really stupid joke but it gets him mulling over the fucked up weird life he has now versus the one he always kinda thought he wanted. He tells Nancy about it: the crawling backwards, the thump on the head, how she’s always his co-captain in his Winnebago dreams.
She looks at him with soft, sad eyes — God, her eyes are always so sad, have been ever since the day Barb disappeared — and she rests a delicate hand on his forearm and asks, “Do you think… do you think maybe it’s always me in your dream because I’m the only person your mind thinks it’s allowed to put there?”
“What do you mean?”
“Steve.” Her eyes aren’t so soft now. They’re shining with that hard glint they get when she’s lost patience with Steve’s bullshit. It’s a look Steve knows well, and his hand comes up to touch his lips.
“But I- I’m not…”
“Just go,” she says, her jaw set, all that unbreakable resolve on display. “Robin and I can handle this. Go.”
Robin turns back to look at him over her shoulder, gives him an encouraging nod, and Steve takes off running, sprinting through the trees, following the sound of screeching bats.
When he bursts through the treeline, panting and sweating and clutching at his torn-up sides, Eddie’s in the middle of a maelstrom, his makeshift shield held in a shaking grip as an army of bats encircle him.
“Eddie!” Steve shouts, lungs burning as he begs his feet to move faster, to run fucking run because one of the bats dives at Eddie’s head and another takes a bite out of his leather sleeve; a third one whips a tail around Eddie’s ankle and then Eddie’s going down, pulled to the cracked, filthy earth by gnashing teeth and bloodied claws, and they’re eating him, getting at all those squishy vital bits around his middle when Steve finally hacks his way through the horde to get to Eddie’s side. Armed with an ax and Eddie’s spear, Steve strikes and slashes blindly at the wall of shrieking monsters as they start circling tighter, caging them in, and he’s dead they’re both dead they’re so fucking screwed—
The bats drop. All at once and with no reason Steve can discern, their screams fall silent and their bodies squelch all around them as they slap the hard ground like dead fish on a dock.
Steve drops to his knees beside Eddie, and Jesus Christ, there’s- there’s so much blood oh God oh fuck.
“Bad, huh?” Eddie asks, and how is he still smirking when there’s blood spilling out of his mouth? When there’s a chunk missing out of his jaw?
“Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ,” Steve mumbles frantically, not sure if he’s praying or panicking or both. He gets his shirt off, rips at the remaining scraps of Eddie’s, too; starts using them to make bandages. “Shit, Eddie, just- just hold on, okay? Stay with me.”
He wriggles a scrap of fabric under Eddie’s brutalized torso, and Eddie screams when Steve pulls it tight around his sides, ties it off and presses down, trying to slow the bleeding. There’s so much fucking blood. His knees slip in it as he ties a tourniquet just above Eddie’s elbow, hoping it’ll save Eddie’s mangled arm, and he bunches the last of the fabric up and presses it to the shredded edges of the wound on Eddie’s face.
Eddie smiles up at him with tears in his eyes, with blood on his lips. “Pretty- pretty grand gesture for a guy you don’t want to kiss.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Steve says, and he’s crying, too. “I don’t- I just…”
“Steve,” Eddie chokes, his breath whistling out with a sickening wheeze, and Steve doesn’t know how the fuck he’s going to get him through the gate and back to safety without making him bleed out. “Steve, it’s… s’okay. M’sorry I kissed you, man.” His eyes are glazing over, and no, please, please, don’t—
Eddie looks up at him, brow furrowed, like it’s taking a lot of effort. His eyes are still so pretty, even now, as Steve hovers helplessly and watches the light slowly leave them. “Actually, I- I guess m’not,” Eddie slurs. “Had to do it at least once b-before I- before I—”
“EDDIE!!!!” a furious, cracking voice echoes through the empty park. Eddie’s trailer door bangs open, falling off its hinges, and a limping Dustin Henderson comes storming across the lot.
“Dustin!!” Steve hollers back, relief flooding his veins like maple syrup straight from the tap, and incredibly (hysterically, he’s probably in shock), he’s laughing when he looks back down at Eddie. Eddie, who’s half dead in his lap, whose blood is all over Steve’s pants. Who Steve might be able to save now.
He shakes Eddie’s shoulders and says, “You can kiss me all you want when we make it out of here, man,” his voice all high-pitched and full of phlegm and trapped somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and Eddie’s eyes go wide at the promise in Steve’s words.
“Dustin!” Steve yells again, pleading, “Dustin, come on, come help me move him!”
It’s slow going, but they get Eddie through the gate, get him taped up so he’s more bandage than boy by the time the ambulance arrives. A medic claps Steve on the shoulder and says ‘You did good, kid,’ and Steve cries at that and then spends an annoying amount of time crying over the next few days, curled up in a rickety chair at Eddie’s bedside in the hospital.
More tears when Eddie finally wakes up. Happy ones this time, and there’s a parade of people coming in to hug Eddie and give him flowers and even Hopper gives him a grudging hair ruffle and an attaboy, and then Steve’s driving Eddie home in the Beemer; gets all the way to the driveway before Eddie brings it up.
“Did you mean it?” he asks, his voice timid and barely audible over the hum of the car.
Steve cuts the engine. “Hmm?”
“Did you, um- the thing, that you…” Eddie spins a ring around on his finger, lets out a frustrated huff. “I mean, I didn’t die, right? I made it out of there, so…?”
You can kiss me all you want when we make it out of here.
Steve’s ears burn at the memory, his mouth going dry, and he must take too long to answer because Eddie starts trying to backpedal. “Sorry. Sorry, you said you’re not— I just thought, maybe— shit, uh, f-forget I said-”
“No! No, um.” Steve scratches the back of his neck. “Turns out I kind of am. Or, like. Well, I mean, Robin said liking both is its own thing, it’s not a mix of the two, but…”
“…But both?” Eddie finishes, and his eyes are sparkling.
“Yeah. Both,” Steve shrugs. It’s getting easier to say. “…Mostly just you, though.”
“Oh, just mostly, huh?” Eddie teases, unbuckling his seatbelt so he can lean into Steve’s space.
Steve’s face feels too warm. His neck is probably all splotchy. “Whatever. Are you gonna shut up and kiss me already or what?”
“Uh huh,” Eddie grins and runs his tongue over his teeth. “Many times as I want, right?” He brushes Steve’s hair behind his ear, his calloused fingers so gentle against Steve’s jaw as he lines their faces up.
“How many times is that?” Steve whispers.
“Mm….” Eddie’s mouth brushes against his. “Start counting and let’s find out.”
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thirteen update 💕💍🍽️🩸
chapter 5: february
summary:
“These things do not concern you,” Papa told him flatly. “I will run my household however I see fit. Your concerns are with your schoolwork and your modeling.”
Blood pumped heavy and fast through Adrien’s heart. That wasn’t—fair. Concern was about all he was capable of these days.
“And what about Maman?” Adrien asked, exhausted, reckless. “May I be concerned about Maman?”
Something shifted on Papa’s face, all his emotions smothered in stone.
excerpt:
The best day of Adrien’s life was eight months and six days ago. No contest.
It was a crisp kind of cold that day, the Paris sky blooming a bright and brilliant blue overhead. The sun pierced right through the brisk February air, a shock of spearmint and adrenaline in his veins. He couldn’t stop widening his eyes, couldn’t stop smiling. The city was so alive. Strains of love songs poured out of open cafe doors and onto tourists, their hands full of red roses and lovers’ hands. The cobblestones sang with the patters of paired footsteps all down the street. It was the city of love always, but today especially. Today Adrien was made of the stuff, just bursting with it.
And, like every other day in the running for the best of his life, Marinette was there.
“You’d better not pull anything,” she warned, tightening her grip on his hand as they passed by a tourist couple looking very… engrossed with each other in the middle of the street. “And—and if you do, you have to tell me. Right now.”
Marinette’s brow was lightly furrowed, the bridge of her nose just barely scrunched up. Her hair was pulled half-back with a pink ribbon, matching the shade of the skirt she wore beneath her velvety black peacoat. Her Mary Janes clipped anxiously down the road and Adrien’s heart danced and swelled and spun in his chest.
“Pull something? Me?” Adrien stepped aside so their arms were outstretched, and then pulled at Marinette’s fingers, sending her tumbling back into his arms. She looked up at him, trying to frown, smiling. He grinned. “I would never.”
“I’m serious.” Marinette untangled herself from his arms and interlocked her fingers again with his. Her hand was the warmest thing in the world. She looked at him sternly, wagging a finger in his face. “I need to know so I can—prepare. Especially if it’s something crazy. No funny business.”
“Marinette,” he moaned, draping a wounded hand over his heart. One corner of his mouth quirked into a smile, eyes darting to meet her gaze. “You think I’m funny?”
She groaned. “I think you‘re—I think you’re ridiculous, and sappy, and romantic, and I think it’s Valentine’s Day in Paris”—this part she shouted, which drew a few stares—“and I think you’re about to take me on an insanely adorable date, and I think Alya took me to get my nails done last week—!”
“You’re so thoughtful,” Adrien remarked, swinging their hands back and forth. “And observant. What a beautiful mind you have, my lady.”
“You have to tell me,” Marinette insisted. She stopped them on the street and frowned at him, pink flushing the apples of her cheeks. “Is it—are you—?”
“Hm?” Adrien murmured, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. Marinette’s cheeks went ablaze.
“I—you—you know what I mean!” she spluttered. “Are you gonna…you know!”
He tilted his head to the side. “Am I…?”
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