#i want the answer to be yes bc i don't want to have to do any more interviews lmao. and bc it's a safe & not too hard job

[coffeegnomee]

ugh sometimes watching Kab pov I get real sympathetic for how difficult it must be to be in her brain and just be so confused all the time and exhausted about masking her feelings to make other people trust her and her pain in wanting to be vulnerable and receive vulnerability and feel deep reciprocal love.

But then she says shit, really fucking mean and toxic shit towards mental health and healing and it triggers my own fight or flight and i become a ball of rage.

And like, I do get it. When you start your journey of mental health healing you often become the toxic one as you throw the shit people have said to you at everyone who also has similar mental health issues as you. (been there done that) Doing it to process your own rage at being told these things, or thinking, out of desperation, that if you can just get them to fix themselves quickly, you can fix yourself quickly. The bullied becomes the bully.

But then time passes and you realize this shit is hard to overcome. (or maybe it won't ever be overcome! and that's okay!) And you stop being toxic and you start being compassionate, to yourself and others. And eventually you start to heal and become confident in your own self worth and the validity of your emotions.

But before then it's the fucking worst place to watch someone be in. And that place is unfortunately where we are right now.

below is a short transcript of the convo this reflection is based off of. it can be triggering so like, don't feel obliged to read it.

11/10/24 kab vod: "I have no idea what's happening"

1:42:00 KAB: “what about how he makes me feel? Why is it so important what he feels and to accommodate everything he’s feeling? Why do i have to conceded to that???”

1:44:00 “I’m sick of having to accommodate to everyone else’s actions” 

realizing your masking is hurting you is one of the worst realizations (imo). bc the mask keeps you safe, but if you can't process or give worth to your real emotions, it's not serving you.

so she swaps from processing her own feeling to being angry at zam.

1:47:00 She gets he needs time and space, but “We don't have time for to try and sit and process your emotions properly. Do it after we deal with this fucking issue [...] sometimes you just need to toughen up” 

Fucking hell the trigger i just felt for just toughen up. 

1:48:00 “i need to know what he’s thinking so that we can work together. In a team!” 

what team!?!

“‘Does zam really hate communication more than he likes spawn and the server’ literally. Like pick your priorities dude.”

I’m going to fucking throw up. Because yes. Actually yes. Unfortunately and actually yes. He's gotten a lot better but like.

1:53:00 “I dunno. I wish he would care about himself as much as i care about him. Hard to see him like this [pause] maybe he does need more nurturing than i can give him bro ugh. I am just not- i am not good at that shit. I think it’s stupid [..] when you have a job to do [..] just shove your emotions away for a bit. And then you can process them later” 

I was going to say this is just eclipse, but I just realized that maybe it's just this is exactly the perception Zam had of Vi: that Vi just wanted him to move on when he couldn't. All his deepest fears of what Vi wanted from him are being personified into a new person. 

(also he is shoving his emotions away and that's why he's not processing it and giving you an answer for why he "doesn't know"????? but since he's not a perfect ball of joy and masking to you and because he is doing what you can't (shove emotions away) you are in rage)

1:54:00  “But it’s like, while there’s a life or death situation that literally determines the entire server we don't have time to be like, holding your hand, you know? Like, you're an adult” ughh fuck. being broken is inconvenient for others and age is seen as an invalidation to any of your real brokenness. If you're old you no longer have the right to be broken. Can we please change this narrative? thx

“If he cared enough he would actively try and do something to help himself in this situation” 

Interesting choice of words to say "he would try to help himself if he cared" complaining about others not "working" on themselves (and you can never know if someone is working on themselves bc you're not in their brain) helps nobody bc you can only control yourself.

“You just want to sit and feel bad about yourself” no that's what you're doing kab

“He got me to fucking open up to him and pour my heart out and is now turning his back on that entirely. That’s what i’m actually more upset about” 

oh the naive belief that because you pour your heart out to someone they must reciprocate. That is the risk you take when you are honest with someone about your feelings. They are at no obligation to reciprocate ever. Never ever. But that doesn't mean your feelings aren't true and it doesn't mean you shouldn't have done it. Love is a risk.

But also she feels she was forced into it. Forced to be vulnerable and she hates the vulnerability. She doesn't remember (or believe) that Zam promised to not use it against her. She isn't willing to give him the chance to not use it against her. He simply knows and that is a threat.

So love turns into spite. Instantly. And she doesn't want to talk to him anymore. And decides that she will just be fake to him.

oh girl. keeping the mask on doesn't help anything. 

“I’ve lost a lot of respect for him today. I’m done trying to impress him”

and so the mask returns. and healing stops.

[zivazivc]

Does Hed help Les with grooming his back?

This is a really old ask about this post. And the answer is yes, definitely!

I ended up drawing them back in their room in Vibe City because I've been thinking a lot about them growing up there lately. This is a little before Les gets kicked out (big fight with dad) and they end up traveling around with Flea who is at uni at this point. (Flea isn't a local, he moved there because of uni a couple of years prior, and that's when Les and Hed met him. He is the only other mixed/non-fully funk troll they know at that point.)

In the drawing Hed is studying for a test. He's in the second year of high school when he drops out. This upsets and angers Les because he has good grades but Hed insists that they should form a band (like they used to talk about when younger) because he is secretly shit scared of letting Les live alone and fuck off to who knows where. - At this point in time Vibe City is pretty much grounded in the same location most of the time, and if Les doesn't have work, he likes to spend his time in the suburb/woods outside the city where he takes care of his beetle van, Scaab. And Hed is aware Les has been itching to leave the city for a while already...

This has been an unexpected mini lore dump, thank you for your time :P

[necrotic-nephilim]

I’m gonna be honest I didn’t realize the new 52 messed with Kon that much till I read your post and now I can’t get over the potential. I’m a Tim/Kon girly at heart so I would devour anything you write exploring the 52 vs typical Kon. Also Time being in a clone sandwich is 👌.

the new-52 messed Kon up SO bad it's ridiculous. like, to the point i would personally argue he's a completely unrelated character to pre-Flashpoint/Rebirth Kon. his personality, his suit, his origin, all different. the only real similarities are the name and powerset. and even New-52!Kon's powers are slightly different from pre-Flashpoint!Kon. New-52!Kon is a clone of a future version of Jon Lane Kent, cloned by N.O.W.H.E.R.E. to provide genetic material to Jon Lane Kent, whose body was not handling being half human/half Kryptonian well, it was a whole thing. New-52!Kon is also where we get the infamous "Kon-El means 'abomination of the house of El' and Kara basically named him a slur in Kryptonian culture" tidbit, because that is the only time that's canon. (originally Kon-El was a name gifted by Clark to accept Kon as his family way back in the 90s) he also never went by Conner Kent. New-52!Kon just straight up didn't have any real human identity or connections, outside of being very close to Tim and some Titans.

the very TLDR of Kon's history is: during post-Crisis/pre-Flashpoint, a clone called Superboy is created by CADMUS. at first, he's considered to be a clone of a dude named Paul Westfield and is not Kryptonian whatsoever, he was simply made to look like Superman and only has Tactile Telekinesis as a power. then, it was made canon that actually he was a clone of Lex Luthor and Clark Kent, but Lex hid this fact and slowly, Kon developed more Kryptonian powers. he's given the name Kon-El by Clark, and is taken in by the Kents, getting the name Conner Kent. then Flashpoint happens, we get the New-52, and we're given the above version of Kon-El, who is a clone of Jon Lane Kent, created by N.O.W.H.E.R.E. who has mostly very strong telekinesis powers and some Kryptonian powers. he's with the Titans for a bit, then at the end of the New-52, he kills some aliens and feels bad about it so he decides to fuck off and is never seen again, it's presumed he's dead but never confirmed. then Rebirth happens and DC makes Jon Kent the current Superboy, we get Supersons and all that, and it's assumed that no version of Kon-El exists. just at all. he's not around whatsoever, Jon is our only Superboy. *but* in 2019, we get a new Young Justice run and the pre-Flashpoint Kon-El is back, and we're given the explanation of: Kon got accidentally teleported to this alternate realm called Gemworld and then Flashpoint happened, and since that was a Crisis Event that changed the timeline, the poor lad got *erased* from the timeline, causing most people to *not fucking remember him* and for him to remember a timeline that no longer exists. some of the Young Justice team vaguely remember him, Ma and Pa Kent remember him, but notably, Clark *does not remember him*. it's not an issue of "Clark ignored Kon in favor of Jon" it's an issue of "Kon was erased from the timeline and didn't exist for years bc he was stuck in Gemworld and Clark just doesn't remember Kon or Kon's timeline" which to me, is far more tragic but i digress. since then, Kon has been back and is present in most significant Superfamily runs, with his own recent mini-series, Superboy: Man of Tomorrow. (which was very good btw)

so basically: the New-52 fucked Kon up so bad they wrote him out of comics for years and then brought back the pre-Flashpoint version, but never *explicitly* killed the New-52 version off. so hypothetically, it's possible that there are currently two characters existing in the DC universe named Kon-El who have been Superboy. and like i said above, one of New-52!Kon's only real significant relationships was with Tim, it was the only thing the New-52 managed to get right about Superboy, his closeness to Tim. they have a *lot* of moments that read incredibly queer. and ofc, it's just outright confirmed in Dark Crisis: Young Justice that Tim had a crush on pre-Flashpoint!Kon at some point. so while comics are intent on pretending New-52!Kon doesn't exist, i am intent on putting Tim in a clone sandwich.

because i do think it's fun to play with Tim having genuine feelings and potentially a relationship with both of them. and the fucked up nature of him not fully *remembering* his relationship with pre-Flashpoint!Kon (which is a canon thing, in YJ(2019) Tim has vague memories of Kon he's struggling to piece together and understand why he cares about this guy he doesn't recognize so much) and how frustrating that is for Tim. he knows he loves Kon, but it's all foggy besides that. and so it's even *more* fucked up if Tim dated New-52!Kon before he got emo and ran off into the unknown. obviously in canon no one has told current Kon about New-52!Kon bc comics are doing the good ol' tried and true of "sweep that shit under the rug" but for fanfic, i think it's fun to ask the question of: would anyone *tell* Kon? especially Tim? who now remembers dating both versions of them? would he admit to Kon that briefly, he had another Kon? how would Tim cope with that and move on? personality wise, they could not be more different. they dress and act and look different. they're not the same person, but there's certainly a questionable factor of Tim's dating history including two Kon-Els.

the idea i've had for a while is Tim slowly starting to date pre-Flashpoint!Kon again. it feels familiar and like home. and Tim has grieved and accepted that wherever New-52!Kon is, he doesn't want to come home, he didn't love TIm enough to stay and try. so Tim takes the Kon he has, and genuinely has a happy relationship. like for once, life is good and things almost make sense for Tim. but then, of course, New-52!Kon comes back. he decides he wants to try again and he finds Tim. only to find well. he's been replaced. and technically, he's been replaced with the *original* that he didn't even know *existed*. and if being a clone is bad enough, that just makes it a hundred times worse. because imagine knowing you're actually the second Kon-El your boyfriend who you never *technically* broke up with fell in love with. that's gotta give you some kind of complex.

so i think it's fun if both Kons try to step back and let the other Kon date Tim. both of them have reasons to feel like the "replacement" or "fake" Kon, and it makes them incredibly awkward with each other. do they count as the same person? bc they definitely don't *feel* like the same person to each other, but with weird timeline stuff, who can really say. them settling on an awkward throuple that's really meant to be Tim just dating them both but somehow they end up dating each other too is so fun for me. they both feel like imposters to the Superboy name but are so deeply in love with Tim Drake, it's the one thing truly connecting them. and then of course, Tim feels bad in that somehow, he's betraying both of them for having feelings for the other. but they make it work, with a lot of awkward angst and miscommunication. i just think it'd be fun. very difficult to write to get all the weird timeline nuances down in a way that's understandable in a fanfic (bc you can't just. infodump like i did on this post) but doable. also difficult to tag, because even though i argue these are two different characters, i'm pretty sure Ao3 groups them under the same character tag. so it'd be difficult to convey it's not *really* as selfcest-y as it would imply. comics, man. DC will never acknowledge New-52!Kon again, and he's admittedly a terrible adaptation of Kon-El, but. i think he was sort of neat in his own right and i'd *love* for DC to just inexplicably bring him back and make the current Kon deal with the consequences of all that. and them make Tim kiss them both. obviously.

[kenobihater]

of all the star wars movies, which of them do y'all 1) enjoy the most 2) consider the best quality and 3) think you've rewatched the most. add your answers in the reblogs or replies, i'm genuinely curious how much of an overlap there is within everyone's three answers. mine don't overlap at all! they're revenge of the sith, empire strikes back, and the force awakens :^)

[iraprince]

Hiii, i love your stuff and kinda from a distance really look up at you for, in my perception, being able to express yourself without giving a fuck. Thats sick dude, Im so so afraid, of absolutely everything, its nice to think like i might grow into someone less apologetic of my existence. Nice to see people just being yknow

hey, thank you, this is really really nice. the secret that is probably not a secret is that i am also deeply afraid a lot of the time lmao -- but less than i used to be, and in ways that feel less stifling and self-suffocating, if that makes sense.

like, it used to be "i'm scared that if i express myself the way i want to, everyone will find me obnoxious, so let's just sand those edges down to be safe" -- now my fears are more like "now that i'm expressing myself in a way that feels natural and real, i'm afraid that it's all stupid/vapid/not worthwhile or meaningful" (<- specifically abt my art) or "i'm happy that i talk and act the way i want to now, but what if it makes me impossible to befriend," etc etc etc. which still feels bad and puts me in a funk a lot of the time but at least it's a fear that comes After/in reaction to doing stuff, rather than a fear that STOPS me from doing stuff, you know? like, it's evolved into a kind of fear that's less in my way.

anyway. i believe you'll experience something like this, because wanting to grow is the first step of growing. the fact that u hope or wish for something different means you're already on your way. to fewer fucks!! or at least distributing the fucks u give in a way that serves u better

[byanyan]

what better way to celebrate byan's bday than with a couple quick lil edits just for fun?ㅤ(x, x)

[queenerdloser]

one of my reference letter writers got back to me today to say she was done with my letter but the links on the schools spreadsheet i sent her weren't working (they were just links to the dept websites), so i scrambled to get links emailed to her to upload her letter to interfolio and the like four schools i'm submitting to that don't use interfolio (boo). and that was this afternoon (i responded within an hour to her email) but so far nothing's been uploaded and i'm like... pls upload them pls now i'm super nervous she's going to struggle with the like technical aspect of getting letters uploaded. praying and hoping she uploads this weekend bc then i've got one letter on lockdown.

[antiloquist]

Playing Lethal Company with randos when you're 20+

[morrigan-sims]

Btw, if there's anything I do that you want to know how I did it (editing, rendering, cc making, posing, whatever), please just ask. I'm not nearly an expert about any of those things, but I'm always willing to help out with anything that I can. Making little tutorials/giving tips and answering WCIFs is actually legitimately fun for me and makes me feel useful.

[tieflinglich]

i do think its fucked up to see actual arguments on here about how AI is good, actually, and if you think calling someone out for using AI and then blaming some sort of disability on it then you are an inherently horrible person. like yeah.

AI generated content is based on theft from tons of artists across the world due to scraping from the internet. it is bad. even ignoring any of the environmental effects, it is a horrible fucking thing to just rip apart the efforts of your peers in order to spare yourself a bit of time because you want to make a product but don't want to put in the effort. and trying to spin it as 'oh poor artist has a disability, they cannot create art, how dare you expect them to hurt themselves for your petty moral argument' ignores the tons of actually disabled artists who actively work with their bodies in order to create content that they are proud of.

it feels like instead of actually listening to anyone you're just willing to throw disabled artists under the bus because you want to make the most amount of money with the least amount of effort.

[necrotic-nephilim]

i love your fics and the ideas you describe for the ask games. i'm especially fond of your takes on the rarer pairings and i always smile when i see your posts in the ship tags <3

and don't stress too much about not posting anything, real life is important and participating in fandom should be fun, not something you have to force yourself to do. god knows fandom burnout is real, especially if you feel like people are expecting something from you. just keep doing what makes you happy :)

ghgfhgjhkjhjhg this was so sweet, thank you so much! i *love* talking about rarer rarepairs, especially if it gets other people to ship them too. the popular ships are fun and all, but i truly love spreading rarepair propaganda.

that's very reassuring, thank you <3 i've loved everything i posted here so far and have not felt pushed to post anything i haven't enjoyed, but sometimes i forget i can like. use this blog for whatever i want and not *just* headcanons/fics/mets/etc lol. and i also forget i don't have to rush myself. it's annoying to want to write and either not have time or not have the words work. i used to run a fandom blog in my teens that got very large and felt like a chore and i was so stressed about the need to perform and the numbers and all of that. like if a fic didn't do well i saw it as a personal failing and forced myself to write popular headcanons just for the numbers game. was not fun or sustainable in the long run and i think it contributed to me no longer having any taste for the ship i primarily wrote for. so for too long i treated existing in fandom like a job lol. i've mostly gotten it through to myself that this is a space for me, but i occasionally forget when i'm so caught up in all the things i want to get to for this blog. my to-write list is a mile long and i need to be bonked with a paper towel roll, i think. so it's very kind of you to say this bc the reminder is nice <3

[loumauve]

the thing (well, one thing anyway) about chronic pain is how you'll have a day or half a day or even just a few hours that'll get you so close to just fucking wanting to end it all right then and there because you're just so tired of being in pain and it feeling like it'll never end and never get better, and your brain feels like it's on fire and you can't remember the last time you felt even just okay, much less fine or good.

and logically you know it'll probably be alright again in time, but the effort it takes to just make it through that moment is so exhausting that it just leaves you drained.

and it's not like you want to die, you just want the pain and misery to stop, and sometimes it feels like it never will. like you're just stuck on that endlessly-looping train track through hell with no stops to get off, and nothing will help you feel even minutely better at all.

[damiemontclair]

Teying to complete a dumb online id process in case the landlord gets back to me and asks for one but the stupid fucking thing needs a video selfie thing and keeps going "no glares or extreme lighting" and I'm sitting here like. I've tried 5 different locations and lightings, I took off my glasses, you're going to have to be more fucking specific, but then it hits a limit before I can get it right and I have to start the whole thing again after deleting my browser history and I want to throw my phone at the fucking wall and cry

[katierosefun]

Howdy Caroline, I saw a post about Talk shop Tuesday so I thought I'd be nosy on main. I wonder, how does research factor into your fic writing, and what was the most taxing research you had to do for a fic? 🐸

oooh hi, iva!!! thank you so much for shooting the ask--god knows i always love talking about fic!

to answer your question: i think most of my fic-related research is limited to "what episode did character x do this/say that", just so that i have the timeline of events down. i know it's not the end of the world if i don't perfectly remember how a certain scene went down, but i can't help it--i like being precise when it comes to at least recalling canon events.

outside of that specific brand of research (just making sure my timeline/recitation of quotes is all set), i'll sometimes do wilder research for like ... au projects that are set in a different time. that doesn't happen often (i think the reason why i tend not to write au's that are set other than present day is specifically because i get overwhelmed by the amount of research to be done), but when it does, i'm usually stuck researching for hours. that's probably why i just never got around to posting this one period jwds au i have. the plot keeps shifting, mostly to suit the research that i've done. deep sigh. one day i swear i'll finish writing that story and post it, but right now it's just gotten a little away from me. it's marinating.

outside of that story though, i think i've been lucky enough to not need to do too much research for fics . . . maybe that'll change one day (especially if i ever fall in love with a more period-drama-esque story), but ! ! ! as of now, i think my research time really only takes up 10 - 15% of my fic writing process.

[arysthaeniru]

Hi !! For the ask game, breath of the wild for fandom and zelink for ship 🧐

Breath of the Wild!

Favourite character

I love Riju! I can't help it, I see a child forced to be a leader of her people, left with the burden of the dead on her shoulders and unable to do her task without help, but it too proud to admit it to her people, so she has to rely on an outsider....and I adopt them. It's the same reason Taya and Capella are my faves in Pathologic, haha. But also Riju's remarkably good-spirited about her whole deal, her oracle sand-seal Patricia who only speaks in puns, and a town of adult women who are entirely reliant on her.

Least Favourite Character

Revali. I wish there was a little more going on with this bird to justify his attitude beyond simple jealousy/rivalry, and I've seen some great fanon elaborations on him that I've really enjoyed (esp. regarding his friendship with Zelda, which I've fully accepted into my wheelhouse), but if we're going strictly off canon, he's not got a lot going on, and I wish there was a little more!

OH, but also Purah. Not in terms of her characterization necessarily, but how much she's coded to appeal to the worst types of gamers. First she's my beloathed trope of immortal loli, and then she's THE main fanservice in ToTK as aged up basic sexy girl, and everything about her design and everything squicks me out terribly. She and Robbie are so much fun in Hyrule Warriors, but I hate interacting with her within the BOTW/TOTK timeline, because you always have to deal with all that nonsense.

5 Favourite Ships

This is hard! I don't really ship too many people in Breath of the Wild? I find the world so much more interesting, but like.

Ganon/Link/Zelda - The beating heart of the series and their fascinating/godly destiny/duty ties them altogether, and although BOTW/TOTK outright refuse to give Ganon anything even vaguely resembling a character, I still think it's intriguing! I have so many ideas swirling in my head about how you could only have to tweak a few memories to make Ganon a more justified villain in TOTK that would actually make this compelling.

Cece/Lasli - Fashion lesbians! I think Lasli's practicality would clash interestingly with Cece being a diva, it would be a disaster, but also quite cute, I think! There's of course, the tragedy of Lasli's dead ex inbetween them, that's always fun to explore.

Riju/Yunobo - This is my weird crackship that I really developed while playing the spinoff, Hyrule Warriors, Age of Calamity. Their relationship to their mentors is very similar, their hangups about leadership and their place in their community is very similar, and they both love zooming across the game map. They are also very similar in age! If you play the games in Japanese, where we don't have the weird surfer dub for Yunobo, Yunobo and Riju are both 13 years old, and they're both very endearing.

Paya/Tauro - I love how genuinely positive and cute they are in ToTK! I'm so glad that Paya moved on from her crush on Link and instantly found somebody who actually validates her scholarly and leadership skills everyday, and encourages her to be her best self. They have a fun banter.

Koltin/Loone - Another fun little crackship! The girl who's obsessed with leviathans and guardians, and Koltin, THE monster guy. He knows everything about monsters and thinks they're misunderstood! I feel like they would get along. It's a shame we can't hook them up in-game.

Character I find Attractive

Ganondorf. Duh. He's a handsome man.

Character I would Marry

Teba seems like a good husband and dad. Also he's just very cool, haha. Or maybe Purah? I feel like we'd probably get along.

Character I would be Best Friends With

Gosh, probably Sidon! He's very supportive and nice. I feel like I would thrive with that sort of energy in my life. And I could help him be a better leader. Or Purah and/or Robbie, they're very hectic and manic but real dedicated to their work, and I am nothing at heart, if no a workaholic myself, lol.

Unpopular Opinion

I've seen more consensus agree with me lately, as the hype around ToTK has started to fade away, but I'm very frustrated by the Zonai and the way they handled that! It's so frustrating to see Zelda, whose lesson in BoTW was that her Father was wrong, the kingdom and its tenets were wrong, blind faith was wrong and that it was her love for her friends that saved her in he end--then learn the lesson in ToTK that monarchy is fine, everybody should just attempt to emulate the past, and that everything in the past was good.

I think constantly about the fact that Rauru's four sages, the people who swore fealty to him--have no identities. No names, no faces, no real agency or personality beyond their duty to the sacred stone, and their species. There's something very unsettling about that, and something very unsettling coupled with the Depths, this creepy, hollow, empty place that the Zonai mined out and left nothing in return. The Doylist explanation is, of course, that there are no writing credits on ToTK and they just didn't have the time to flesh out the Sages or the Depths, because they had to move on to making the new Zelda game for Switch 2. But the Watsonian explanation could have been really fascinating, it could make the Zonai more morally ambiguous. These aliens who came to Earth to mine the Earth for power and pulled people into their thrall for that power--which they saw as ultimately a tool to progress everybody's society, but also can be seen from Ganondorf's perspective as something horrifying. What is the worth of progress if it comes at the expense of identity?

But that would involve the writers having to grapple with the colonialism inherent to the premise they are creating here. And they want Rauru to be good, Hyrule to be good and Ganondorf to be straightforwardly evil. And that's sad to me, because Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, to an extent, are about the failures of the old rulers and their approaches, and how our heroes have to do better. And the fact Nintendo refused to do that here thematically makes me sad!

Most badass character

Urbosa! I LOVE fighting as her in Hyrule Warriors, and she's also just such a fun design and cool and supportive at the same time.

Pairing I am Not Fond Of

Sidon/Link. Not that I hate it or anything! I can see it, it's a very plausible pairing, but often a lot of people sideline Zelda entirely when they write it, and that's annoying to me. I don't like when yaoi shippers discard the most important women to a man's life to make it gay.

Characters I feel the Writers screwed up

Ganondorf! Evil brown guy is just evil because he's brown. Very annoying to not even try to make that feel more nuanced in the year 2023, but whatever.

Favourite Friendship

Robbie and Purah! I love their dumb banter and bickering in all of the games. Inventor duo, they hate each other and would die for each other, and when they work together, they can make the impossible happen. I love how much they both fight for credit on petty things, but they do always say the other was instrumental to their success. Their fighting style in Hyrule Warriors, where Robbie is the one piloting their mech-suit, while Purah just perches on the shoulder and shows off when they do their special attack--everything to me!

Zelink beneath the readmore!

When I Started Shipping It

Probably as SOON as I got to that memory in BOTW, where they're in the rain, and Zelda asks him if he had a chance to be anything else other than a knight, would he have taken it? And the look he gives her as he turns back, and the way the scene is framed when he's jolted out of the memory...argh, that's when the brainworms really started. But also I really did like that moment where she tries to get him to eat a frog, after complimenting his ability to tame horses. It's just cute, idk! They're the thematic core of the story. It's about the inevitable destiny of it, and how Zelda bucks against their fated destiny, but Link embraces it, because he is a man guided by devotion and courage, and her wisdom means she knows it's a bad idea--but how can she do anything but love it/him? There's something just a bit doomed to all of their interactions, and it makes me go insane!

My Thoughts (Good/Bad)

I find it bad for worldbuilding as a whole, but fascinating for their dynamic, that Skyward Sword makes Zelda the living incarnation of Hylia, because then you're constantly left with the question: is Link simply extending his devotion towards the Goddesses by loving Zelda, or does he love Zelda and the Goddess separately? Is that even possible to separate Zelda from the Goddess? What does it mean for your temple of devotion to be a person? And in BOTW/ToTK where they are haunted by failure and loss, where there's unspoken resentment towards each other they both have to let go of, Zelda in the past, and Link in the present, that infuses their dynamic with such fun tension, even when they do wholeheartedly love each other and do just get along. I find it tragic, and fun, and sweet and sad all at once. I love a good destined lovers, where neither is entirely sure if that's a good idea, or there's a certain exhaustion to it, because it's inevitable anyway...

Things Done in Fanfic That Annoy Me

When in post-botw fics they have kids, rule the restored kingdom of Hyrule together, and don't seem to have any trauma. They're both feral, they're of the Wild now, and if Link actually loved Zelda and Hyrule, he'd never support her remaking Hyrule Kingdom ever again. They're just not capable of having a happy nuclear family in that way, sorry!

People also make Link SO masculine in such a weird way sometimes in fanfic--no??? Even if you don't headcanon him trans, he's like...so distanced from the kind of daddy dom masculinity that so many fanfic writers seem to default onto a lot of sex?? He's very gender-fluid and I just can't ever see him in that kind of aggressive way. It's always very jarring and unpleasant. I also think people really overplay the enemies-to-lovers of pre-canon BOTW, which sometimes leads to fics where they're like...doing petty revenge on each other or like having dramatic blowouts--which always feels a bit unrealistic to me? I'm very picky about the zelinks I like ^^;;;

I also just hate modern AU in general. They don't make sense outside of the feudal system and those external pressures/divine pressures!! Bodyguard/celebrity will NEVER hit in the same way as knight/princess.

Who I'd be Comfortable With Them Ending Up With, if Not Each Other

Link has vibes with a lot of people! Honestly, in Windwaker, I don't ship Link/Tetra at all! Link and Medli is far more compelling to me. And TP, Midna and Zelda are so in love, and Link's just kind of there, he doesn't even know Zelda xD In BOTW, I feel like Impa/Zelda makes a lot of sense, and Link has chemistry with all sorts: Sidon, Paya, Beedle, all the random NPCs that flirt with him. I'm so rarely a single shipper, haha.

My Happily Ever After For Them

Wandering through the world as travelling diplomats/adventurers, with their home in Hateno whenever they're taking a break, and vacationing everywhere, as Zelda slowly writes her scientific 1000 page dissertation about the nature of the world, and Link writes the ultimate cookbook. The Triforce calls them to duty, but they mostly ignore those urges. They're done with divine duty--they only have duty towards each other and the world now.

[friendshipgun]

🥰& 🤗

How do you feel about reader interaction? Are you open to receiving questions about your fics?

oh yes, definitely! i'm always happy to talk about my fics c: i'd honestly probably ramble forever about them if i didn't think it'd bore people lol What advice would you give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started?

general writing advice that i stand by is: read a whole heck of a lot. keep reading. read different genres and writing styles. for fic in specific i'd say: write what you yourself want to read. if you're engaged in what you're doing your readers will be too c: (plus you'll just be having a better time lol) also kind of more general advice but: write a lot. keep practicing and trying out new things (writing from different characters' povs; writing things you feel you're not great at--i see a lot of fic authors say they're not great at action scenes, for example; trying out a different tense or perspective than you usually use; etc etc.) but really, the more you practice the better you'll get, like that's incredibly basic advice but it's true lol. also bonus general advice that i personally think is helpful but ymmv: read poetry. try to write poetry if you don't already. there's so much you can learn about rhythm, word choice, imagery, etc etc that will really enrich your prose. it's actually something that i lowkey kind of keep regretting, that i stopped writing poetry, but i also think that it helped my prose TREMENDOUSLY, can't recommend it enough. (all of this is kind of general writing advice actually uh. i guess something concrete that is fic specific: if you're concerned with character voice, pay very close attention to how the character speaks in the source material. word choice, formality, sense of humor (do they have one lol), do they use expletives, are they verbose or not, etc etc. there's an additional dimension of: would they have knowledge about XYZ? is having that character make certain pop culture references going to seem natural or out of place? do they have expertise in a certain area that is going to come up in their speech (using jargon a lot, for example)? do they LACK knowledge of certain things that would make itself known in conversation with other characters? etc etc.) tho tbh i think that translates well to thinking about consistent characterization and character voice in original writing too, can't get away from general advice lol.