#i've had this sitting in my drafts for wayyyy too long

[evintide]

[ URL SONG CHALLENGE ]

( bonus points if you make them all relate to your muse in some way. )

tagged by » i stole this a loooong time ago @gerudosage​ but only just got around to finishing it. oops...

tagging » anyone who’s interested!

( putting mine under a read more because i want to be Extra™ and add small blurbs behind the meaning of each song. you are not required do the same! )

E  »   eyelids by pvris !!

if i could i’d only put pvris songs in this list. one of my favorite bands with raw lyrics and sound, and this one is just. HOOGH. clenches fist. it’s so tender but filled with a pain that just FEELS like Midna towards the people she cares about most. it’s like the night leading up towards the fight with Ganon, or the sun rising afterwards, just before she steps into the mirror for the last time. and then realizing, upon the next morning, that everything is different. it’s over.

V »   vide noir by lord huron !!

admittedly a good chunk of these songs i have under here are mostly midzel / zelink flavored instead of only Midna but. DAMN. there’s so many good songs ya’ll. the bass and total vibe of this track feels so slick and hypnotizing in a way i can only describe something befitting Midna, especially regarding Zelda or Link’s thoughts of her after the mirror has been shattered. trying to fill a void where there is no longer something just lurking in their shadows. a home that no longer feels the same after a long journey. all that’s left are her echoes in fading memories.

I »   in the shadows by amy stroup !!

a song that makes me think of Midna’s journey alongside Link. not so much as something that focuses on their relationship but rather the experiences they face together. the shadows in twilight princess serve as both home and enemy for the duo throughout their time together; Midna, as someone who has lived her life in the shadow of the light realm’s existence, and Link, whose world was turned on it’s head due to the shadow of Zant’s reign. there’s always something lurking there, friend and foe, a strength in a weakness, and no matter which it may be they have to face it.

N »   no light, no light by florence and the machine !!

thematic titles that match the character?? on this blog??? incredible.

another ship-adjacent song, though it’s less straight forward than the others. i personally always feel like it’s Midna to someone and then someone TO Midna after the shattering. like if only she’d given them the chance to speak to one another before hand. it feels like a betrayal after everything that’s happened, but the resolution to their problems, the one that makes the most sense in that point in time, is to sever that bond -- albeit the physical one. and it hurts all parties involved, but at the end of the day, if Midna had even hinted at what her plan had been, she wouldn’t have been able to find the right words to explain herself

T  »   think by kaleida !!

another song i think just vibes with Midna as a character, but there’s also the obvious ship material here. Midna thinking of those she loves, and those who think of her in the dark. because really, no matter how far apart they are, are you really alone with a little light in your heart?

I » i am not a woman, i’m a god by halsey !!

i think the title says it all, honestly.

D » the day of night by akira yamaoka !!

the twili realm but specifically during Zant’s reign. there is peace that can be found in the realm, not fully alien from it’s original state, but it is still not free danger. it is the breath between battles, the momentary calm amid the danger of whatever lurks around the next corner, where Midna can still see the familiar shapes of her home but not in it’s entirety.

E » evergreen by pvris !!

open and close with the same artist because i can.

a song that sort of encompasses Midna from her past to her future. i imagine that even as a child she had exceptional potential to ascend the throne even if it wasn’t promised to her. but it was also because of this innate talent she didn’t take her advantages seriously until it was a little too late. Zant saw to it that she got knocked down several pegs and her journey through the light realm solidified that further. of course, at her core Midna is still a very proud person, even if the adventure helped humble her some. she retains this new perspective after returning to the twili realm, but i’m sure some time along the way she gets... tired. frustrated with what she couldn’t change and eventually seeing the past repeat itself despite everything she and the light dwellers had done so long ago.

so instead of trying to mend what doesn’t want to be fixed, she leaves to do things her own way. because fuck the rules she’s Midna.

[liu-lang]

i finally submitted my final paper for first language acquisition. above is the number of meetings we had - my other roommate who is a 4th year PhD student said this is excessive for a 1 semester class final paper. Reading week started on May 18 but all my plans to work on other final projects were bulldozed by my project partner for our FLA paper. even though i set the meetings for 30 min to 1 hour - there were times where we met for 4 hours straight or had 2 meetings in the same day (one in the morning and one at night..........even though i gently (perhaps too much so) reminded her....i have work) i've lost so much sleep and so much weight the past month - getting sleep has been crucial to handle the side effects of the medication i've been taking so i've felt really unwell and fatigued.

working with her and the level of detail and time she's devoted to this paper makes me feel like maybe i'm a terrible grad student ? .... i simply do not care this much. should i be caring this much ? she's incredibly smart and a way better syntactician than i am so it's really hard for me not to feel anything but inadequate when working with her. but then seeing the way she works stressed me out so much - that although the final paper is extremely thorough and well-researched i do not think the amount of suffering i went through was worth it. so many of the things she was concerned about, i don't even think our prof would have thought of.

as a reminder to myself to establish boundaries way sooner and never partner up with this person again, here are things that i had to handle during these zoom meetings

the professor emailed feedback and when she read the feedback she cried on camera multiple times

she was too afraid to use cloud-based Word so I had to deal with emailing drafts back and forth as attachments

once I convinced her to use cloud-based Word (the multiple versions got too much for me to handle and differentiate) this is when the hours long meetings ramped up bc she wanted us to sit together in the Word doc writing at the same time

any time she didn't see me in the Word doc she would point that out or if i didn't make eye contact with her on zoom (we always had to have camera and mic on) she'd ask what i'm doing/looking at

she made sure track changes was on (which is fine, track changes can be helpful for group projects - i used it all the time working on board reports for my public transit job) but if she saw me correct one of her typos she would....erase my correction and correct it herself... even if my correction and her correction was exactly the same ??

if she made any changes she would immediately text me or email me asking me to look over her work/comments and provide feedback by a set time - even when i tried to be nice about it and said 'i'm fine with the way things are worded' instead of exploding at her to f*ck off already bc i can't devote 8 hours a day to nitpick this paper apart, she would still refuse to move forward with anything until i gave explicit consent that her work was good

after our meetings in the evening, she would then say that we need to look over it 'one more time' - even though it was already like 02h00 at this point... and she would tell me she’d continue to stay up and wait for feedback - I felt guilty many times knowing that she for some reason refused to go to sleep after the meeting while I would promptly close my laptop, take my meds wayyyy later than the prescribed time (side effects were they made me sleepy immediately after I took them) and then suffer tremendously the next morning bc taking the meds later than prescribed made it extremely difficult to wake up for work on time or stay awake throughout the day

once i told her i had to go to work but instead of understanding that i literally don't have time to meet about this anymore today she asked when i was gonna get home from work and sent a zoom invite like one minute after the time i told her i'd be home by (she's a fully funded 1st year PhD student straight out of undergrad and i assume has never had to work any sort of job outside of academia)

if i showed her any python code she would be scared (having to write the methods part was excruciating bc she has no programming experience but was also very controlling about my wording yet she almost always could not understand how something as simple as like methods or functions worked yet she wouldn't allow me to use "too technical language")

i had to forward her the submission confirmation email from Blackboard so she knew for sure we submitted the exact same version

she asked me if some of the paragraphs were too square and i was like... sorry what does this mean ?? and apparently she was concerned that the width and the height of the paragraphs were too similar/almost equal that they looked too square