#lovely little levity chapter one official art

[angstywildcats]

lol hey, I know this blog comes off as a “for content/art” blog and I generally intend to keep it that way but this evening the warrior brainworms are back in town and I don’t have many places to share my thoughts for this kinda stuff,

this isn’t an official post or trying to push people to get to agree with me (I am not enough of an elegant speaker).  dfnjsdfn read if you want, but don’t feel inclined. I’m not trying to be groundbreaking or anything.  I think it’s just a lil vent about how I feel about how squirrelflight as a character is approached

CW: I discuss a little bit of the abuse, but not in detail

I AM so very glad we are past the early 2010s of Warriors amvs for sure at least. Back then “Ashfur did nothing wrong” was a common thing to say and everyone just went along with it, not knowing better from being young teens lol. But man the sexism still sticks and it sucks that Squirrelflight and what she went through is still debated. At least its going in the right direction?? But whew. It’s best to ignore and just go along my day, but seeing a random commenter or even someone who has Ashfur apologist as a name still bothers me more than I want LOL It’s hard to figure out how to consume a book series which... is pretty badly written and has many many many loose ends and issues, and I don’t really wanna police or judge on how people consume stuff. (As long as you’re not being a Freak. This is not a proship defense post get out) BUT I GUESS sometimes the way Ashfur is still perceived makes me uneasy? Like don’t get me wrong. he sounds like a pretty cool villain when he possessed Bramble, and while I personally don’t feel its true to his character to have?? Done whatever he did in the later books (I have . only read One chapter of ALITM and done no other warriors reading in a WHILE) it sounds kinda cool as a premise ig. And like many situations its easy to twist characters into their fanon, I think it’s just.. a little. Just a little. upsetting to have Ashfur to be seen as Such a Cool Character (tm) or whatever.

I think it really stems from the fact that. Ashfur’s decisions and actions all start from the fact he was the rejected love interest that went too far after Squirrelflight very maturely told him that she wasn’t interested. Just because of this, he assists in a murder, threatens Squirrel’s family and even after death seeks revenge and Succeeds when he targets Squirrelflight again. 

So far I don’t think there’s been any levity or relief from Squirrelflight having to go through grief or sadness and it really sucks at this point. I think the thing drives me insane is that Squirrel’s situation of getting such a backlash over a rejection is. Something that still constantly happens IRL. And Squirrelflight is almost Never acknowledged as a victim. Not by the other characters, and I don’t think the authors really grasped the weight of her situation they wrote her in either. It’s exhausting, really. I think i should really focus my blame the Warriors writing team for not approaching it better, but as someone who mostly hangs around for the fandom, it does feel like it’s sometimes thrown around too lightly :(

This is probably just a nitpick, and I’m not harshly criticising participants, hosts or artists of any kind who create the content, but a lot of AU or just, general projects and videos I see revolving squirrel is often about the miserable events of her life, either twisting them maybe to be Worse as a bad end or just. Highlighting them. 

I don’t blame anybody tho lol, it’s not like the source material has given much else but then again, we’ve had AUs and explorations of other background characters that end with brighter outcomes, so what’s stopping that from happening to Squirrel? It’s sometimes just a bit sad that there isn’t much chance to give anything else JDNFJNDFN

animal media huh. lets authors write dark things in Childrens books. And get away with poorly writing dark and sensitive topics.

[valasania-the-pale]

A Healer’s Dilemma Ch. 2

Author: Valasania the Pale

Rating: K

Words: 2560~

Pairing: Mipha/Zelda/Link

Notes: Takes place after the last memory, shortly after Memory #9. Enjoy!

She had known this feeling before.

A curling dread, like a clammy stone within her gut, or a chill fog drawing a curtain over her field of view. A winter’s day without the sun. A bitten evening without a moon. A specter hung over her – over them all – robbing them of the warmth of companionship.

Apprehension was cold, Mipha mused to herself.  

She’d tasted it at funerals – her mother’s foremost in her memory, long ago though it had been. Muzu’s kindly wife Laruta, whose passing brought an end to the old teacher’s joy. The Hylian Queen’s – whose death seemed to draw a veil over all of Hyrule and snuffed the light from the King’s eyes.

She’d felt it too the day Link left the Domain for the final time – she’d known, even then, that their goodbye then was not to be for forever, but did mark the end of something precious. Something she’d miss.

She’d felt it again when she learned that Link had been the one to draw forth the Master Sword.

Another page turned in the story of their lives; another chapter in the life of the boy she once knew, left behind to make room for the man he’d become.

She’d felt these things. Known them. Thought she’d become, if not comfortable, then capable enough in her experience to handle them.  

Evidently not.

Could these things be measured in sighs and tears? Her three decades were considerable and brimming with memory – with weight – yet they were a whisper of life to people like her father, who’d seen centuries pass by before his wizened eyes.

She’d heard his sighs – memories of forgotten days leaving his breast on a gentle exhalation. She’d wiped away his tears, wrapped in his embrace, the liquid pearls warm against her scales.

Those things weren’t wholly bad, at least. In them, she’d come to understand a different kind of healing. Her father was brighter when she asked for stories of times he seldom reminisced of, even when they led down darkened roads. The same worked for Muzu, though his pain was a wound closer to the soul than merely the heart. He was an oyster, clutching tightly to his love, but once opened had a luster she knew few knew, and few would ever know again.

Mipha was, at heart, a healer. Knowledge of this sort was vital to her as water and air and food. Applying this to herself, though, rather than others, was new.

The cold in her chest could not be measured by the sigh of the gentle breeze that caressed her scales, nor did the flickering flame bring her any comprehension of the darkness festering in the hearts of her companions. A wound festered in their camp that night, torn open anew by the goddess’ silence.

It was a wound she could not heal by conventional means, nor with her magic. It was not grief, either. Not pain. Not memory. Mipha was a miracle worker, but even she had not the power to make the goddess Hylia speak when she would not deign to of her own accord.

But that was but one side of the injury done to her companions – an intuition born of a lifetime of empathy told her that the silence of the goddess was not the only thing plaguing their camp, though it was the heaviest stormcloud hanging above their heads.

The nature of this unknown factor, however, she could not divine.

That, in itself, was a blow. She was a healer, yet she could not find the wound. There was no pain. No sigh. No tears. Just darkness, and cold.

The energy from before was tightening again into its coil. The energy made her restless. Her arms worked. The lean muscle from decades mastering the spear she’d built refused to burn like she wanted – preparing the fish that would compliment their meal was simply insufficient to challenge their endurance.

The flaking scales of their meal were sticky in her hands.

For all the life their little camp showed, with Link preparing the evening meal and Zelda adding dry kindling to the fire and Mipha scaling the fish, the knight and his princess could have been mute statues for all the emotion they displayed, and Mipha had no answers.

She watched them anyways.

Link, she knew, and her eyes ran over him, for once without the flush of something that usually thrummed through her blood. This was not her admiring him, this was examination. Analysis.

Of all the people of Hyrule, including his closest friends, confidants, and kin, Mipha suspected only she would have noticed the inconsistencies in his behavior she immediately picked up. There was pride in that – pleasure, even – but it was a distant thing in her mind, secondary to her search.

Link moved with grace while he cooked. Every ingredient was picked from their container with only a cursory check. Where he paused, it was always to pick between two excellent options – a choice of spice, or garnish, for example. His eyes were raptor-like; his hands, though calloused and hard, were careful and delicate where necessary. A master of the blade already, Link was possibly an equal in the culinary arts.

At least as far as flavor could go. Mipha suspected the delicate masterpieces turned out by the Castle’s kitchens were beyond him, but they had the benefit of an array of ingredients, facilities, and hands to work with. Where they had those advantages to bolster their undeniable skill, Link could make a feast out of what he foraged during the day that would fill the belly and delight the tongue.

This she knew. That was her friend, the selfsame man who’d been her companion through their childhoods.

For all his efficiency though, that night, Link’s culinary skill could not mask the edge he exuded.

It was a ragged, angry presence too faint to be real, but existed in the small things he did that no-one else would notice, had they not her experience.

His face was a hard façade. His features, for all their expression, could have been carven. But Link was not a statue.

He enjoyed cooking – it was the one, uncontroversial, indisputable part of him that he had never hidden. More than he loved the act of cooking, Link loved to eat. Big meals, small meals. Meals in the castle, meals on the road, meals while swimming (and she’d had to scold him many times for doing that) and meals while riding on horseback. If he wasn’t carrying a shield, he might even have snacked during a battle – had he faced an opponent skilled enough to last so long.

This night, the greens were chopped with the same intensity of expression he reserved for moblins. The rice was drowned in water and the bowl set on the flames without the slightest hint of hesitation. His feet were so silent – so controlled – that they’d have seen him through a Yiga fortress unscathed.

The silence itself, so integral to Link, was unnerving.

He hummed while he cooked. Unconsciously. Whatever earworm was in his brain at the time. As children, Mipha thought it was adorable, and with the other Zora filled his ears with as many songs and whimsical rhymes as they could concoct, as often as they could manage, and try to catch him in the act. The embarrassment would drive him to distraction.

But now, he did not. He did not hum. His mind did not wander; his was a laser-focus, a fixation. Mipha did not think it was wrapped up in the finer points of preparing their meal.

Silence, stillness, control. They were a keen edge. Or a ragged edge. Or a bludgeon. Any blade – any weapon suited Link when he was fighting. It was what made him dangerous.

It was not what made him a good cook. They were both a part of him, certainly, and both parts that Mipha admired, but their crossing was a symptom as clear as a red blossom beneath a bandage.

But it was just a symptom, however concerning, and did nothing to enlighten her further to the real problem. She knew how to fix it – engage him, pull his mind far away from whatever dark road it stalked; that was well within her power, and would probably restore to him some of the carefully hidden levity she knew he had in him.

She did not – her curiosity and her concern burned too hotly. She had to know more. She had to, if she wanted to help him. Them.

To her silent frustration though, he was closed to her beyond that. Observation would only get her so far.

She looked to the other princess of their party.

Zelda was harder to understand. Mipha had known her for nearly as long as she had Link, but it had always been in an official capacity. Princess to princess, or when they had time away from court, healer to scholar.

Reading her like she could Link was beyond her. Her first glimpse of the person, the girl Zelda, had been in the Spring. Zelda’s only knowledge of her was her touch, and whatever she’d seen in Mipha’s eyes before shame turned her face earthward.

Who are you, Zelda? Let me in. Let me see. Let me help you.

So Mipha watched her for some hint, some sign, some symptom she could examine – assess – and perhaps remedy.

On her face, Zelda bore the expression of a monarch. A brooding monarch, perhaps, but it was an unreadable expression nonetheless, and that was the wall that halted Mipha’s probe. In one hand she held the fire-stick, which she used to prod the small campfire on the occasion that some kindling fell away or the flames began to gutter. Unlike Link’s unnatural precision, she handled it as she had every other night. Haphazardly, distracted. It was something to do. Something to occupy the body while the mind wandered.

Where, Mipha wondered.

Zelda’s eyes were shrouded. Mipha knew an incontrovertibly sharp mind dwelled behind them. That even now it must be flying, furious, inexhaustible, harried.

But that was not a clue, not a hint; that was obvious to any who knew her. None could becalm the waters of the mind within a storm of its own making – not without a force greater, a balm more potent than the hurt driving it. And Mipha doubted a force sufficient to still the mind of the princess of Hyrule existed upon the face of the land.

Her shoulders were tight, Mipha noted, just so. A touch might cause them to stiffen, then relax.

Her brow was furrowed, just so. A touch might cause her to reel, then soften.

Her back was hunched, just so, as though the weight of the world lay upon her. A touch might cause her to straighten, then melt.

Just so.

But those things were physical, and while they told a story that Mipha might work to bring a happier ending, it would be mistaking symptoms for the source to take them as the whole story.

A darkness hung about her, where light should have been. An edge. A ragged edge. One less violent, less cutting, less bestial than the kind that hung about Link, but an edge nonetheless. The frustration that hung around her emanated in waves – lapping at the edge of the subconscious at first, too slight to note, but growing in ferocity.

They drew back. Returned. Fiercer. Her fingers flexed. Again. More powerful. Angry. The coil in her jawline tightened. A tsunami.

And as Link crossed their little campsite to take the fish from Mipha – her preparations finished without her conscious attention on her hands – Zelda’s eyes flickered toward them, and the tension left her in a whoosh.

Her eyes shut, and the edge fell away.

A second, suspended in eternity, where without the mask Mipha saw.

Zelda sighed, and in that sigh was contained the weight of a father’s failed expectations and the loneliness of one abandoned by the gods.

In that sigh was contained a thousand raging accusations. Countless haunted nights without peaceful slumber. A young woman’s fledgling experience. A girl’s self-doubt. Tears unnumbered.

In that sigh was a storm. A war of failure and pride and shame and defiance. A lens, through which her soul was visible.

In that sigh was a temporary release, and for a moment the moonlight that fell upon her, and the flames the illuminated her, and the peace the suffused her, made her gleam like a goddess.

Link watched them both, paused by the fireside, eyes glittering like fireflies.

Zelda’s eyes opened, and Mipha was transfixed.

“I will try again tomorrow,” Zelda said. Her eyes were coals, reflecting flames in the green of her irises, and in them Mipha saw an inner fire that would not be doused. An ember, or perhaps a cinder of the woman – the queen – she would be one day.

In them Mipha saw the shadow of the girl behind the sovereign’s mask she put on each morn; one who had shed tears unnumbered. One who had shouldered her own self doubt and inexperience and the impossible expectations of countless others ignorant to her struggle.

One who’d faced her silent goddess time and again, and who kneeled to beseech her anew each day without fail.

Her eyes were coals.

In them were intermixed shadow and light – the darkness Mipha felt was entwined with light. Perhaps the light was not hope, as it might have been in another time, another place. Perhaps the light was fiercer, defiant; the light of one who would burn and burn until nothing remained – of one who would not fade quietly into the dark.

Perhaps the light was not pure, as would be expected of the incarnation of the goddess. It was not the light of dawn, nor of the radiant sun, the twinkling stars, or the serene moon.

But the light was the same light she saw in Link. The darkness within, the same.

In that moment, Mipha thought she understood Zelda the girl just a little.

And with that understanding, she saw the wound for what it was, and inclined her head in acceptance.

The urge to reach out and hold her – just a touch, even, to let her know she was not alone in her battle – was nigh-impossible to repress. It was the same need she felt for Link – to reach out was to grasp fire, for his was a destiny for conflict.

Of the wounds he would sustain, some she would heal, others would be beyond her. To reach out held the potential to cure the remainder, and the potential to inflict one still greater than the rest.

To reach out to Zelda would be the same. Perhaps her conflict was not one of battle – not yet – but still, some wounds would heal, others would linger. Would fester.

To reach. Or.

Mipha looked down at her hands – red flecked with sticky grey fish scales and grime. Lean muscle. Callouses. The hands of a healer, and a warrior.

Looked within. What might they see, then, in her, if they looked as she had?

Or.

She drew in a breath. Flexed her hands. Remembered the lightning touch, and the warmth, pulling Zelda close, and Link bracketing her in.

Her eyes closed, and she sighed, letting it all flow out.

Or.