#the vibe of ‘Yes I’ve saved the universe multiple times. yes I’m not even twelve yet. what of it?’

[im-not-buying-it-ether]

Realizing the Ben 10 love might’ve been a prelude to my Billy Batson love

[maiz-of-light]

Ugh, I’m in a mood, so…

Here’s some LoZ related things (headcanons, AUs, fan tropes, etc.) that are Banned Here. Read at your own risk.

OOC/humanized Fi.

Fi is an AI-type spirit forged into a weapon for the purpose of guiding her creator’s knight. Her personality is limited to the occasional quip, and she has no feelings. Please keep it that way, and please, don’t ship her with Link. It gives off “lonely man falls in love with Siri” vibes. Gross, and weird.

Ghirahim having any sort of relationship with Fi.

That means romantic GhiraFi, Ghirahim and Fi as siblings, Ghirahim and Fi being two sides to the same sword or any other “forged at the same time” bullshit, Link dual-wielding their swords (master of both at once), and anything else even vaguely resembling any of these things.

Any version of Link being characterized as cruel or sadistic.

It’s one thing to give him a bit of a temper, or even a minuscule or temporary desire for revenge in extreme situations, but chopping off limbs and raping enemies for fun? No.

The Skyward Sword manga.

Just no.

Afab/intersex Ghirahim, especially when y’all knock him up.

Pregnancy and breeding are generally a no-no for me, but this one is especially obnoxious. I have a lot of reasons for it not being my cup of tea, dysphoria being a big one, but I honestly mostly blame the fandom for shoving it in people’s faces and calling us “erasers” when we find it unsettling.

“LinkGhira”

“But, but Maiz! You ship Ghiralink!” Yes, yes I do. I ship Link, the go-with-the-flow, sexually timid twink with the suave, catlike, power-hungry demon lord - not that watered down OOC crap where their canon characterization and power dynamic are completely flipped. Worse than the butchering of the pairing itself tho is probably the fans, again, since y’all are clearly in denial and won’t just admit that the canon compliant depictions are just that. It’s fine if you have preferences, the whole point is that it’s all fiction after all - just don’t fucking lie about it to try and save face.

Linked Universe

While I haven’t experienced it firsthand, I’ve seen and heard horror stories about this fandom. They are positively insufferable. Even if they weren’t, multiple incarnations of Link interacting? It just… the concept isn’t interesting to me. At all.

Midlink

Nothing against it, just… no. Platonic, friendshippy vibes and that is all.

“Power” bottom Ghirahim.

Please stop grasping at straws. Also, see “afab Ghirahim” and “LinkGhira.”

A quick note, there are exceptions to this rule. Some people legitimately do portray bottom!Ghirahim as a force to be reckoned with, but this is very difficult to achieve. Generally, tops have more power and versatility. Stop telling yourself differently.

Hypersexualized Gerudo.

I can’t exactly talk about racism since I am One Pasty Hoe, but I can sure as fuck talk about misogyny. Badass brown-skinned redheads showing off their abs while dominating the desert? Hell yeah! Wearing completely impractical armor obviously designed for the Male Gaze (forgive me if we’re not still calling it that)? C’mon, Nintendo. I thought we were past this. Urbosa deserves better, and so does Riju, who’s twelve.

“Ganondorf is a victim of Demise!”

Guys. Hylia incarnated as Zelda so she could stop this dude from wreaking havoc and destroying life as they know it. Demise incarnates as Ganon, does not possess him but is him, and fucks shit up unnecessarily. If you wanna complain about his “not having agency” then sorry but you’re wrong.

Sexualized OoT (Ocarina of Time) Link.

Getting hot and heavy after he’s aged naturally? Yes please. But after he’s only jumped ahead in time? Even if he’s developed an adult mentality, he’s still a child in many ways. I’m not saying don’t, I’m saying proceed with care, as this still technically qualifies as underage.

Mute Link.

Selectively mute, uses Sign, generally quiet/reserved - all good and well. Characterizing him as completely incapable of using audible speech? Please stop trying so hard.

To be clear, it’s fine if you disagree with any of these things. Just know that you’re not gonna find any of it here, nor do I take kindly to my work being associated with it.

[theanatomyletter]

here is a perfectly sane response to the climate emergency

Right so like 3 days ago once everyone found out a couple weeks too late that the literal amazon rainforest is on fire I went into a sort of anxiety/depressive spiral and it was terrifying!!! I was scared and shocked out of doing anything and kept thinking of all the bad things that are happening and how we are all going 2 die and kept thinking of how to make more ppl understand that climate destruction is part of the same racist project as white imperialism and I’m !!! Stressed !! And I was scared and freaked out!!! I remember as a kid one of my favourite things ever was the book Journey To The River Sea by Eva Ibbotson and I s2g that book made me a person it taught me so many things about what it means to love a place and to be alive in the world and how to sustain a sense of self and community in meaningful connection with that it means to be alive and here and breathing and it’s a book about the rainforest and the river and so I’ve just been,, thinking of it a lot, little blue butterfly from the cover floating thru my brain and all that. It’s hard!!! I thought I was afraid of not saving/earning enough money to do a masters next year but I was actually afraid of the consequences of the climate emergency. Pay more attention to your emotions and honour them for what they are and figure out what is at stake for you, what does it make you feel that the world is in crisis. I think that’s important

Depressing chat aside after I panicked and felt radicalised (what does that even mean?) I found this twitter thread which was basically like these are all the terrible things that can happen and here is how we stop them and at first I felt SO SCARED because there’s NO WAY we can actually organise mass strikes at this scale!!!! We have never had to organise at this scale before, I panicked and got really scared and went on a rant about how we have to use existing structures to fix things because we don’t have the time or resources to organise at this scale but like. I now think we actually do, I found this resource for organising strikes globally from 20TH TO 27TH SEPTEMBER and like, we have the Internet and we have a month to plan and prepare and if you are able to strike you absolutely should !!!!!! There are people smarter than me speaking to the urgency of this, I’m just having some feelings and writing this on my phone notes, but like. Read about strikes in your area. If there aren’t any, find resources to help organise one. Text your friends your colleagues your family whatsapp group the people you went to school with, spread the word and organise how you will sustain your community in that time

As a side note after I went on panic rants all over my social media I think I realised that terrifying people into frenzied action won’t work because it’ll often just scare them into inaction (that’s what it did to me) and I felt better only once I found that resource for actual organisation, the mass general strike felt like an impossible project until I found out it’s already being planned. So like, don’t be helplessly scared, we have multiple years to fix things, and I think this is important: REMEMBER TO BE ALIVE AND HERE AND BREATHING, it’s important to actually feel the absolute miracle that is consciousness otherwise all of the saving the world will have been for nothing. Take photos of your friends and give hugs to your pets and get drunk and go dancing and remember that what matters is that feeling of being so achingly alive and aware of your existence in the world when you look at the sky and feel dizzy with how small you are and how yet the whole universe is inside of your brain, remember to breathe and feel glorious and loud and bright and reckless.

On that note, I was having a hard time giving a shit about much but I copped on a bit after I talked to my friend Naoise Dolan (buy her book it is out soon !!!) I felt like calmer and more like I was allowed to enjoy things and write things (that’s why I finally pulled it together enough to do this) and so I LISTENED TO THE NEW TAYLOR SWIFT ALBUM ON REPEAT and I’ve decided I love it, here is my ranking of all its songs from worst to best, I have so many thoughts, the lyrics are golden, I’m so happy to be alive in the world at a time we can make things better and listen to music like this that’s tailor made (sorry) for us to forget about any guilt we may feel from bopping to boardroom produced songs about corporate feminism

18. Miss Americana and whoever the fuck

Idk what this obsession is with high school motifs (shout out Mike Dolan for pointing this out) like it’s just weird for a 29 yr old to use school as a metaphor for her love life. The “you win stupid prizes” bit sounds nice though. It’s like a low-key creepy obsessive song like why is she doing that funny voice? Is it meant to sound vaguely haunted? What’s going on

I’m also just tired of “America” (the white kind) as a cultural construct and it being used as an expression of identity in popular culture like we get it you built a nationalism out of “gas stations” and “hallways” and “whatever” but you’re still racist, Stop. Like it’s just an inherently violent construct and nobody white is reckoning with it responsibly so at least maybe stop romanticising it or just shut up. Heck yea I’m reading too much into this. I do what I want

17. You Need to Calm Down

This song is bad. It’s so bad. The lyrics are pointless, the ohoHHHH is annoying, her voice is irritating, it’s also just gross and patronising and tries to do twelve things at once (are we leading a parade to pat ourselves on the back for telling homophobes to “take several seats” or are we saying we “all have crowns” wtv that means?)

This song is actually just gross and it doesnt even SOUND GOOD

16. ME

It’s less problematic than you need to calm down and that’s the only reason it’s slightly less bad. It’s a garbage song idk why it exists i’m so mad at it

15. Paper rings

IM SORRY tHe mOoN is HIGH like your friends were the night that we first met I’m sorry WHAT miss swift we get it you have been near drugs, Jesus CHRIST this song is a juvenile childish self important mess. The lyrics r awful and her voice is sneaky and weird and she does weird noises and the chorus is dumb like the “uhuh that’s right” makes me want to give CHITTAR. Also she says darling WAY too much in this album like we get it you’re dating a Brit. It’s not The Worst song because if you pay zero attention to the lyrics or her voice it’s kind of fine sounding? It’s so bad tho lol, I remember when she wrote Mine and the video came out I was like wow wild this is weird and adult and why are you pregnant but this one is even MORE weird. I also HATE every time she says dreary mondays and “baby boy” (GROSS) and I hate that she keeps repeating it lol. The I hate accidents line is kind of fine

14. I forgot that you existed

I hate the lyrics and I hate the premise (we get it you’re indifferent that’s why you wrote a whole song about it) BUT it’s such a bop, it’s very /this feels like a perfect night to make fun of our exes/ vibes and I would be LYING if I said I didn’t enjoy that. Yes we exists

We are pretending her fake laughter and starting to talk in the middle of songs things isn’t real though. It wasn’t cute in we are never ever etc and isn’t cute now

13. I think he knows

I love the 16th avenue bit, it fills me with giddy happiness, the rest of the song is shit, and also lazy. Also stop being obsessed with being 17, it was weird in starlight and is weird now

The bridge is also sort of nice but not nice enough to redeem the rest of it

12. London Boy

Im sorry I promise I know this song is bad. It is bad. I hope it’s ironic? But it’s bad. It’s a weird colonialism complex fetishisation of posh brit whiteness and its even more gross when it’s like “btw IM american, DOUBLE whiteness”, it’s icky and bad. It is a bad song. I apologise for enjoying it and I promise I am ashamed but also u know what, if you ignore the lyrics entirely and pretend you’re 15 and un-enlightened about the violence inherent to the fetishisation of an english identity……….maybe a fun tune. I know. I know. I am sorry. I promise I enjoy it only ironically

11. The man

Corporate white lady feminism? With the word HUSTLE in it? In this economy? Yes obviously

The lyrics are a bit ehhhh but some of them are quite clever and I think she’s quite honest in this song in a rare sort of way without trying to exaggerate it for shock value and it’s a very like, this is my life, here you go, sort of tune, it doesn’t do anything for women’s rights but I think it sounds nice and is probably fun to dance to, and “I’m so sick of running as fast as I can, wondering if I’d get there quicker if I was a man” and “if I were a man, I’d be the man” are fUN lines !!! Idk how wild this comparison is but like, I feel this song is trying to deal with similar things as I know places (a very privileged rant, if you will, without much self awareness) but I think The Man does it better because it’s less self important and has less ambition about it solving or expressing the world’s worst problems.

10. False God

Ok, so, what is it with the religious motifs in this album, i don’t get it, though it kinda works a lot in this song? I wanted to rank this higher but after a few listens it got slightly grating, the beginning is a bit unecessary too? Like it’s trying to create this weirdly artificial aura of glamour and sophistication, it’s quite an unnerving and haunting song and I quite like that about it and it makes me a bit surprised and startled. This thing she’s doing with like slow, building, repeating tunes i think has worked the best in this song (we might just, get away with this, religion’s in your lips e-,ven if its a False gOd) also, THE ALTAR’S IN MY HIPS, OOF, the chorus does the trick honestly and i love when she’s like slightly laughing but in a wry sort of way. Love it tbh, something about it just makes me a bit stressed though and not in an intentional way (i think)

9. It’s Nice To Have a Friend

Miss taylor who gave you the RIGHT, to shove your hand into my chest and grab my heart and step all over it. I love it and it makes me cry and it’s so soft and sweet. Zero complaints abt it it’s a beautiful song. There r just MULTIPLE EXTREMELY GOOD SONGS that’s why it’s not like my absolute fav and im confused too as to why it’s so low but like. Idk. it is a very soft and sweet song. I love it. If anything maybe it’s a bit uncreative n lazy but i think that’s slightly on purpose so doesn’t rlly constitute a criticism

8. Death by a thousand cuts

I like this song a lot a lot. The lyrics are SO GOOD IM SO HAPPY SHES DOING GOOD LYRICS AGAIN. I love the “one for the agEs” line and i’m generally a slut for any mention of chandeliers in music or poetry (dont ask), her voice is delicate but proud and wild and i’m a fan, honestly, cannot wait to bop to this. The My my my bit is annoying tho

7. The archer

I HATE the bit where she says CoMbAt but otherwise this song is soft and lovely and gentle and I love it !!!!! I love the lyrics and I love her gentle restraint of how she slowly unfurls them and then let’s go in “help me hold onto you”, there is such a commanding frankness to it, it’s an ask for collaboration, an ask for honesty, an ask for I want to do this with you

I think it’s one of the strongest tracks lyrically and she also shows like great skill vocally which has been annoyingly missing from so much of what she’s recently produced. I feel like there’s a bunch of annoying stylistic choices (the they see right thru me bit is grating) but like the song overall is lovely, I think you can feel in her voice she knows she’s created something good and it’s not the usually insufferable IM A GENIUS vibe. WHO COULD EVER LEAVE ME DARLING, BUT WHO COULD STAY !!!

6. Soon you’ll get better

Made me cry. We’re not talking about this one

5. Lover

This song is soft loving, slow whispers, careful realisations that you can build a life with whatever you like and love will save everything, I love it, I love it I love it I love it, “can I go where you go?” moves me to tEARS it is such a soft and gentle expression of care, it is such a kindness, it’s such surrendering, such reckless care, I love it so much, it’s so hopeful and also sure, it’s so frightful but also unafraid. I think this is one of Taylor’s most earnest songs ever and it does the thing of combining that earnestness with brazen daring that doesn’t turn into embarrassment only because she commands her lyrics with such certainty, and that’s rare and often I think that daring has ended badly for her (LOL most of reputation) but here it’s done so beautifully and w so much happiness and LOVE, this song is truly just a beautiful lil piece of art with so much happiness dripping thru it

4. Cornelia Street

This song. This SONG. It builds up so beautifully with this ever so slightly hesitant fascination with its own emotions, i’m so obsessed with it, the lyrics are lovely and perfect, i was expecting it to feel slightly forced and oddly specific because wtf is a cornelia street anyway, but it WORKS. I think it wants me to think of like a glowy streetlighty street and it DOES THAT, “filling in the blanks as we gooooo” sounds so gorgeous and does that thing with her voice which literally is just showing off that Yes She Does Know How To Sing and it’s so certain and sure and restrained and open and bare (again in “i thought you were leading me onnnnn”). Also, “the city screams your name” should be a tired cliche but its just an excited expression of abandon im,, in love. The song is so shaky and uncertain but completely confident and relaxed at the same time and it FEELS EXACTLY LIKE COMING TO TERMS WITH BEING IN LOVE AND WANTING IT TO LAST FOREVER, also like, when did she learn how to write good bridges again because yEs

3. Daylight

Solely for the lines “i’ll tell you the truth, but never goodbye // i don’t want to look at anything else now that i saw you” she deserves a grammy it actually pierces my emotions and makes me want 2 explode, this song is sooooo lovely and it has the vibe that makes me feel like i’ve already heard it years ago (but maybe thats because ive had the album on repeat 2 days straight) but it’s just,,, very good and it feels like sunset and glitter and i think is a perfect ending to a great album i love how it builds intensity and then strips it down and just,,, love it.

2. Afterglow

This is i think, one of the most beautiful things this woman has ever produced, one of the loveliest and most powerful songs ever made, i love it so very much. She finally learnt how to do autotune properly lol, this song is like, a crescendo of emotion, everything is falling down around it and it’s like a little haven of bare, frank honesty and complete surrender, of complete vulnerability, the whole song sounds like an act of care and an act of expressing pure emotion, it’s so gorgeous. It moves so softly and doubles in on itself and she’s sorry and sad but so proud of this love and so certain of its importance, “i’m the one who burnt us down”, it’s such a zooming in on a very specific emotion and it’s done so well, i love it

1. Cruel summer

I LOVE THIS SONG. I LOVE THIS SONG. The lyrics are flighty and exciting and shivery, WHAT DOESNT KILL ME MAKES ME WANT YOU MORE- plug that shit into my VEINS. This song makes me feel like it’s 2015 and nothing is real yet and I’m living inside a YA novel and my biggest problem is my crush being mean to me and I’m RELISHING in that freedom and indulging every last drop of emotion because being alive and paying attention to it is incredible and Extremely Cool Actually (I DONT WANT TO KEEP SECRETS JUST TO KEEP YOU, dead right gal)

That said. Organise for the climate strike. Read up on what’s going on so you can answer questions in your family whatsapp group. Field those conversation, DO THAT EMOTIONAL LABOUR (again, what even), spread the word. But take care of yourself !!!! Listen to Taylor swift and remember that we are an absolute joke of a species, we went to the MOON, we can do this, I love you