undertheopensky

[undertheopensky]

The Lost Woods aren’t so bad.

Not after traversing them more times then Link can count, at least. Sure the paths shift, and monsters occasionally slip their way inside to hide in the bushes and trees, but Link knows the way to the clearing where he needs to go.

The forest only needs to let him.

His boots cut through soft grass, an occasional crunch belaying a leaf. The song of the woods is on the wind, and Link follows its winding tune, the pipes of water, strings and drums of leaves and branches. Quiet giggles make his ears twitch, but Link knows to ignore them.

He plays the game of the Woods, walking its paths, watching poes with a careful eye to see where they lead. The song dances by, high and low, loud and soft, and the flute that sometimes joins it makes his heart ache.

Time stretches strangely under the canopy of trees and fog— Link feels like he’s been here for hours now, but the glimpses of sunshine that peek through the branches are no different from how it was when he arrived. Link passes through another clearing, doubt beginning to nip at his heels. They’re not called the Lost Woods for no reason after all, and he’s starting to wonder if he hasn’t passed their test this time.

Is it because of what I’ve done since last I’ve been here?

But then something in the air, in him, clicks, eases, Link doesn’t know the word. But it’s like a fog lifts from his vision, and the path he needs to take is suddenly obvious. Link follows the pull past flowers and stones, over a barely-there path. It guides him through the yawning mouth of a log, and birds softly chirp as he emerges into a familiar clearing.

Fog drifts past his boots as he looks around, and a single shaft of sunlight breaks past the trees, drawing his vision to sparkling blue.

Link exhales, and steps forward, squirrels and other small creatures darting away into the bushes. He steps up onto the small stone platform, and doesn’t move for a long moment, looking at where the Master Sword sits with wisps of fog and sunlight dancing around her. Waiting for him.

“Hey old girl,” Link says softly, and for some reason his throat aches as he rests a hand on her hilt. “Been a while.”

The metal under his skin is both hot and cold, warmed by the sun’s light, and cooled by the stone it rests in. Despite years exposed to the elements, the Master Sword isn’t covered in greenery like it was the first time Link found her. Nor is her shine diminished in the slightest. Her blade is dimmed only because she rests, her power waiting for the next hero who needs her.

Who just happens to be Link again.

A shaking sigh escapes him, and Link puts both of his hands around her hilt, the electrifying hot-and-cold sharp-and-soft thrill of her power zipping through him as he pulls.

The Master Sword slips loose just like it did when he pulled her the first time, and Link raises her to the sky, the fog parting and fading away. The sunlight brightens somehow, making her sparkle and glow, and Link’s throat tightens again.

He hadn’t realized until now how badly he’d missed her.

Link lowers the blade again, running a hand over her cool steel as he studies her, looking over her finer points to familiarize himself with the weapon once again. Something is different, he realizes after a minute or two. And when it finally dawns on him what it is, he holds the Master Sword tighter, almost hugging her.

“I’ve grown,” he says quietly.

The blade fits his size now.

Instead of the still-pudgy hands of a child grasping at her hilt, there’s the worn hands of an adventurer ghosting along the metal, scars catching in her grooves. There’s blood staining his hands now that wasn’t there before, yet she still allowed him to pull her.

“You fit better, now,” he continues, voice shaking a little. “Hopefully this’ll... make things easier.”

His breath hitches, and Link swallows it back, clasping the sacred blade in his arms like one would an old friend.

He squeezes his eyes closed.

“I guess I thought I wouldn’t be doing this again,” Link whispers, ghosting his fingers along the gem in her hilt. “Not... not after the last one.”

Not after what I did.

The metal seems to warm just a hair, like the sunshine got pulled into it, and Link rests his head against the Master Sword, allowing a single drop of saltwater to trail down his cheek.

“Thanks,” he croaks, and the softest, faintest of chimes echoes in his heart.

It’s enough to pull him from the grief that was threatening to swallow him up again, and Link sets aside the weight of an island, and focuses instead on the weight of the sword, and his kingdom.

He’s needed. He can’t get lost in grief.

Link breathes out, running his hand along the steel one more time, and then he gently sheathes her, stepping down from the platform.

“Here we go again old girl,” he says as he steps outside of the clearing, weary with grief, but determined to stop the evil returning yet again.

He closes his eyes.

“One more time.”

A single pure note chimes in his chest, and Link feels something other than grief wrap itself around him, urging him forward to take another step, to press on despite the weight.

It feels a little bit like hope.

#ohhhh this hurts so good #legend greeting the master sword like an old friend: GOOD SHIT #linked universe #lu legend #lu fic #well pre-lu fic #but close enough #relevant op tags: #had sudden intense feelings about legend and the master sword #and if he was dumped into albw events very shortly after koholint (a mean headcanon i have)

[undertheopensky]

#writing thoughts #yeah that's happening today

[undertheopensky]

I recently had surgery, and at the time I came home, I had both my cat and one of my grandma's cats staying with me.

- Within hours of surgery, I wake up from a nap to my cat gently sniffing at my incisions with great alarm.

- I was not allowed to shower the first day after surgery, and the cats, seeing that The Large Cat is not observing its cleaning ritual, decided I must be gravely disabled and compensated by licking all the exposed skin on my arms, face, and legs.

- I currently have to sleep with a pillow over my abdomen because my cat insists on climbing on top of me and covering my incisions with her body while I sleep (which is very sweet but not exactly comfortable without the pillow). She also lays across me facing my bedroom door, presumably on guard for attackers who may try to harm me while I'm sleeping and injured.

That's love. 🐈‍⬛🐈❤️

#lookit those eyes! #cats are assholes #is just my cat tag #i love them so very much #and they love us too #<3

[undertheopensky]

fanfiction is a love letter to the fandom

comments are when that love writes back

#writing thoughts

[undertheopensky]

‘am i Having A Brain Problem or Being a Shithead’: a short procrastination checklist

aka why tf am i procrastinating on The Thing (more like a flowchart, actually)

lots of people who have executive function difficulties worry about whether they’re procrastinating on a task out of laziness/simply wanting to be a jerk or mental struggles. this checklist might help you figure out which it is at any given time! (hint: it’s almost never laziness or being a jerk.) (obligatory disclaimer: this is just what works for me! something different might work better for you.)

1) do I honestly intend to start the task despite my lack of success?

yes: it’s a Brain Problem. next question

no: it’s shitty to say one thing & do another. better be honest with myself & anyone expecting me to do the task.

2) am I fed, watered, well-rested, medicated properly, etc?

yes: next question

no: guess what? this is the real next task

3) does the idea of starting the task make me feel scared or anxious?

yes: Anxiety Brain. identify what’s scaring me first.

no: next question

4) do I know how to start the task?

yes: next question

no: ADHD Brain. time to make an order of operations list.

5) do I have everything I need to start the task?

yes: next question

no: ADHD Brain lying to me about the steps again, dangit. first task is ‘gather the materials’.

6) why am i having a hard time switching from my current task to this new task?

i’m having fun doing what i’m doing: it’s okay to have fun doing a thing! if task is time-sensitive, go to next question.

i have to finish doing what i’m doing: might be ADHD brain. can I actually finish the current task or will I get trapped in a cycle? does this task really need to be finished?

the next task will be boring/boring-er than the current task: ADHD brain. re-think the next task. what would make it exciting? what am I looking forward to?

I might not have enough time to complete the task: ADHD brain wants to finish everything it starts. (if task is time-sensitive, go to next question)

i just want to make the person who asked me to do it angry: sounds like anxiety brain trying to punish itself, because I know I’ll be miserable if someone is angry at me. why do i think I deserve punishment?

no, I seriously want to piss them off: okay, i’m being a shithead

7) have I already procrastinated so badly that I now cannot finish the task in time?

yes: ADHD brain is probably caught in a guilt-perfection cycle. since I can’t have the task done on time, i don’t even want to start.

reality check: having part of a thing done is almost always better than none of a thing done. if I can get an extension, having part of it done will help me keep from stalling out until the extension deadline. i’ll feel better if I at least try to finish it.

no, there’s still a chance to finish on time: ADHD brain thinks that I have all the time in the world, but the truth is I don’t. 

reality check: if i’m having fun doing what I’m doing, I can keep doing it, but I should probably set a timer & ask someone to check on me to make sure I start doing the task later today.

8) I’ve completed the checklist and still don’t know what’s wrong!

probably wasn’t honest enough with myself. take one more look.

if I’m still mystified, ask a friend to help me talk it out.

hope this helps some of you! YOU’RE DOING GREAT SWEETIE DON’T GIVE UP ON YOU

#mental health #how to adult

[undertheopensky]

The devastating difference between how much time it takes to write something vs how fast people read it lol

#writing thoughts

[undertheopensky]

link got tired

#baby <3 #legend of zelda #majora's mask #mm link #mm fierce deity #loz fanart

[undertheopensky]

This was only meant to be my take on the lm Ghirahim’s true form, but it spiralled

Close ups ⤵️

All characters belong to @linked-maze <3

#very cool! #linked maze #lm fanart

[undertheopensky]

The little brother and the little big brother. Who's who is up in the air

#*giggling* #linked universe #lu time #lu wind #lu fanart

[undertheopensky]

More hairstyles for young Time! He’s so cute with flowers in his hair 😊

<< Prev. | Next >>

Time at different ages

#aaaa look at his hair! #i love flowers #legend of zelda #ocarina of time #oot link #loz fanart

[undertheopensky]

MEAN TO HIM!!!

#*bark of laughter* #biology is weird

[undertheopensky]

One of my favorite Zeldatubers gave me a great idea, I just had to draw it Im not sure what happened to my style, not a huge fan of how this turned out but i wanted to show it anyways

#*squeals* #this is so cool #legend of zelda #twilight princess #tp zelda #loz fanart

[undertheopensky]

#Round #cats are assholes

[undertheopensky]

Tears of the something or other idfk

#legend of zelda #tears of the kingdom #tears of the kingdom spoilers #totk spoilers #totk link #very cool #loz fanart

[undertheopensky]

me when i wanna talk about my special interests but i got the vampire autism where you gotta invite me to talk about smth first, otherwise i wont say shit or dont know what to say because i feel like im annoying

#oh shit this is a thing other people experience

[undertheopensky]

whats the deal with proven winners?

okay. so. this is actually how i got into botany in the first place; i got an unpaid internship at a greenhouse in high school and realized, very quickly, that we live in a jurassic park hellscape where big companies breed plants solely for their looks and performance, and i found that so fucking weird that i couldnt get enough of it and fell down the rabbit hole. i don’t find them bad per say; i find them weird and how they manage their product in terms of policing their retailers is very sketchy to me, but they’re not like, monstanto-level off the shits (yet). with mother’s day next weekend we’re coming up on one of the biggest greenhouse/ornamental plant industry sales days of the year, next to valentines’ day (which favors the rose industry especially), so this is an exceptionally convenient time to talk about this. 

proven winners is one of the biggest ornamental plant companies in the united states, possibly the world. you might know them from their patented white flower pots. they’re centered in california (as, actually, a lot of these large flower producers are) and they manage a HUUUUUUGEEE network of giant industrial flower greenhouses. 

like, you have to understand, all garden retailers have to buy their shit from somewhere, and although the centers and local greenhouses selling proven winners stuff are often small and independent (unless ur talking like…flowerama or something), a large portion of the plants themselves, like many things in capitalism, form an industry of their own dominated by a handful of oligarch corporations, of which proven winners is one. small retailers order bulk products from these companies, should it be through full-color paper catalogs (which exist, btw, and are wild in and of themselves to look at; i actually have a few back home that i keep around solely bc they’re incredibly fascinating in a slightly offputting jurassic park kind of way), online, or through a sales representative for their region. 

it depends on what they’re ordering, but they can buy seeds, plugs (the black trays of like….tiny plants you buy at garden centers to put in planters? the ones that come in, like, six packs? those are called ‘plugs’), and in the case of perennials, woody plants of various ages, among other things. these plants are bred, marketed, and sold on a goddamn industrial scale. it’s wild. 

now….this is where it gets absolutely fascinating to me. this isn’t just proven winners, but proven winners is one of the top contenders of this. some highlights of how plants are actually marketed on an industrial scale: 

-plants come out in collections. like, you have horticulturalist designer people who put their names on some stuff and they all go out as like, The New Hot Thing™. 

-they always promote their top selling stuff, and the plants that won awards, and like, the most popular flower arrangements and stuff. this in and of itself, again, isn’t like…..bad, it just feels weird how plants are marketed as objects rather than living things, you know?

-these plants are 100% bred and optimized for their commercial value and how they look. see the above point about how it feels like they’re treating them as objects. 

-every year, there are new plants, which are put at the front of the catalogue and like, show them off as the Hit New Products. these are all part of the year’s collective collection, so like, proven winners has their 2019 collection all ready on their site in a special little tab: 

FUN INDUSTRY SIDE STORY: looks like they have some new orange petunias this year, which reminds me fondly of the 2017 purge ordered by the USDA of a ton of illegally GMO orange petunias….

you see, orange petunias don’t exist naturally, so what companies do is either 1. systematically breed orange into them, which can take years, or 2. take red petunias and just put in some coding for yellow from the maize genome, which makes them orange. usually, you have to submit all this paperwork and go through a ton of government red tape to sell GMOs, including required trials conducted by the federal government, but what some of these large ornamental seed companies were doing was just….not telling the government and just kind of…pretending that they bred them. so in 2017, a netherlands team noticed that these were like….kind of Suspicious™, and started doing some tests….and accidentally uncovered like, this huge international orange petunia scandal across all these companies, over 30 varieties of illegal petunia being sold internationally. they had to alert the actual EU, which then alerted the USDA, who then gave an actual government order for these large companies to literally burn, bury, or otherwise destroy all their industrial stock of the proven illegal GMO orange petunias. 

small retailers who had bought them assuming that they were legal were allowed to keep and continue selling what they bought, but the actual producers were ordered to just fucking. violently destroy everything. the USDA informed these companies that they could sell them again, but only if they were put through the proper government channels and received proper certification. i checked the old recall list and didn’t see these, so i’m assuming they’re like…Legit, but. im 👀 somebody test these lol

AAANNNNYYway that aside, if you would like to see the Proven Winners 2019 Flower Collection Showcase™, they have a bunch of……weird kind of ads on their youtube channel showing artsy pics of their new shit. to this day i can’t pin down exactly what about them makes me feel slightly uncomfortable, but you really do get a sense that they’re selling an object to preform, which i guess is the point, but…idk, it’s just a very different view of plants, i think, then i personally have. very sci-fi-y, if you will. all their ads are like this; these video are essentially very similar to what you get from their print sales booklets, but in video form.

see, last but not least, my biggest beef with proven winners is the weird way they handle their company. 

you get inspected by the plant police.

im not kidding. for those not very familiar with plant reproduction, you can grow vegetative clones of plants through a process called taking cuttings, where you cut off a part of the plant and put it in a new pot under the right conditions, and it develops a root system and becomes a genetic clone to the parent. obviously, anyone can do this with a lot of the proven winners plants, especially because PW plants, as i’ve noticed, tend to be bred to be more vigorous. 

proven winners wants to ensure that there’s no Illegal Plant Downloads taking place, so they literally like….send people out to these small retailers and ask to see their stock to make sure that all the plants are going in the Patented Proven Winners White Pots™ with the Patented Proven Winners Information Tags™. you MUST plant proven winners stuff in the pots they send you, with the instructions they send you, and they will check you for this. the first time my internship mentor ordered from them, they accidentally planted the plugs in generic brown pots instead of the white ones, and the weird proven winners police rolled in unannounced for an inspection and told them that the next time it happened they wouldn’t sell to them anymore. what they’re worried about happening is that the growers will order a small amount and then just make a bunch of cuttings without paying them, and it’s just……weird. like i get why they do it but that’s always struck me as really, really shady lmao

#*laughing* #holy shit #family legends

[undertheopensky]

Ruptured organ anon (that sounds bad I know) but the injury is massive blunt force trauma to the center of the abdomen, which organ would that likely harm and how bad would it be

HA that sounds amazing honestly XD Y’all crack me up

Hmm, ok massive blunt injury to the center of the abdomen, ok.

I’m calling it now, the spleen is probably being its usual sissy self and bleeding. Uhh… maybe some bleeding from the GI tract, just don’t perf it because that’s a hot mess. Liver bruising? Let’s throw that in for fun. :)

The bad thing about the belly is it can fill with a lot of blood and you might not notice it initially - there’s a lot of space in there! Rigidity is a good sign that something is majorly wrong. And brushing, obviously, and tenderness on palpation. But yeah.

How’s that? I feel like a medical angst bartender mixing drinks for y’all. XD The Abdominal Trauma Special?

#*laughing* #medical squick