my friend just told me that there's a secret second dashboard that solely contains posts from people you've turned on post notifications for, and when i click the link in the messages it opens it within the tumblr app, so the tumblr app also has a secret second dashboard for post notification blogs, and the only way to access it is to open the link for it within the app.
Inspired by my recent love of the Raven Thrower (it looks like a corvid that you chuck at things!)
Also obligatory reminder that it’s the final week on my Bluminarmour fundraiser. If you want to see me test dumb stuff in proper historical armour please consider pitching in and/or sharing!
Blumineck is trying to fun a video series doing fun and serious historical and fantasy testing in fitted plate armour.
when i was younger i had a really bad fear of danny devito when i was going to sleep so my older brother gave me a watch that he set to like 8 hours ahead so that it was always daytime on the watch when i was asleep and he told me it would confuse danny devito and he would think it was daytime and get scared of the sun and leave me alon
once my friend made a drink he called turpentine that tasted like every worst college night out rolled into one and felt like getting whacked in the head with a hammer, and I woke up in my own apartment with my phone wallet keys clothes and absolutely zero memory of the night before, and when I checked my watch I'd walked over 60k steps.
60k steps in the middle of the night in heels for reasons entirely unknown to me. what was I doing. where did I go. where did I come from. cotton eye joe. or whatever.
people are theorizing what happened so here's what I know:
the club we went to closed at 2am and 45kish steps were after 2am, meaning I wasn't still dancing at the club. we got there at 11:30pm. I don't know when we left.
none of us had any charges on our cards or venmos after getting into the club and none of us were missing cash
we all woke up with all our things and no injuries except some bruises (to be expected from a night out)
I woke up smelling like salt water which would make me think I'd ended up in the ocean(??) except my hair was still straight, none of my things were water damaged, and I was completely dry
from our camera rolls we know we were all together until around 4am, but not where we were because they're all too dark to see, which is fucking weird because we live in a city with tons of lights all night
I didn't wake my roommates up when coming home, managed to take out my contacts, cooked mac n cheese, and passed out on the living room floor
me and everyone else who'd been wearing heels had crazy blisters
my friend found a bunch of rocks in his pockets
two of my guy friends were wearing each other's shirts when they woke up (in their separate apartments)
we all got back to our apartments around 6am which we know for a fact because we all texted pictures of ourselves being home safe to the group chat, so being unbelievably hammered didn't stop us from having enough common sense to make sure we were all okay
if we'd been able to sherlock holmes together what happened it'd just be a funny night out but the fact we all have no fucking clue means we have conspiracy theories about it. and we don't let my friend make turpentine anymore.
Fun fact: due to the ongoing financial support from the people of tumblr, critically endangered pygmy raccoons being rehabbed in Cozumel are now able to get vaccines for deadly diseases like distemper and rabies before they are released.
This part wasn’t nearly as long in my outline— as I’ve written these recent chapters they’ve just gotten longer and longer... But I figure nobody’s complaining about more fic, right? And Link needed some time to crash out before he could do anything else game-plot relevant lol.
(Violence/injury warning for this chapter, but it’s nothing too graphic)
Ao3 link
First | Previous | Next (next week)
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Shrines.
He just needs more shrines.
Link urges his horse across Hyrule Field, the last dying rays of the sun playing off the blades of grass. They ripple as he streaks past, and he mindlessly lets his ride choose where to go. Maybe she’ll find a shrine he’s missed here. He’s pretty sure he has them all in this area, but it’s good to check. His sensor isn’t perfect.
He blinks a few times, glad of the cool wind whipping past and keeping him awake. He hasn’t bothered sleeping lately. It’s just a waste of time, his rest constantly restless and packed with alarming dreams. And anyway, what he really needs is more shrines. Lights of blessing. He hasn’t found nearly enough, his progress slow and frustrating, and he sharply nudges his horse again to get her going faster.
A distant sound rings through the evening over the sound of the wind, and Link turns towards it, narrowing his eyes. It’s the fort of monsters at the foot of the central skyview tower. He’s cleared them out before, but there’s been blood moons since.
Link nudges his horse that way, a fire zipping through his veins. He’s been taking detours to clear out monsters, grief pounding in his skull that only seems to grow. Searching for shrines is frustrating and sometimes entirely unfruitful, but killing monsters is easy. It always has been.
Right now it’s easier than ever.
They’re minions of the Demon King, connected to him, in some sense. Even if Ganondorf isn’t aware of him slaying monsters, there’s a vicious satisfaction Link gets from destroying even a part of what took his family from him. Even if they come back next blood moon. He’s killed three different groups in the last couple hours alone, and almost doesn’t mind the ache in his limbs. It makes him feel a little less dead.
Link leaves his horse at a nice safe distance, and uses Ascend to end up right on an upper platform of the fort. He quickly crouches, surveying the scene. Six blue bokoblins, two silver, a moblin that’s so dirty the color is hard to make out, and the boss.
No problem. He can take them, easy.
He doesn’t hesitate before jumping off the platform, and time slows, giving him opportunity to loose dozens of arrows on the unsuspecting monsters’ heads. He kills three before he even hits the ground, and the monsters howl in outrage.
Link yells back at them in challenge, and they rush him, the boss bokoblin still waking up.
He slices through them like butter, leaping and twisting and dodging. His heart pounds, adrenaline helping him along, and the fog in his mind briefly clears as he falls easily into the rhythm of battle.
Slice, dodge, swing, duck.
The rings on Rauru’s hand warm slightly, but Link doesn’t summon the sages’ avatars. Their silent stares remind him too much of Zelda. He fights alone.
All the blues are dead. One silver down.
More screeches ring in the cooling air as beast after beast falls. Monster blood stains his boots. The moblin charges him, but Link spins to the side, and takes it down with several chops of his sword.
Mere moments later, Link is the only thing alive in the fort. All except for the—
He flattens himself to the ground as a boulder is launched right past where he stands.
Link gets back to his feet with a glare, the boss bokoblin hefting up another huge rock, and it sneers at him, giant tongue licking its lips. He races forward, his vision narrowing, and starts battering at the horrible beast.
He’s vicious and merciless, and strikes like death itself, dodging, slicing, easily outmaneuvering. The boss bokoblin stumbles at the onslaught, trying in vain to hit him, and Link smiles bitterly. It doesn’t have a chance.
Soon enough it’s nearly dead, but it’s angry too, nearly hitting him a few times. Link dodges a swing, and ascends up to another platform. He quickly fuses the large spike ball sitting nearby to a club, the boss bokoblin looking around in confusion for where he went.
Link winds back, and throws the club right at its head.
The boss bokoblin bellows, and is dead before it hits the ground, a purple-blooded mess as it explodes into smoke. Link exhales.
He’s done.
The thrum of battle fades, adrenaline gives way to fatigue, exhaustion sweeping over him like an ocean wave. He just stands there a moment, leaning heavily against a wooden support as he slowly blinks. It’s a victory, but he doesn’t feel anything but hollowness.
He glances at the sky, but there’s no sign of any dragons.
Silver moonlight soon glints off the monsters’ weapons, the sun set and moon risen, and Link manages to push himself up and blearily gather what supplies are still useable, then walk out to his horse. She’s nibbling primly on the grass, and he just slumps against her a moment, his mind a thick soup of grief and weariness.
He wants to lie down and never get up. He wants someone else to carry this burden.
He wants Zelda back.
Goddesses he just wants her back.
Link rubs his eyes, then wipes his damp fingers on his shirt as he takes in a shaky breath.
Shrines. He just needs to get more shrines.
He moves to mount his horse, but his arm decides to ache then, sharply, and he aborts the movement, grunting and kneading the shoulder where his own flesh melds with Rauru’s. It rarely helps much, but it’s something. Another ache throbs through it, and Link grimaces, kneading harder. Why is the arm suddenly being problematic? Usually it only hurts this much if he’s pushed it too far, or if he’s near an especially thick concentration of—
A chorus of screams rings through the night, and Link’s horse rears, then bolts in terror. Link stumbles with the loss of support, and he stares up at the sky, now stained bright red.
Oh no.
He whirls around, and a mass of reddish, sinuous hands stretch up from the ground. Yellow eyes blaze, and they scream again as they face towards him.
Gloom hands.
There aren’t supposed to be any in this area—!
One lunges forward, and Link barely manages to avoid being grabbed, though his foot slips on the grass and he rolls down a small incline. He goes sprawling, some of his gear knocked loose, but he doesn’t have time to gather it, the hands rapidly advancing.
He grits his teeth, and yells as he rolls onto his back and fumbles for his weapon, his arm aching, head cottony. He slices at the first hand that lunges for him, and it reels back with a screech, giving him enough time to lurch to his feet.
A different one lurches back as he strikes it, but he can’t press his advantage when another quickly snatches at him.
Its fingernails scrape his shoulder, the burn of gloom making him instinctively jerk away, and he backtracks a few steps, head spinning as he stumbles. Gloom shouldn’t instantly affect him so hard, why is he dizzy? Why does he feel so sick?
...When was the last time he ate anything? Or slept?
He shakes his head and steels himself. It doesn’t matter. I’ve beaten these before, I can beat them now.
He pulls back enough to shoot some arrows, and nails two of the eyes leering at him. The hands they’re connected to lurch back, and he hurries forward and slashes at the others, feeling pleased as one hand falls dead.
Unfortunately, that’s when one comes from behind and manages to grab him.
Link cries out, struggling as the boney fingers squeeze him, and his cry cuts off into a wheeze. His ribs creak, pain searing across them, blood roaring in his ears. The Gloom gets worse with prolonged contact, wearing away what strength he has left, burning and burning—
Link lets out a hoarse yell, and kicks and claws and struggles for freedom like a rabbit in a trap, ignoring the pain and thrashing madly to escape. The gloom is wearing him away more by the second, but he finally tears himself free, and throws a bomb flower into the middle of the spray of hands, a screech and explosion ringing into the night.
Link gasps for breath as he pulls his bow out again, and he shoots arrows as fast as he can at the hands, his arms shaking from gloom sickness, the edges of his vision dim.
He lost the Purah Pad when he was struck earlier. The grass around him is long, and he doesn’t have the time or strength to waste searching for it to teleport away with. His horse ran too far for him to catch up to her without being caught, and even the monster fort is too far for him to run to.
He’s stuck in this fight. And too exhausted to think of any better options.
Bombs and eyes and plants and whatever else he grabs from his pack get attached to the arrows, and more hands fall, Link breathing with short, quick, gasps. He gets grabbed again, and somehow thrashes free, but lands right in the puddle of gloom below, and cries out from the intensity of it. Some of the hands grow back out of the gloom as he drags himself out of it, but Link just keeps throwing things at them, barely thinking, just acting on the pure, unfiltered instinct to survive.
And somehow, finally, all the hands melt away.
Link stares from where he’s half-collapsed on the ground, trembling as he watches the puddle of remaining gloom, and his next breath comes out as more of a whimper.
Phantom Ganon erupts from the gloom, a club held in his skeletal hands, and Link clutches his bow. Normally fighting the phantom Ganons isn’t all that hard. Their movements lurch and sway, and they don’t fully react like a person would. In fact, the hands are often a harder fight.
But that’s when Link can actually think straight, and his body doesn’t feel like it’s going to give out on him at any moment. He’s running on fumes, and now this...
He draws his sword and takes as deep a breath as he can with his aching chest.
He has no other options. He has to fight.
The phantom rushes forward in that strange way where it merely sweeps across the ground, and Link dodges the swing of its club, barely. He lucked out in that regard at least— the club is the slowest weapon that can appear.
Link half-stumbles half-ducks under another swing, and slashes his sword it across the creature’s back a few times. It leers at him, reminding him of the day in the castle when he’d finally confronted the puppet of Zelda, and a spurt of anger gives Link enough strength to dodge another attack.
The gloom is still wearing him away, his arm still burns, his legs still barely hold him up. But he can’t die here.
That’s not an option.
The club grazes his side and the pain and gloom make Link gasp. He claws his way past the pain and uses the momentum to twist around and gouge his sword deep into the monster’s shoulder.
It looks at him in fury and tosses him free, but Link gets back up with trembling hands, and lurches forward to keep fighting.
His head buzzes, his ribs ache. He steps in gloom and more of his strength is leeched away, wearing him down to dangerous levels.
But he keeps going. Keeps moving.
Slash.
Dodge.
Hit, pain— no, ignore it—
Burning—
Keep fighting.
Keep fighting—
He dodges a swing, swipes blood off his face, then races through the gloom to bury his sword in the creature’s neck.
It collapses into gloom with a moan, and finally disappears.
Link watches the gloom slough away, blinking hard. He’s standing, barely, trembling so violently he can’t see straight. The sky returns to a dark blue, and the moon regains its normal color.
Blood still trickles from his lip.
Link blinks again, and wipes his mouth with the back of his glove, staring at the red stained there. He nearly died. The gloom sucked away so much of him, made his endless exhaustion worse, he’s injured and bloody...
He almost failed Zelda.
He almost made her sacrifice worth nothing.
Link’s breath hitches, and he lurches over and throws up.
He leans on his sword, retching pitifully into the grass (there’s nothing in his stomach to lose), and when he’s done, he stares blankly out into the night, swaying and dizzy and sick and grieved.
Then the Gloom and everything else fully takes its toll, and he collapses.
(...)
Lookout Landing has grown a bit since Impa was last here.
The rising moon lights up the people spread around the area below, sparring, talking, laughing together. It’s a pleasant evening, and despite the looming threat hanging over their heads, people are out enjoying it. A small Goron rolls by, and Rito fly above the heads of some Gerudo and Zora having what looks like an animated discussion about their spears as they eat their evening meal.
Impa watches it all from above, on the platform next to Purah’s lab, and smiles to herself. It does her good to see all the peoples of Hyrule working so closely together— it gives her hope that perhaps this latest crisis has a chance of being resolved.
If only the price hadn’t already been so high.
Her smiles fades, and Impa sighs, quietly. She’s on her way to the forgotten temple, having spent the last few weeks in Kakariko. She’d dug up everything she possibly could on draconification, any old tomes, records, stories. Kakariko holds nothing else that she can decipher though, so she’s heading back to the Forgotten Temple, in hopes that something there will give her a clue. She’d only stopped here to rest overnight, and compare notes with Purah, to see if she’d discovered anything herself.
“Hey, sis.”
Speaking of...
Impa turns at the voice, and sees Purah leaning against the wall of her workshop, her tools set aside for the evening. Her face is level, but Impa knows her sister well enough to tell that she’s worried.
Impa nods in greeting, and Purah steps out and joins her at the railing. They watch the people below for a while, the numbers beginning to thin as the evening fades more fully to night, and Impa looks at her sister. Her brows are still pinched, her shoulders tense, and she’s fidgeting repetitively with a folded up fan.
“What is on your mind, Purah?” Impa asks, even though she has a feeling she already knows the answer.
Purah shrugs. “The usual. I’m reverse engineering a few pieces of Zonai tech, but I haven’t been able to replicate practically any of it. It’s so different from ours, there’s elements that I can’t figure out no matter how much I take them apart, no idea how they run or what powers them,” she huffs. “Do you know how frustrating it’s been?”
Impa raises an eyebrow. “I’m guessing very. But... is that all on your mind?”
Purah blinks. “Well...”
Impa gestures for her to continue, and Purah hesitates, then sighs.
“I’m... concerned about Link,” she admits, adjusting her glasses. “He’s been off ever since the Upheaval, but lately he’s been like a ghost. He gets thinner every time I see him, and he’s awfully snappy when he talks. Riju and Teba have both contacted me because they tried to talk to him, and he basically fled as soon as he could.”
“He is grieving,” Impa reminds her quietly. “Being Hyrule’s hero does not make him immune to such emotions.”
“I know that, but can’t we do anything for him? I haven’t actually seen him in ages, and knowing Link, he’s probably avoiding any civilization on purpose.”
Impa sighs. “...You’re aware of the full scope of the situation, yes?”
Purah glances upward. “Yeah. He told me about Zelda and being married, and I pried the rest with the baby out. Zelda...” her voice falters a little, but she swallows and fixes it. “I still can’t believe it’s her. Them.”
“I as well,” Impa says softly. “A part of me refuses to believe it.”
Silence falls between the two sisters, and Impa rests her hands on her cane, letting out a quiet sigh. Would that she were younger, and could take some of this burden from her friends. A hundred years spent waiting and surviving, and now that Hyrule is threatened once again, all she can do is study and pray.
“Have you found anything on restoring them?” Purah asks after several minutes.
Impa shakes her head. “No. Any literature I’ve found with the term merely mentions the forbidden act, and how reversal is impossible. But I’m sure there must be something out there I haven’t found yet. Tauro has been a great help, and I’m hopeful we can find something.”
“Well I’m glad you’re feeling hopeful,” Purah sighs. “...I have a few older books back at the lab. I’ll contact Robbie and have him send them over.”
“Thank you,” Impa says with a smile.
“Anything for my little sister.”
They look out in silence again, and watch as the moon slowly rises, patches of stars blotted out by the island high above their heads. Night fully encompasses Hyrule, creatures settling down, and Purah rests her elbows on the railing as crickets chirp.
“It doesn’t seem fair,” she says in an almost petulant way. “That Zelda would have to do this.”
“I agree,” Impa murmurs. “To be driven to such a desperate choice... it seems a cruel end for someone who’s already suffered so much on behalf of Hyrule.”
“Right? You’d think the Zonai with all their fancy technology could’ve done something to prevent it. Found some genius solution. Couldn’t they have rigged something to power the Master Sword that wasn’t Zelda? Why did the pregnant lady have to make that sacrifice?” Purah snaps.
Impa looks at her sister in surprise, Purah’s face lightly flushed, but then she droops with a sigh.
“I know, I’m being harsh. I’m sure they tried. It’s just... not fair. Especially for Link,” she says more quietly, and Impa nods, grief like a shawl settling over her.
Link had been eerily blank when he’d told her what he’d learned of Zelda’s fate, his voice quiet and clipped like he was just giving her a report. He’d only briefly cracked when he’d told her about the baby dragon, an entire ocean of grief behind his eyes, but he’d hidden it again, then left shortly after. It reminded her of how he’d been before the Calamity. Silent and stressed, being crushed under the weight piled on his shoulders— except now the weight was one of a different sort. One Impa never wished to share with him.
“What do we do about him?” Purah asks. “The guy’s a mess, and all of Hyrule is counting on him. I wish it wasn’t, but the truth is he and the sages are really our only hope.”
“We pray,” Impa says, and closes her eyes. “For his safety and well-being. We give him support where we can, and space when he needs it. We treat him the same way we would treat anyone who’s grieving a loss of this degree. And... we work towards hopefully restoring his family.”
“Do you really believe it’s possible, Impa?” Purah murmurs. “Everything we’ve found has said reversing it can’t be done.”
“I never took you to be a pessimist, Purah,” Impa says in amusement, and her sister grimaces.
“I’m just trying to be realistic. We have to prepare for the worst, don’t we?”
Impa’s shoulders slump, and keeping her head up is suddenly hard. “We do.” And she will, but she’d prefer not to.
There must be a way. Somehow, somewhere, there must be a method to reverse draconification, for Zelda and her child. She has to hold out hope for that.
They deserve to be reunited. All three of them. And she’ll work the rest of her life looking for a way to make that happen if she has to.
Purah nods, and taps her fingers. “Have you... thought about what it means if it’s truly irreversible?”
“...How so?”
“Well... Link is Zelda’s husband, and with her... gone, that means he’s basically the closest thing to royalty we’ve got right now,” she says slowly. “By marriage, yes, but... if Zelda doesn’t come back, someone has to be in charge.”
Impa exhales slowly. The thought has crossed her mind. But Link...
“Could we not find someone else?” she says wearily, and Purah snorts.
“Got anyone in mind? I’m not going to do it, and you certainly aren’t. If we all survive this, Hyrule is going to need to be unified, Impa. They’ll need a leader for that, and as much as I’d hate to put Link in that role, he might not have a choice.”
“We’ll cross that bridge if we get to it,” Impa decides heavily. “We haven’t exhausted possibilities of getting Zelda back. Destroying the Demon King is our priority— the issue of Hyrule’s leadership can wait until that threat is resolved.”
And Link doesn’t need one more thing resting on his shoulders right now.
Purah merely nods, and they watch the settlement again, the plaza getting less and less busy as the hour begins to grow late. Impa grows tired— she often finds herself needing sleep earlier these days, but she’s loathe to go to bed yet, something unsettled inside of her. It’s like she needs to be awake right now.
She wonders if Zelda sleeps. Or the baby. What is it like for them up there? Do they need anything earthly, food or drink? Are they like plants, that gather the sunlight and rain and subsist off of that? Or does something else fuel them entirely?
So many questions, she thinks, and sighs to herself as she briefly closes her eyes. So much we don’t know.
So much to grieve.
A noise comes from below, then, one that’s distant, but still breaks the relative silence of the night. Impa reopens her eyes and sees there’s a fuss at one of the entrances of the fort, people rushing around. It’s probably the monster crew that left earlier in the afternoon, but Purah tenses up, and pulls her strange goggles over her eyes to better see.
It’s dark enough that Impa can’t see much from here, but it looks something like a group of people carrying someone, injured from the fight probably, but in the moonlight the figure almost looks like...
“Link!” Purah exclaims, and she bolts off down the stairs.
Impa hurriedly follows, though she once again curses her old age as her speed suffers quite a bit. She makes it to the group as they reach the center of the landing, and joins Purah’s side as several people help carry in another.
She sucks in a breath.
It is Link, looking like he’s been through a war, laid out on a makeshift stretcher. She hurries forward and tilts her hat up, and looks down at him in dismay.
Link is pale and bloodied, his tunic lightly charred. He’s obviously been in a hard fight, but he looks worse even beyond that, his appearance ragged, dark, dark circles under his eyes that look like bruises.
He’s not moving.
“Good heavens, what happened to him?!” Impa says in alarm, and one of the guards, Scorpis she believes, looks at her.
“Monster crew found him out in the field, one of them said they saw him fighting those nasty Gloom Hands,” he reports quickly. “They went out to help, but he’d already beaten them, or chased them away or something. They found him just collapsed like this.”
“His head doesn’t look injured... why is he unconscious?” Dorian asks from where he’s joined Impa’s side, and Purah hums darkly.
“Gloom sickness. Bad,” she says as she looks at Link and feels his forehead and pinches his skin. A frown pulls at her mouth. “...And if I’m not mistaken, some plain old-fashioned exhaustion. Possibly some malnourishment.”
“Malnourishment?” a little Goron asks, his eyes wide. “Is that a Hylian thing, goro?”
“It’s not just a Hylian thing. It means someone isn’t eating enough,” a Zora explains helpfully.
“Link not eating?” Impa murmurs, and Purah sets her jaw.
“Not on my watch. Come on, let’s get him settled somewhere and wrap those injuries. Even if he was awake, I doubt he’d keep down a potion with how sick he looks.”
The group nods, and somehow they manage to lower Link into the emergency shelter, and get him settled on a bed. Impa can’t help much with moving him, so she merely watches as Purah and a few others help get his clothes off, then start cleaning him up. Link really is a mess, and Impa studies him with a pit in her stomach, her worry heavy and sharp.
It’s obvious he hasn’t been taking care of himself. She sees it in the hollowness of his cheeks, in the dirt on his skin, greasy hair and multiple older injuries scattered across him, barely tended to. It almost reminds her of when he’d first stumbled into Kalariko after waking up from the shrine, confused and more than a bit ill-looking.
But that had been due to unfamiliarity, and remaining effects of the shrine. Not neglect.
“Oh Link,” she sighs as they clean and wrap and get him as comfortable as they can. “What are we going to do with you?”
Link, soundly unconscious, doesn’t reply.
Impa remains in the area and offers advice or assistance when asked as they tend to him, soothing burns, patching cuts. The most Link ever does in response is twitch a little, but otherwise he remains limp and unresponsive throughout their care. It’s past midnight when they finish, the most severe injuries carefully packed and patched, and Purah, hands bloody, steps back.
“I wanted to see him again, but this isn’t really what I meant,” she grumbles, wiping her hands on a towel. Her voice is annoyed, but Impa can hear the alarm and worry buried in it. “Goddesses, it’s like he was getting hurt on purpose.”
She pauses.
“...You don’t think he was, do you?”
“I think he’s being reckless,” Impa replies, studying him. “Though I can’t say for certain. Grief is a strange beast, Purah. And Link has been fighting it alone.”
“He shouldn’t have to,” Purah says quietly, her nose wrinkled. There’s a glint in her eyes though, and as she adjusts her glasses, Impa raises an eyebrow.
“I know that look. Do you have an idea?”
“Sort of,” Purah says, and holds up the pad she must have taken from Link.
Impa looks at her in interest, and Purah opens the map, the glow softly lighting both their faces.
cheetah in House perfec t size for put inside! inside very Soft and Comfort cheetah sleep soundly put cheetah in House. Put Cheetah In House. no problems ever in cheetah in ho use because good Happy and Satisfy for human where sleep. House yes a place for a cheetah put cheetah in house can trust cheetah for giveing good love to humans in house. friend cheetah
I mean, as someone who as worked in a zoo, this is fairly true.
Obvious disclaimer that you shouldn't have wild animals as pets.
But like, cheetahs are the only large cats that keepers will do free contact with. Hell, even most small cats don't get free contact. (Because small cats can be VICIOUS. They'll have a baby pallas cat wearing thicker gloves than when handling an owl. Because small cats can just be vicious.)
Like I think the only other cat at our zoo where I've seen free contact with was servals? Because I know they've used servals in shows to demonstrate their natural jumping ability. But I know servals can sometimes have a mean temper as well. Meanwhile they'll do the cheetah run and afterwards put the mic by the cheetahs and it's just like an engine with them purring. It's fascinating to watch when the message in every other large animal is "no free contact because it's dangerous even when they're born in captivity".
Legit if any wild animal could be adapted to a pet it would be cheetahs lmao. Only problem is they can be skittish and very anxious and that's why they're often raised around dogs in zoos to gain confidence.
One thing I keep coming back to about TMBD is how profoundly anti-cynical it actually is.
Cynicism says: everything is systems, systems are corrupt, therefore individual actions are ultimately meaningless or absorbed.
Murderbot’s world absolutely agrees with the first two parts. The systems are corrupt. Corporations are violent. People get reduced to functions, assets, liabilities.
But it refuses the conclusion. Like yeah I’m a person living in this hell also known as the Corporation Rim and UGH those corporates are total bastards but what am I supposed to do about it anyways—NO. I’ll do something. Anything. Also, no, I don’t operate from a belief that things are fundamentally good, or that institutions will improve, or that justice is inevitable. Those are irrelevant. Instead, my ethics are local, immediate, and situational:
“This person is in danger.”
“I can prevent this harm.”
“If I don’t act, this will get worse.”
And then I act. That’s it. No grand moral architecture required. That’s Murderbot for you.
What makes it anti-cynical is that it never converts systemic awareness into withdrawal. It stays fully aware that the system is broken, while still treating individual moments of care, protection, and intervention as real and meaningful in themselves.
And I think this is where it diverges from a lot of other contemporary “capitalism hell” narratives. In many of them, systemic clarity tends to collapse into paralysis, fragmentation, or withdrawal—an understanding of how totalizing the system is becomes emotionally and narratively disabling.
Murderbot does something different. It holds both truths at once: that the system is overwhelming, and that action within it is still possible and meaningful, even if only locally, even if only temporarily.
And I think that’s why The Murderbot Diaries hits so differently.
I'm just saying, if you're going to worldbuild magic being a "raw, primal force, akin to and interweaving with nature itself" you gotta explain to me why animals don't use it
I know the normal answer is "they just aren't smart enough for it" but idk I've seen enough media where a character uses a spell in a moment of brain-off panic ilI feel like animals could probably stumble into a spell or two like, accidentally
group of wizards who ask this in-universe, and after extensive study learn to their surprise that animals are casting spells all the time, just that their magic is so fundamental as to be unrecognizable to humans. turns out the only reason acorns grow on trees is because squirrels keep wishing for them.
If anyone is ever training you to replace them in a position and tells you 'its an easy job I don't do much' what this means is that you are about to spend six months to a year catching up on all the stuff they didn't do and sorting out the stuff they did poorly.
In related news I finally managed to finish un fucking my predecessor's lack of a filing system.
Apparently this post is wildly Jon from Magnus Archives coded but I regret to inform everyone that there were no weird sketchy paranormal occurences. There were only ten banker boxes full of unsorted training records, incident reports, uniform recipts, daily activity reports, and similar quite ordinary and boring paperwork. There have been zero flesh worms or NotEntities. I did find a stash of paper clips in one box under the papers but that's it.
