Rynling R&D

The basic premise of my Modern BotW AU fanfic novel Malice is that Zelda is romanced by one of the Blight Ganons. It's taken a human form for plot-related reasons, and it retains some of the memories and personality of the original Ganondorf, but it's still a big messy scary monster.

While editing An Unfound Door, I wanted to reference how I wrote the Blight Ganon in the first four chapters of Malice, when it's almost completely inhuman. I thought this would be a chore, but I got sucked into the story and ended up reading 50k words of it last night.

The novel is surprisingly good, and that's distressing. I'm afraid that I might have been a much better writer in 2021. It's possible that I might have been a better artist, too. Goddamn it.

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This morning I was doing figure drawing warm-ups (as one does) and the website I was using interrupted its montage of action poses lifted from Senshi Stock to show me this:

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At first I was perturbed to see this lion in the middle of all the lambs. But I figure, if this is how the devil speaks to me, I might as well listen. I bet I can do something really gross and cringe with this pose.

13 Sentinels: Nanomachines sure can fuck a bitch up. Discuss.

Me: Don’t mind if I do.

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That’s not the plot of my Zelgan Breath of the Wild Modern AU story Malice – not by a long shot – but I think this is roughly how I would take the themes of Malice and apply them to an original novel.

It’s a fun story, right? It’s not like I already have two half-finished original novels demanding my attention or anything lmao.

I finished Malice!

Which is to say that the last two chapters are completed and have currently been through two sets of edits. I'm going to wait a few more days to let them sit before I edit them again... maybe. I'd really like to be done with this.

In the meantime, I'm re-editing the chapters in the final story arc, posting them on FFN, and organizing the story tags on AO3. I've also been working on a graphic to put on Tumblr and Twitter, but maybe it's not worth finishing. Like, maybe I don't want to draw attention to myself, or maybe I don't want to face the (very real) possibility of not getting attention at all. Idk idk idk.

For the time being, I'm just happy that I will never have to type the words "Ganondorf's cock" ever again in my life.

I’m currently writing the third-to-last chapter of Malice.

I’ve been working on this novel for a little more than two years, and I think it’s going to weigh in at around 115,000 words, which is a respectable length. Along the way, I’ve put each individual chapter through multiple rounds of editing, responded to hundreds of comments, and commissioned fifteen illustrations. As far as trashy monster romance fanfiction goes, I’ve put a lot of energy into this project.

But it’s difficult. This chapter is the climax of the novel in every way that matters, and I’ve been struggling with how to approach it ever since I came up with the initial concept for the story. I’m not the most talented writer to begin with, and this chapter is especially tricky to write.

Even if I do manage to pull it off, though, it doesn’t matter. I feel like this story never really found a readership, and it’s almost certainly going to be forgotten as soon as it stops updating and gradually falls to the bottom of the tags. And that’s really difficult to process, that even my best work just... isn’t that good, maybe.

I’m not complaining. I mean, I developed my writing and editing skills and met some friends along the way, and that’s amazing. But facing my own lack of success and possible lack of talent every time I sit down to finish this story isn’t easy. In fact, it’s hardcore depression-inducing, and that’s not a joke.

This is why I want to say how much the kudos people leave on this fic mean to me. I see and treasure every single one of them, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that looking forward to emails from AO3 was the only way I was able to get through the relentless horror of the past two years.

It may seem like such a small and insignificant act to leave kudos on a story on AO3, but honestly, it means the world to me – and probably to a lot of other writers as well. It’s wild to say this, but sometimes all it takes is just the simple click of a button to be a hero.

Yesterday was a snow day, so I had a few extra hours to sit at home and do whatever I wanted. I’ve been making slow – but good! – progress on The Demon King and a Bowser/Peach smutfic I’ve been playing around with for a few weeks, and so I let myself start on an outline for a new Zelda/Ganondorf story that I would love to write if I were still writing fanfic. I started writing, and then I kept writing, and... I think I might actually have something interesting on my hands.

What I outlined is a post-BotW Contemporary AU in which Zelda has been hospitalized and medicated throughout her life in order to stop the dreams and voices she’s been experiencing. This aggressive denial of her magical powers causes the seal on Calamity Ganon to weaken and break, and Ganondorf is released back into the world as a barely human monster. He can’t decide whether he wants to fuck or kill Zelda, who initially doesn’t know whether this creature straight out of her nightmares is actually real and becomes convinced that suicide is the only way to deal with the problem.

What I’m interested in is exploring the concept of what would happen to Hyrule if the monarchy didn’t exist. What if the Zelda in Breath of the Wild (rightfully) realized that Ganon is a manifestation of the darkness of the royal family and set up a constitutional democracy in order to appease its hatred? And what if the Sheikah were allowed to develop their technology as they wished without interference or oppression from the royal family? But then what would happen to the magical powers of Zelda’s bloodline, and what would happen to Hylia’s soul? And what would happen in the modern world if something as awful as the Triforce did exist?

Meanwhile, Link is a pure ray of sunshine, because I love him.

I’ve decided to call this hypothetical story “Malice,” but the way I’ve been thinking of it while daydreaming during the past several months is “the Zelgan darkfic.” I love the #wholesome aesthetic, but I’ve also been unapologetically craving darkness recently. I am an adult, and I enjoy complicated horror-themed stories, and hot damn do I love problematic relationships, and the children of Tumblr are just going to have to deal with that.

If I actually end up writing this story, which already has three dozen chapters planned without an end in sight, I am going to block anyone who even remotely vagueposts hate with extreme prejudice. Fuck the haters, seriously. I’m also thinking of commissioning all sorts of illustrations and doing all sorts of art trades, because I am allowed to love my characters! In addition, I want to post speculative meta on Tumblr as I go along, because it’s my blog and I do what I want. And if people get all judgy with me for enjoying my weird gremlin hobby, they can get off Tumblr and, like, go do their taxes or something.

At the same time, I’d like to think about how to file the serial numbers off this story and see where I can go with it. Fanfic is a legitimate artform in and of itself, of course, but I really fucking love books, and I’d like to professionally publish my own someday, you know?

This is an illustration of a scene from the sixteenth chapter of The Legend of the Princess created by Lightsintheskye, who just sent it to me this afternoon! This is the first illustration she drew without having read the chapter first, and she did a marvelous job. At this point neither the illustration nor the chapter itself has been posted... I should probably get to work on that.

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This comic is an illustration of a scene from the sixth chapter of The Legend of the Princess created in July by Lightsintheskye, whose brilliance knows no bounds.

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Although I love all of Lightsintheskye's illustrations, it was this comic that inspired me to step up my own creative efforts in writing this story. Before this, I wasn't taking the fic all that seriously, but after I saw this incredible artwork I could no longer be satisfied with my lazy 1,200-word chapters. Essentially, Lightsintheskye helped me to realize that what I was doing had the potential to become an interesting and meaningful story that's absolutely worth my time and effort. The full-size comic, optimized for Tumblr, can be found (here)!

Since I'm getting ready to write a climactic chapter of The Legend of the Princess before putting the story on hiatus for a few months, I want to put together a series of posts about the incredible illustration work Lightsintheskye has been doing for me.

So far she's completed four illustrations, and I'm going to start with the cover illustration, which she finished in July 2016.

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Lightsintheskye is amazingly talented, and it's been such a pleasure to work with her. The full piece can be found (here)!

I'm working with Lightsintheskye on a series of illustrations for my Zelda/Ganondorf fic The Legend of the Princess. She did the cover illustration a while ago, and yesterday afternoon I posted her illustration for the first story arc.

Despite the incredible quality of her art, the post only got 11 notes.



I was really surprised! I know that this piece will get the attention it deserves when the artist reblogs it later during the peak time for her blog, but I still can't help but wonder why so few people who follow me on Tumblr or track the fandom tags were willing to offer their support for a collaboration like this. (The people who did like or reblog the post are lovely and wonderful and have my eternal gratitude, of course.)

I think this is what it what it means to "create for yourself" - you need to have faith that what you're doing has worth and value, even if it's not something that's immediately recognized by the larger community. Despite the doubts I have regarding my own writing, the artist's talent is readily apparent. Like, what she does is really good, and I'm so lucky to be able to work with her on this project. Even if it's difficult for me to have faith in myself, I can believe in the quality of the artist's work. Along with the artist, I'm creating something interesting and unique and meaningful, and I'm gonna keep going, no matter what...

...if only because the actual process is so much fun. I mean listen, as much as it sucks to get so little positive feedback on Tumblr, I'm not going to complain about how cool it is to get to play around with concept and design sketches like this one of Zelda in fancy princess clothing.

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