Happy 35th!

 This Monday I'm celebrating a belated Happy 35th Birthday to the Legend of Zelda. These games shaped me and comforted me. While they don't do much shaping anymore, they still comfort me. A Link to the Past is my go to game on a bad day. In fact, I just beat it again the other day! What's your favorite game? Do you adore Zelda? Is there a favorite one?


In honor of the anniversary I made a series of 8 3.5x5 cards of some of the different Links (granted this is not all of them!). They sold pretty quickly so I sent them to their new home over the weekend, but I'm glad to have made them. I'm glad they're going somewhere to be loved. All cards were made with copic markers, copic ink, and washi tape! They are then laminated to prevent any damage. (If you're interested in one, shoot me a message. Of course, these are sold, but you can always order a specific one to be remade or one of your own character.)

Last week we talked about Tolkien and the world creation process. Since then I have almost finished reading The Fall of Gondolin. Gondolin is my favorite city in the Tolkien-verse. There's just something mystical about it. World building is one of those things that I think Tolkien did so magnificently. He's a real inspiration in that respect. Bless Christopher's heart for giving us all this content over the many years. The way that things wrap up in a satisfying way- it's just wonderful. Everything has meaning, nothing is done just for the sake of "shock" or "murder". It's all got a root, a cause, a story. If I could someday be even an iota as satisfying a writer, I would be happy.

Still curious to know how you world create! I think in the coming weeks we'll do some world creation related exercises, yeah? Yeah.

Set your timers and get writing! It's time for today's writing prompt:

A Red Carpet

His head spun and around him the air was filled with the stink of mildew and rot. Lifting his head was a chore, the aura of dizziness weighing down his limbs. Slowly he pushed to his knees and searched but the world wouldn’t come into focus.

Red.

Blinking his eyes shut he couldn’t suppress the pain in his head, down his neck. Brushing her fingers through his white hair he felt the lump at the back, a gash in the middle spreading down the back of his neck and his body radiated like fire beneath his tender fingers. He forced focus. Sleep, as much as he desired it, was not an option.

The red was less red and more a murky maroon, faded with the passage of time. Fabric was torn at the sides but led before him down an endless hallway. He couldn’t see where it ended before him and when he turned, he caught a glimpse of the same behind him before his whole world spun in a circle. There were doors on either side of him and then a few feet down the hall in both directions, there was another set of doors.

They reminded him of an old hotel but that was impossible. Hotels were never this large and even the very largest, he would have seen the end. He stumbled to his feet, using the wall as support. It was sticky with rot beneath his fingertips. The wallpaper, a pale yellowish, perhaps once white, with the outline of some flowers he didn’t recognize decorating it, was peeling near the top, the edges blackened as though fire had ravaged the hall ages ago.

The paint on the ceiling was darkened, cracked, and bubbling in some places. The bubbles and burning looked both ancient and recent and he swore beneath his breath at the pain that radiated through his face while he searched his surroundings.

Then the stench worsened. The fire that he had pictured in his mind had been given life and the smell of burnt added to the stench of decay, filling his nostrils with misery and his stomach with sickness. The pit there only grew deeper, and he was suddenly afraid. How had he gotten there? Where was there?

The place was a mystery, and he was both afraid and desperate for the truth of it. Slowly he stumbled along the once red carpet. Carefully he reached into his pocket and was thankful for the old pen that he found there. He’d carried one with him everywhere just in case. There had been an occasion where he’d run into his favorite actor and hadn’t had anything to sign with. Now he was more grateful for that misstep than ever.

“Thanks, Brad.” He muttered and pulling off the cap with his teeth, he marked a check on the wall. Sure, it was defacing property, but he would happily pay for the damages the pen had done. That was nothing in comparison to what time and fire had done to this mystery of a place.

His head was splitting and now he could feel the trickle of a warm liquid down the back of his neck. He wiped.

Red.

Did anyone else go on a wild journey for ten minutes? Wow. I hope this guy's okay.


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