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merriclo · 1 year

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@majoraspades you asked for wip #17 so here ya go!! this one’s abt two Links from my au: Lorule and Oracle. they’re having a talk abt trans stuff. it doesn’t escape me that this is the first bit of writing that y’all are getting abt these guys which is kind of crazy, but eh ahsjkds it’s whatever here y’all go <3

context y’all might need: Oracle is a trans man, but he’s closeted and only out to Lorule, who’s genderfluid. Lo and Ravio are married for “tax benefits.” Oracle lives at the castle with his Zelda and acts as her lady-in-waiting, guard, advisor, etc. Basically they’re just really good friends who are kind of attached at the hip and find every way to spend more time together.

content warnings: very brief/vague descriptions of pain and injuries, dealing with dysphoria

…

Lorule shifted uncomfortably, trying to ignore how the medical gauze rumpled under his ribs, or how his sweat-slicked bangs stuck to his forehead, or how horrible he looked.

He was happy to be home, at least. Hylia had been nice enough to set the portal’s opening to right in front of his house after he got halfway mauled by a bokoblin.

Okay, so he was being a bit dramatic. The wounds weren’t horrible (he hadn’t even needed stitches,) but they were bad enough that Wild had sentenced him to the couch, and his head cold only prolonged his stay.

Sighing, Lorule glanced over at Oracle who was stationed in the green armchair, all curled up with a book in his lap. When Wild asked for someone to stay and watch over the ill, he was the first to volunteer, to the surprise of several. Lorule wasn’t sure if he was actually worried about him, or if he just walked to sit down for a while.

Lorule watch them as they fiddled with a ribbon and bit his cheek absentmindedly. The older hero grimaced.

“Stop chewing up you’re cheek,” he said, voice too hoarse to be properly demanding.

Oracle’s eyes snapped up, filling with a familiar snark as they stared at him through their eyelashes. “Not even bleeding out will stop you from fretting, huh?”

Lorule huffed and tucked some hair behind their ear. “I am not bleeding out.”

“Anymore.”

He shot him a glare, though the mix of pain and sickness made it a lot harder to be mad. “The moment Wild gets back, I’m telling them to scold you for chewing again.”

“And I’ll tell them to scold you for not relaxing!”

“I am relaxing!”

Now it was Oracle’s turn to glare at him, though his had much more edge than Lorule’s did. “Liar.”

He scoffed and suddenly became very interested in both the wood and avoiding the wizard’s harsh gaze at all costs. Oracle didn’t make eye contact often, but when they did it was sharp enough to cut, especially when they were right about something.

And, annoyingly, they were definitely right. Lorule had yet to fully lay down or let their hair loose or even change into something more comfortable. It was a miracle Oracle was able to get him to take his binder off, though Lorule’s compliance was more out of fear of Ravio than Oracle. His husband wouldn’t be too happy catching him breaking house rule #7: no binding when badly wounded.

“Just stop chewing your cheek.”

Lorule looked back up at them and, sure enough, they had stopped gnawing at their cheek. He noticed for a moment how long their hair was, even if it was pulled back in the worlds shittiest ponytail.

“Who taught you how to do your hair?” he asked before he could stop himself. Had they not been both ill and injured they would’ve tried to have a little more class, though when they saw Oracle go rigid they regretted saying anything at all.

“Uhm… I did.” their voice got quiet, replacing any spunk they had before with defensiveness. “Why?”

A pang of guilt hit Lorule’s stomach, right next to the scratches in his flesh. He shifted again, and some of hair fell loose from behind his hair. “Oh, well, it just looks a little uncomfortable,” he floundered, trying to justify his words and make them less bitter. He really had to stop prying into other people’s sense of style, even if it really did look uncomfortable.

Oracle’s shoulders loosened a bit and he tilted his head up, looking in Lo’s direction but not quite at him. “Does it?”

Oh, thank Hylia, it worked. He didn’t offend him.

Lorule cleared his throat nervously, then winced at how it accentuated the burning from the nasal drainage. “Yeah, does it pull at your hair?”

He nodded.

“I can help fix that! Here, c’mere.” Lorule patted the cushion next to him, pulling their legs off of it as much as they could without any pain. Oracle obliged, albeit a bit reluctantly. Their position must’ve been comfortable despite how unbearable it looked. That, or they were hesitant to let a sick person do their hair.

Lorule repositioned themself again and loosened the blue ribbon in Oracle’s hair. It was sweet how he wore his Zelda’s favorite color so often, they really were adorably close. Oracle’s hair slipped from its confinement, falling against his back in a long, pink curtain.

Seeing it up close, Lorule finally understood just how fucked up the kid’s hair was. Didn’t he work in castle? Surely, his Zelda wouldn’t allow her right hand man to go around with such a scraggly haircut?

He had to bite his tongue to stop from asking. Really, he had to get his nose out of other people’s business. He remembered so clearly how it felt to be torn to shreds in Hytopia. It was horrible, no matter how justified it was. He had no right to put someone else through that, didn’t want to put someone else through that.

Oracle shifted under Lorule’s hands as he combed his fingers through his hair. To Lorule’s surprise, there weren’t that many knots, and the ones that were there were relatively easy to break through. It felt healthy and had a good sheen, too. Lorule smiled to themself. Even if the kid had no clue how to style it, at least they knew how to care for it.

Oracle couldn’t help but be a bit sheepish under the attention. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t like the sensation. They would never admit to that, though. Never. It didn’t matter if he’d already been embarrassingly vulnerable with the other hero on numerous occasions, some secrets were best taken to the grave.

He wasn’t very good at doing that, however, and the way he melted under the touch Lorule everything. Thankfully, he let it go unmentioned in favor of a different topic.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Lorule said as they worked through the knots, “why do you keep your hair tied back if it pulls?” They couldn’t help but push into their style choices just a bit. But, he wasn’t as crude this time and it was a legitimate question!

Oracle was silent for a few moments, formulating their words as the other hero’s gentle hands continued card through their hair. He mulled over his words for so long that Lorule realized they’d stepped into a sensitive zone yet again. Godsdammit.

“You don’t have to ans—“

“No!” Oracle snapped, body tensing up as they interrupted. They took a breath and tried to relax their shoulders. “No, it’s fine. You can know. It’s just… hard to word…”

Oracle’s tone made everything click. Lorule had only ever heard that tone twice before: when he’d found them sobbing by the lake and when he’d caught them looking jealously at a shirtless Spirit.

Shit. This was a trans thing.

Fucking of course it was. A frown weighed against Lorule’s brow as he realized just how deeply the cold and injuries were screwing up his critical thinking. He really wasn’t in the right state of mind to handle a talk like this, but, like an idiot, he’d already pushed too far and now he had to commit.

His voice was tentative, but croaked on certain vowels.

“You… don’t like having long hair, do you?”

Silence sat between them, and the only response Lorule got was a slight shake of the head.

He bit his lip as he looked down at the hair gathered in his hands. There sure was a lot and it all went down to the boy’s hips.

Another pang of guilt settled into Lorule’s stomach, wrapping its way around his ribs and clawing at his organs. How had he not realized how dysphoric that must’ve been sooner? Not everyone was able to be okay with having long hair like he was.

Another beat of silence, then: “Do you want to cut it?”

“What?”

He was about to die from how small and tender Oracle’s voice was.

“Do you want to cut it?”

In the quiet between them, Lorule remembered exactly why Oracle had come out to only them. “The people of my Hyrule… they’re… not as accepting at this group. I don’t want to risk any slip ups or suspicion,” they had explained, swearing Lorule into secrecy after he’d accidentally found out.

“We can lie. Say it got cut during a battle.” Oracle didn’t respond, and the older hero resigned themself to doing something they never thought they would. “I can make it choppy and uneven so it’ll be more convincing.”

“… What about the rest of the group? They’d know it’s a lie.”

“We don’t have to do it right now. We could wait until we’re back on the road, find an excuse to leave, and come back claiming we ran into a few ‘blins.”

The wizard shifted in his seat and let out a shaky inhale. “… You’d really help me do that?” The poor kid’s voice was cracking and it was obvious he was fighting back tears.

#bc i didn’t write an ending here’s what happens:#they hug and oracle cries it all out and they go through w the plan #oracle and lo come back to camp one day and oracle’s got short fucked up hair. no one thinks it’s a lie #well ok save Traveler but it’s fine ahsjkds he’ll keep ur secret babes <3 #oracle gets their moment of euphoria and all is well #oracle prob loves that it’s all fucked up too. at heart they r a dungeon crawling gremlin who loves lookin messy #i love oracle can y’all tell #what’s that one quote that’s like #‘she’s my darling— difficult and morose but still my darling’ by. i think vladimir nabokov??#idk but. that’s me w oracle fr. my little fuckass. my dearest baby boy.#i’ll save y’all from a rant abt how much i love lorule too annskdks #sigh i need a writing tag. oh well #Hero’s Call AU

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tuiyla · 1 year

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I wonder sometimes if glee was one of the last gasps of TV that wasn’t primarily streaming driven. The another anon made a doctor who comparison and I think that’s apt - that being a show who’s ratings have been so changed by the shift to streaming, something fans never stop arguing about. Game of thrones, maybe, is another? But glee was *so* huge, mainstream wise for five minutes.

Yeah that checks out. Coming to think about it, streaming got bigger and bigger just as Glee ended. Sometimes I think about season 6 and how different the world already was, a contrast to the first season's 2009 immediate post-Obama election vibe.

Doctor Who is a fascinating example because of its longevity but also the fact that it constantly changes, and fans often conflate the reasons behind (lack of) viewership with the show's content. Sometimes it's just the world changing around the show. You'd think something like Doctor Who is uniquely equipped to adapt to that but, well, depends on your perspective how successful that has been.

I think the main reason Glee is hard to compare to another media property is because it was, by all means and despite initial intent, a teen show. GoT with its explicit violence and high fantasy is literally a different world, and so was everything else even nearly as popular. I don't know if I'd say Glee was the most popular teen show of the 2010s but it certainly... occupied a unique space in the mainstream, in the zeitgeist. One that the likes of Gossip Girl or PLL or The Vampire Diaries could never. Maybe it was the musical thing, maybe the dramedy, maybe just this unique cocktail. But it was so insanely ubiquitous and though it did drop off a lot people's radars in later seasons, there's a reason it is still talked about in the mainstream today. The tragedies, yes, the scandals, sure, but also because the grip it had on pop culture never really went away.

Like, when Pitch Perfect came out? Everyone went "oh like Glee." Rachel Bloom, when doing initial promo interviews for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, had to clarify again and again that, not exactly like Glee, these were original songs. Can't imagine what branding Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist must have been like. And then, of course, the teen show right of passage of being compared to Glee in some way or another.

#euphoria wishes it had what glee had #nonglee asks #fandoms studies #hintatake #i really need to go back and tag this whole convo thread lmao #anyway off now so this has been my answering asks half an hour i won't spam your dashboards now

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