I'm only mildly obsessed with Legend of Zelda. It's not a problem.

So, I've been thinking about Legend of Zelda A LOT lately.

My teenage sister-in-law Mariah is volunteering at Gen Con this year in exchange for a four day pass, and she's been flipping out over what costume she wants to wear. While I was putting together my Kickstarter, I was also helping her figure out what she'd need to make a costume herself, and who her favorite video game characters were, since GenCon is a gaming convention. We started by working on a Sora costume from Kingdom Hearts II. Then she saw a Youtube tutorial on making a Link hat from Legend of Zelda, and she felt like that would be an easy project for her to tackle by herself. We've been trying to finish both a Sora costume and a Link costume, and we've been listening to a lot of geeky music while we work, like the DDR soundtrack (don't judge!) and a lot of Lindsay Sterling.

If you're not a gamer or a geek (this is a ceramics blog, after all), I should explain. Legend of Zelda is a video game franchise that's been around since the 80's, and I've been playing it since I was a little girl. Despite the title of the game, the protagonist is actually Link, a little elf looking guy dressed all in green who runs around the forest solving puzzles and fighting monsters in a quest to save the Princess Zelda. It's a really fun series of games, and they're still making new ones to this day.

Lindsay Sterling is a punk rock violinist who does a lot of geeky musical renditions, and my sister Mariah ravenously devours every video she puts out. If you check out her website, her story is an inspiring one! I saw her Legend of Zelda medley a while back on Topless Robot and kinda flipped out. Because yeah, when you played Legend of Zelda as a kid, you never imagined yourself as a boring, sleeping princess. You imagined yourself running through the woods flipping out! I know I did, and I know the same is true for my sis. We loved that game because we could picture ourselves in it, even though Link was a boy character. Just like Lindsay Sterling flipping out on the violin and running around woods and caves.

Thinking about this game and my sister's costume making ventures is a large part of what inspired my Kickstarter. Every costume Mariah was interested in making was male, and I started to think about why that was, and how much I could relate.

Which brings me to an article I saw yesterday on Kotaku about the Olympic gymnast from Mexico who used Lindsay Sterling's Zelda medley for her floor routine. I flipped my shit when I saw this. A hardcore female gymnast representing the best of her country and working hard at her craft, while giving a shout out to gamers everywhere. There's a bit in the Kotaku article where the gymnast, Elsa, talks about hearing Lindsay's music and considering using it for her routine: '"I thought of Link running around through the forest, mountains, caves, and how agile he is, it was funny to think that I was doing something similar but in my own way," Elsa said. "I liked what it reminded me of: the whole concept of never giving up on my quest."' I was like YES! YES! That is it exactly!!! Here I am doing a series of art inspired by this exact thing - girls of action, doing what they love, not just imagining themselves as the hero, but going out there and living it too. My heart just swells with happiness to see all these amazing geeky ladies out there kicking so much ass!

So that's where my head has been at lately, lol. Long story short, my first doll jar has a bit of Legend of Zelda on it, and my first story is going to be inspired by all of this. I'm pretty pumped about it:D