The Legend of Zelda: Alex's Misery

Note- this entry has very little spanking in it and mostly deals with submission, sadism and video games. Kthnx.

I don't really remember how the whole thing got started. It had to do with the fact that I made the mistake of bringing my N64 and the combined collection of me and my elder brother's game cartridges with me when I moved. I had figured that Malignus and I would have fun playing classic games together, that I could play Pokemon Snap, and that there would probably be something in my selection that Malignus would enjoy playing himself.

Little did I know that in that cardboard box, I had packed my new worst enemy in the form of a shiny, gold game cartridge that was once my brother's. 

It turns out that Malignus loves The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time. I had watched my brothers play parts of it when I was a girl, but had found it too frustrating for me and never even maintained a save file. At some point, Malignus got the idea that he was going to make me play it. What started out as a simple assignment quickly turned into a nightmare: I've never been worse at anything in my life. I'm not kidding when I say that. Every frustrating thing I've ever attempted- learning to drive, doing ballet, jumping hurdles when I ran track and field, learning about Quantum Physics, writing characters in traditional Chinese with a brush and ink- they all pale in comparison to the difficulty that I have with playing Zelda. It's worse because I'm traditionally a fast study at video games, even those that I don't like. Yet here are a few scenarios that I've run into when playing this one:

* I attempted to get past one hallway which is littered with traps a total of 37 times before I got through.

* I prepared for a boss battle by collecting two red fairies (items that let you regain all your life when you die) and having full health and then died entirely before I entered the room. That means that I lost 30 hearts in a single hallway which was supposedly so simple that the people who make walkthroughs for Zelda didn't even bother to say anything besides "avoid these guys and go in the door."

*I spent a total of two and a half hours attempting to beat a boss that is described in the walkthrough as being able to be beaten in literally less than a minute.

*I dedicated three hours to completing one dungeon. At the end of the first half of that time, I had not yet made it past the first of five steps it takes to ENTER said dungeon.

The Trinity of Terror +1

The first couple of times that Malignus told me I was going to play Zelda after it was shown just how horrid I am at it, I responded by whining and protesting in a way most out of character for me. This attitude was quickly abandoned when I was asked if I needed a caning to motivate me. Still, there were times when I simply didn't listen to what he was instructing me to do in the game, or I didn't try, or I just kept royally failing at things and he decided that I needed that "motivation." You know what words are always scary?
"I'm getting the cane."
That can never not be scary. Some very stupid part of me didn't except Malignus to actually come back with a cane the first time he said that regarding Zelda. I mean, who gets caned over video games? Answer: me. Not only did he come back with one, but he came back with the scariest one I own (pictured above) and gave me a pretty hard stroke with it. He then continued to sit near me waving it back and forth (it's extremely flexible) and hitting the furniture to "keep me focused." I guess it kinda worked. I certainly started putting forth full effort. Slowly but surely, putting in an hour or two at a time, I made it through quite a bit of the game. In some ways, I improved, but I remained horribly bad at platforming, dodging traps and fighting bosses.

Yesterday afternoon, Malignus told me to start playing Zelda again and I responded by asking if I could finish something first. I didn't stop right away when he said "No," even though we've "talked" (I'm sure you understand what that means, right?) about that sort of thing fairly often recently. As a result, I ended up getting sentenced to play through two dungeons of Zelda before bedtime instead of one. Because I'm a highly responsible person, I played until he left for work and then went to the store to get waffles, then played a little more, then talked to a partner, then took a nap, then text messaged Peachy for a while, then talked to Heather online and only started playing with true focus and dedication at 8:30 PM.

I kept playing for the next five hours and I still didn't finish the amount of game that I'd been told to do. While I played, I felt a flurry of emotions. The primary one was frustration. I was frustrated at the stupid game for being so damn difficult, at Malignus for making me do such a stupid thing, and, more than anything else, at myself for sucking so hard. I nearly broke my controller at least once. I got so pissed off that I started intentionally abusing my horse, Epona, who I had originally promised never to hurt, just to have a vessel for my rage.

Poor Epona!

At one point, I got so angry about it that I got tears in my eyes. It was then that I had to remember why, exactly, Malignus was having me play Zelda. It wasn't purely sadism (although I can't help but believe that it was at least part of it). It was to teach me to persevere without getting angry, to apply the things I already knew about the world to new situations, to use my brain and to be patient. It probably also had to do with time management: something I'd failed at yet again. With this in mind, and with the knowledge that my D/s dynamic is founded around the idea that I may not fail myself, I continued to trudge forward.

When I finally fell asleep at 3:30 this morning, I hadn't finished the amount of Zelda that I'd been assigned, but I was damn proud of myself for my endurance in making it as far as I did. There's something very satisfying in giving something, even something that seems dumb, your all. I know that next time won't be as bad. It's kind of amazing how horrible/educational everything can be.