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Language:
English
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Published:
2019-12-23
Updated:
2026-06-21
Words:
31,050
Chapters:
30/?
Comments:
52
Kudos:
47
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Of Threes and Miracles

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Summary:

Or: So You Read a StudioRat Fic and You Have Questions

In no particular order, non-exhaustive, but the first chapter might be an outline, and the chapter titles are going to (attempt) to be self-explanatory

Rated T because we might be getting into discussions of grown-up topics in an academic sort of tone.

Updates will be irregular, things will sometimes appear out of order (though I have developed a chapter system), basically you've opened my desk drawer looking for answers and this metafic is the papers that fell on the floor in the process. Contributions from other folks who have found my work helpful will be added when they blossom into existence.

Chapter 1: 0.0 An Index of Sorts

Chapter by

Notes:

This index is unlikely to be hyperlinked timely, so please make use of the chapter navigation native to Ao3. Updates will be irregular, things will sometimes be out of order for a bit, basically you've opened my desk drawer looking for answers and this metafic is just the papers that fell on the floor in the process.

Chapter Text

I’ve gotten some questions over time about my worldbuilding in my ever-increasing pile of Zelda-themed fanfiction. Specifically how I’ve expanded on the (admittedly slim) canon information about the Gerudo. I’ve done a great deal of research on desert and marginal desert cultures for other projects I can’t really talk about here, but the net effect is that Stuff Lives In My Head. I can’t so much point to one prime source or another in the sense of a single cultural moment in a specific place in the real-world as an analogue. I have no intention of doing so either, as I’m writing fantasy rather than historical fiction. My research mostly feeds into plausibility, and backfilling with material that seems to fit a) the canonical context  and b) what I want out of the narrative.

A brief note about canon:

I’m primarily interested in canon divergent fic - that is, rather than lifting the characters into a wholly new Alternate Universe or crossover, I’ve stitched together my observations of the games themselves and embroidered upon it. After the release of Breath of the Wild, a whole new library of available flora, fauna, and landscape became available for me to weave in with the rest. 

  1. Gerudo Society
    1. Gender
    2. On names versus Names
    3. Growing Up
    4. Lifepath
  2. Gerudo Ranks
    1. Civilian life
    2. Military Life
    3. Spiritual life
  3. Kingship among the Gerudo
    1. Becoming King
    2. Being King
  4. Hylian Society
    1. Gender
    2. Naming conventions
    3. Growing Up
    4. Education
    5. Profession
  5. Hylian Hierarchy
    1. Civilian society
      1. Family
      2. Land
      3. Money
      4. Honors
    2. Military ranks
    3. Religious orders
      1. Order of Light
      2. Cult of Hylia
      3. Circle of Seven
      4. Farore
      5. Nayru
      6. Din
      7. Cult of Love
      8. Cult of The Hopeless
  6. Hylian Monarchy
    1. Zelda : the Sacred Maiden
    2. The Royal Family : Kings, Queens, Queen Mothers and Prince Consorts
    3. High Council
    4. Council of Ministers
  7. Language
    1. Human languages (living)
      1. Introduction to Contemporary Vernacular Gerudo (early draft)
      2. Common Gerudo Vocabulary 
    2. Human languages (dead)
    3. Nonhuman (mortal) languages
    4. Immortal languages
  8. Genealogies
    1. This one will be exciting to format.
    2. And by exciting I mean the other thing
    3. I'm going to revise this to use table format. Until then it's going to stay ugly. Sorry.
  9. Geography
  10. Xenobotany
  11. Xenobiology
  12. Myth and Fable and Legend
    1. Golden Tears
    2. The Mystery of Three
    3. The Wolf and the Night Goer
    4. The Winter King, Summer Queen, and Spring Knight
    5. The King and the Wild One, or Avoemayish of Erech
    6. The Cucco Who Hatched From A Pumpkin
    7. Exalted the Sun and Exalted the Moon (the version most widely known in the era of the Civil Wars)
    8. The Cucco Who Tried to Hatch a Pumpkin
    9. The Age of Destiny
    10. The Song of Goldtusk
    11. The Wise and Wicked Prince
    12. The Lady of Flowers and the Green Knight
    13. A Triad
    14. The Legend of the First Exalted: A Complete Survey of the Origin of the Heroic Figures, Reconstructed from Ancient Sources
    15. Eight Stones of Virtue
  13. Selected Royal Correspondence
    1. Discourses: Excerpts from Letters 1-1205
    2. Discourses: On Power : aka Letter 1206
    3. Discourses: Excerpts from the Era of the Pax Hylia (beginning with Letter 1207)