When Jeanne last spent quality time with Twink, they conquered the annoying and tedious Phallus of the Gods, scoffed at a bunch of pathetic straight women on NPC Island, and killed an obscenely large number of Dicknuts and Moblins. And seeing that I just played through all this myself, I can back Jeanne up in saying that it sucked a lot. Even better, Jeanne finally has her revenge on me: I now get to make the return trip to the Forsaken Fucking Fortress. Oh, hooray. I can scarcely contain my joy.

Sailing northwest between the Tower of the Gods and the FFF, Twink and Sean Connery pass by Northern Triangle Island, where the matter of a humongous freaking cyclone captures their attention. That is, they run right into it. Shit. Inside the swirling tower of destruction resides a large red frog on a cloud. Clearly he is a palette-swapped Zephos, meaning that he must be Cyclos, the deranged sibling Zephos warned Twink about. Certainly riding around in a cyclone and laughing like a maniac fit the profile. Dealing with Cyclos is similar to dealing with the Big Octos–Twink and Sean are caught in a whirlpool around the cyclone and must defeat Cyclos before they’re sucked into the center, or bad things will happen. Here, “bad things” means getting thrown across the sea and quadrupling my sailing time. Obviously very bad. Twink whips out his new bow and starts firing wildly at his target, Mary Sue-style. Twink fires so many arrows, and Cyclos has such a delayed reaction to being hit, that I actually have no idea where I’m supposed to be aiming, even when an arrow hits. As the boat Twink’s standing on is moving, Cyclos and the cyclone are moving, and Cyclos can’t be L-targeted, I think it’s a small miracle I manage to hit him once, let alone three times. Cut me some slack.

AAAAAAAHHH!!!

When the third arrow hits its mark, Cyclos flails around and sobs for a second before the cyclone disperses and he comes down to meet Twink. When he does so, I almost fall out of my chair in shock, because I wasn’t expecting him to be the size of a small house. Now I know the real reason Zephos and Cyclos didn’t get along–Cyclos was always remarking on Zephos’s tiny, tiny frog wang.

Actually, with a mad laugh, Cyclos shrinks down to a more manageable size, apparently deflated by Twink’s arrows. I don’t know. I do know, though, that it would have been much, much harder to hit him had he been this size before, so I’m not going to complain. Anyway, Cyclos compliments Twink on his gun of an arm. “And what an eye! No one’s ever been able to spot me in there before now!” he gushes. For what it’s worth, if the average Joe Schmo and Jane Doe were being sucked into a cyclone, I don’t think they’d too concerned about the frog with huge eyebrows wafting around inside it. I’d think the bigger worry would be dying painfully. But yeah, Twink is totally awesome for noticing something his Prima Strategy Chart specifically told him to find. “You obviously have a mastery of the air,” Cyclos comments. “And now that we’ve established that you’re quite the Wind [Wanker]… Let’s see if you can handle this!” Yup, you guessed it, Twink just met a new boyfriend. Or Cyclos is going to teach him a new song. Hey, it sounded like a come-on to me.

Cyclos floats skyward, in order to demonstrate the new jig for the Wind Wanker. Now that I’m watching this on tape, I can see that he floats down, then right, then left, then up. Sadly, when I was actually playing I was not paying attention to this, and it took me a sad, unrepeatable number of tries to remember how the Ballad of Gales goes and to get it right. But Cyclos chooses not to comment on the lame Wind Wanker aptitude of our young hero, because hey, he’s freaking adorable. And a boyslut, from what he’s heard.

“Waaaaa-hoooooooooooooo!” Cyclos screams. “In the hand of a Wind [Wanker] like you, my adorable little cyclones will be as happy as can be!” Cyclos goes on to explain that the Ballad of Gales is for teleporting across the Great Sea, using cyclones. Okay, so when Twink heard he got to control cyclones his immediate fancies might have been a little kinkier than that, but teleporting is great, too. His job done, and all his emotional baggage checked, Cyclos decides to go home to his itty bitty brother. Of course, he takes off in the exact opposite direction of the Dragon Phallus, so maybe he’s going to a Chippendales show first, staring the Big Gay Beedles.

Now, to try out this new song. Twink whips out the Wind Wanker and conducts with his usual extravagant air. When the song is completed the Sea Chart comes up, with nine different locations on the Great Sea highlighted as warp destinations. Okay, I can understand most of these locations. Outset, NPC Island, Dragon Phallus, Phallus Haven, the Phallus of the Gods, et cetera. But what the fuck? Tingle Island? Assuming that Cyclos himself made use of these same locations, what gives?

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Directly south of the Forsaken Fucking Fortress is a warp location unmarked on Twink’s map. Seems like the place to go, since it’s the closest to the FFF and Twink just wants to get this shit over with. But after Twink and Sean are pulled skyward into the warp cyclone–with the tried-and-true Zelda Warping Music and everything–they’re in for a bit of a surprise. Connery touches down in a creepy, glowing pond in the center of a conic structure, like the inside of a volcano’s cone. Well, this is no good, we can’t even get out of here! On the other hand, Twink fleetingly wonders if maybe this is a secret Korok love nest, where the wooden bitches can hide out from their daddy. But before Twink can even figure out what to do next, a disembodied voice addresses him. “Young [wanker] of the winds…” the voice creeps. “How did you manage to find this place?” Twink is polite, and also disoriented, so he does not reply, “Hmm, let’s see, I’m the fucking Wanker of the Winds, and I used my fucking Wind Wanker to get here. Sound about right?” It doesn’t matter anyway, because the voice doesn’t wait for an answer. “I am the queen of the fairy world. I have been awaiting your arrival,” the voice says. So disregarding the obvious fact that we’ve discovered Tingle’s summer home, if this queen has been awaiting Twink’s arrival, why does s/he wonder how Twink got here? Whatever, Possibly!Tingle.

“…But now is not yet the time for us to meet,” s/he says. But you’ve been waiting for him, and he’s here, and…gah. Forget it. “You still have many challenges to overcome,” the voice goes on. “You seek to protect an individual very dear to you. Yes, I know of her…” That last part comes off as a little accusatory, no? Like, “How dare you gallivant around trying to save a girl!” And still, the voice drones on, “…But there is yet another in this world whom you must protect.” By the way, all this text is in blue. This is so we get that the Fairy Queen is mysterious and junk. As you can see, I’ve spared you the annoyance of reading this whole diatribe in a different color. You’re welcome.

Right, right, this new person to protect. I don’t think you need three guesses to figure out who it is. And the Fairy Queen, surprisingly, does not insult my intelligence and “hint” at this person’s identity. S/he merely says, “Come visit my fountain again when you have met that individual…when the time has come for you to face new challenges.” And then, a tease: “At that time, I shall show you my true self.” Ooh, hot! Assuming that the Fairy Queen is a fabulous man. Yeah, I know the Fairy Queen is not a fabulous man, but leave Twink here to his fantasies, okay?

‘But I forgot my Prada bag!’

And that’s that. To get out, Twink plays the Ballad of Gales again and ends up warping to Tingle Island, which is the next closest to the Forsaken Fucking Fortress. A quick mack on the Tingle Penis Love Sofa later, Twink and Sean are sailing to the FFF. Near the Fortress, even though it wasn’t even close to dusk yet, the sky grows dark and foreboding. Because the following events wouldn’t be nearly as dramatic if Twink were sneaking into the FFF in broad daylight.

Using Sean’s cannon Twink bombs down the front door and docks Sean at the spot where he originally landed on his first visit here. “Ganon has likely been made aware of our little incursion already…” Sean admits. “…But you have the [Masturbator] Sword! That sword shall shine in the darkness, casting back evil… With it in your hands, none can keep you from rescuing your sister!” Okay, it’s true that the Masturbator Sword is all that and a bag of chips, but Sean’s comments here seem to be along the lines of, “With that sword there’s no way you could possibly lose! Uh, knock on wood!” He’s not really instilling Twink with confidence, here.

And now Twink is on his own. Sadly, the searchlights he decommissioned on his first trip are back in working order and are scanning the innards of the FFF thoroughly, just to be sure it’s not insultingly easy for Twink to grab every Rupee in the vicinity. See, since his expensive encounter with Big Trojan Beedle, Twink has become a Rupee whore. He gots to get paid. Just in case some other flaming fellow on the Great Sea comes along to buttrape him out of his hard-earned cash. But that’s crazy and won’t happen.

In the middle of this Rupee-liberating excursion, Twink hears a sinister laugh behind him. Out of the shadows materializes a black creature that I suppose looks like Ganon. At any rate, he’s tall and has horns and is made of shadows. And he flings a ball of energy at Twink, which is as solid a Ganondorf trademark as anything. The boss fight is on, and as in other Zelda games the name of the game is, well, tennis. The ball of energy flies back and forth between hero and villain about two dozen freaking times before Phantom Ganon finally misses and gets whacked in the front teeth with his own weapon. Ha ha. Twink dutifully runs forward and slashes the ever-lovin’ shit out of the guy with the Masturbator Sword before he can get up and become a moving target again. Lather, rinse, dead Phantom Ganon.

Phantom Ganon assumes the position.

Once the specter is vanquished–though he’s still chuckling from the beyond or whatever–the main entrance to the FFF unbars itself, and a treasure chest materializes behind Twink. One of the crimson treasure chests with spikes on it, too, telling me I’m actually going to get something good out of this, and not a fucking Joy Pendant. Twink opens it to discover the coolest-ass thing ever: the Skull Hammer! “This mighty hammer can break things and pound obstacles into the ground,” the Disembodied Item Describer rattles off. “Some enemies even get stunned by the shock waves it causes when you pound the ground with it.” While the hammer itself is kind of drab and unfabulous, all this talk of pounding is getting Twink very excited. And immediately he has the opportunity to try it out, as a dozen or so Miniblins–the annoying devil guys–flounce toward Twink, spears out. As Twink dispatches them one by one with his new toy, I can’t help but visualize every one of the chittery, acid-tripping little blighters as a game designer who’s caused me mental trauma and head injuries. Thus, I am renaming this new weapon the Hammer of Recapper Revenge.

The problem with Miniblins is that they, like the game designers whence they sprung, are annoyingly repetitive. Here that means they keep telling me the same fucking simple plot point over and over again generating themselves at an irritating frequency. And it occurs to me that maybe Twink should step the hell out of the searchlights currently shining right in his face. And when I say it occurs to me, I mean I looked at the strat guide and it told me that the searchlights attract Shiggyblins. Not good.

Tell me these guys aren’t on drugs.

The stairs leading to the rest of the Fortress are blocked by…well, you remember those fun springboard things from Super Mario Bros.? They’re like that, but covered in barbed wire. Ooh, menacing. Especially since it takes all of two hammer hits to clear them from Twink’s path. In the process the searchlights find Twink again and he has to kill more Shiggyblins. I can’t say I’m not enjoying it, either. It’s almost therapeutic.

Eventually Twink makes it past all the Shiggyblins and into the indoor-outdoor hallways of the FFF, and proceeds to kill off the Bokoblins operating the searchlights as before. Only this time it doesn’t suck because Twink doesn’t have to do it with a fucking stick. And of course he liberates as many Joy Pendants as possible from them, now that he doesn’t have to share his stash with that old bag Mrs. Seymour. It looks like the accessory shop is back in business! And Twink even finds these hideous Skull Necklaces on the Moblins inside the Fortress. Maybe they’ll sell–they’re kind of voodoo chic.