#I haven't found it

[batrogers]

Twilight Princess: the Resistance

In the game Twilight Princess, there is a group that meets in Telma’s bar, one that clearly knows each other very well and has for a long time. The bar they meet in has a connection to the castle, the group has clear and obvious disdain for the Hylian soldiers, and most notably of all, is willing and able to break into castle grounds with fairly elaborate weapons in order to aid Link in the end-game.

This is standard video game fare, but I want to go into a few other details about the storytelling that have always leaned me towards the group having a much more active past in which the resistance they had to the Twilight threat is a footnote on a much greater accomplishment: that of regicide.

[Note: I am discounting all comics canon in this analysis, as I do not have easy access to it, nor familiarity. This is based off in-game dialogue and visuals only, with some reference to Ocarina of Time.]

Also this is stupidly long and I'm about to post something even longer, so I guess uh, get yourself a drink. (1400 words)

The first necessary detail for that is this: Princess Zelda is the only member of her family we ever see. When Zant invades the throne room, Zelda is standing at the thrones alone, surrounded by guards, dressed in her formal regalia and wielding a sword. Nobody ever speaks of her parents, or questions her right to speak for the people of Hyrule. By every signal present, she is sole ruler and has been for long enough nobody questions it.

She is also very young: this isn’t usual either unless there has been recent, violent conflict or plague, and there’s no real evidence of there being a large war with an outside party or expensive civil unrest. Therefore, if something did kill her parents, it was likely targeted against them alone, or she had extraordinarily bad luck.

The second massive detail is the behaviour of the Resistance group in general. Notably, most group members are much older than Link or Zelda. Rusl has young kids, but he looks much older – more like 40-50 than 20-30. Telma and Auru are in that age range too. While Shad looks young, he talks old, so he could simply be a well-preserved 40 rather than merely a scholarly 20. Ashei definitely appears to be closer to Link’s age, but she speaks openly of her father as though he was involved before her, so perhaps she is here in his stead.

Notably, while there has clearly been time passing while the Twilight overlay the population and people were capable of moving around and doing things, there’s no real sense of it being a long time. Queen Rutela sent her son away, and he became suddenly and violently ill but none of the Zora are worried in a way that implies an absence of more than a few days. Impaz was secluded in the town but not long enough she reacted afraid for her life from lack of food or water. Others, again, are worried for lost family but not convinced of their deaths – a sentiment that, especially about children, would escalate quite quickly even in pre-modern times.

If that’s the case, how long has the Resistance had to set things in motion? If it was a new thing, in the face of the Twilight, the people involved would not be reacting so smoothly. But if it’s simply reconnecting with old allies, then that re-connection would be rapid. Rusl left Ordon village to look for the children: he appears to have gone straight to the Resistance rather than deviate from his path to follow likely leads. Why would he prioritize that? Only if he knew that was his best chance to chase multiple leads at once.

Only if he knew and expected them to be there, reachable quickly from Telma’s bar.

The Resistance does appear to have extremely rapid communication, especially for this time period. The group is already not only reintegrated but aware of current events and actively investigating them per expertise. They act as though they’ve never actually disbanded, in fact. Telma instantly tries to recruit Link upon his arrival, almost as if she was expecting him...

Almost as if Rusl might’ve told her to expect the boy’s arrival in Castletown in the recent future, possibly before this all began...? He was planning to send Link to the Castle in his stead after all.

I have another post about taxation that will likely be posted after this, but its stated that Rusl “made” the sword that’s going to be presented to the Royal Family from Ordon, the Village. This is not what a village would normally send in taxes, but it might be something they might send specially if the castle wants an extra gesture of good will from the village, possibly from a specific villager.

Possibly from someone they suspected was involved in recent activity they wanted to keep an eye on. A man who can make swords and armour (he’s the only one with a solid, defensive helmet we see, after all) is quite valuable in arming a small group of vigilantes, after all.

There is mention of “prolonged wars” that destroyed the guardians of the royal family to which Impaz belonged. That does not sound like a history of a royal family that has historically been kind or well-liked. We never get any specific sense of what caused these conflicts, but some things can just become entrenched power struggles over time. The Resistance are all incredibly disparaging towards the guards, who are useless within the city but around the castle are quite persistent and very solid. (Especially if you include that they are even proof against speedrun strats...)

In addition, Zelda’s royal garb skews incredibly militant. She is obviously trained in sword-fighting, or she’d have never grabbed a weapon when the throne room was invaded; the walls may be open but that offers as much opportunity for her to flee as it does defence, especially at the height at which this room is placed in the castle. While we do see two large cannons in use, and one hand-held cannon among the resistance after the fact, she is still so very high that’s not a real threat.

(Would this absolutely require magic to make the castle stable? Yes. Is that plausible in this context? Also yes.)

Lorewise, the previous game (Ocarina of Time) also has intense implications of prolonged conflicts: a civil war ten years before the story begins, evidence of torture by the Sheikah at the King's command, another war that ended in Ganondorf’s imprisonment by sages. Sages, who were clearly deeply distressed by everything going on, which implies the war had gone horribly for Hyrule and they were acting out of desperation. The Ocarina of Time script is an isolated language that never repeats which has its own implications of invasion and attempts to wipe out the history before it... (Changing a script on people has the “benefit” of forcibly making the literate population suddenly illiterate towards documentation you don’t want them to have access to, after all.)

If the people had become used to distrusting their rulers, and their rulers became used to suppressing dissent with violence, the cycle can continue for quite some time with periods of ebb and flow. And if the people have become used to the idea that you have to simply kill the King before things will change... Well, you’d have reason to keep a very close eye on them in the future, now wouldn’t you? You'd have reason to keep a group prepared to address matters quickly and finally when required.

In brief, there are a great many things that push me towards reading the Resistance as something that formed not in response to Zant, but in response to the government under which they lived.

Twilight Princess is a very settled era in the Zelda timeline. There are wide fields that clearly see a great deal of travel, elaborate and well-maintained bridges, multiple small villages in close proximity to each other that have walls but not elaborately defended ones. This world is not currently in serious distress. The Twilight War appears to be the worst thing to happen to the villages in some time.

It is not, however, particularly disruptive to the city. The people there are defensive, and strange, and alive in wonderful and interesting ways. We have a cursed rich man, a questionably ethical preacher, guards of both the poorly behaved and well-behaved variety, in which the well-behaved are strongly concentrated on the castle... As if the royal family expects to need strictly monitored guards at the castle.

As if there was perhaps something recent that caused it.

As if this isn't the first time the Resistance has broken into castle grounds in the recent past.

Perhaps Rusl had reasons to want someone who wasn’t him to present the sword to the young Queen, after all.

[stormears]

This last week I've noticed tons of Twitter posts that include the phrase "Mind you," as in like, "Be aware that (insert fact/story here)" and this phrase intensely deeply irritates me for some reason. Absolute nails on a chalkboard.

It sounds like it should be coming out of the mouth of a conservative old southern woman who slaps her children in public and it also just sounds fuckass stupid, and I hope most* people who slip that into their vocabulary get their tires slashed in a grocery store parking lot.

[beardisable]

so this one post right, which OW...

but also i watched X2 yesterday, this hurts even more with context but also feeds into deadclaws so !??!?

tldr OUGH HE STICKS AROUND...

(edit by @wadewilsonhowlett heart emoji <3)

[tearlessrain]

please help me- i used to be pretty smart but i’m having so much trouble grasping the concept of diegetic vs non-diegetic bdsm!

gfkjldghfd okay first of all I'm sorry for the confusion, if you're not finding anything on the phrase it's because I made it up and absolutely nobody but me ever uses it, but I haven't found a better way to express what I'm trying to say so I keep using it. but now you've given me an excuse to ramble on about some shit that is only relevant to me and my deeply inefficient way of talking and by god I'm going to take it.

SO. the way diegetic and non-diegetic are normally used is to talk about music and sound design in movies/tv shows. in case you aren't familiar with that concept, here's a rundown:

diegetic sound is sound that happens within the world of the movie/show and can be acknowledged by the characters, like a song playing on the stereo during a driving scene, or sung on stage in Phantom of the Opera. it's also most other sounds that happen in a movie, like the sounds of traffic in a city scene, or a thunderclap, or a marching band passing by. or one of the three stock horse sounds they use in every movie with a horse in it even though horses don't really vocalize much in real life, but that's beside the point, the horse is supposed to be actually making that noise within the movie's world and the characters can hear it whinnying.

non-diegetic sound is any sound that doesn't exist in the world of the movie/show and can't be perceived by the characters. this includes things like laugh tracks and most soundtrack music. when Duel of Fates plays in Star Wars during the lightsaber fight for dramatic effect, that's non-diegetic. it exists to the audience, but the characters don't know their fight is being backed by sick ass music and, sadly, can't hear it.

the lines can get blurry between the two, you've probably seen the film trope where the clearly non-diegetic music in the title sequence fades out to the same music, now diegetic and playing from the character's car stereo. and then there are things like Phantom of the Opera as mentioned above, where the soundtrack is also part of the plot, but Phantom of the Opera does also have segments of non-diegetic music: the Phantom probably does not have an entire orchestra and some guy with an electric guitar hiding down in his sewer just waiting for someone to break into song, but both of those show up in the songs they sing down there.

now, on to how I apply this to bdsm in fiction.

if I'm referring to diegetic bdsm what I mean is that the bdsm is acknowledged for what it is in-world. the characters themselves are roleplaying whatever scenarios their scenes involve and are operating with knowledge of real life rules/safety practices. if there's cnc depicted, it will be apparent at some point, usually right away, that both characters actually are fully consenting and it's all just a planned scene, and you'll often see on-screen negotiation and aftercare, and elements of the story may involve the kink community wherever the characters are. Love and Leashes is a great example of this, 50 Shades and Bonding are terrible examples of this, but they all feature characters that know they're doing bdsm and are intentional about it.

if I'm talking about non-diegetic bdsm, I'm referring to a story that portrays certain kinks without the direct acknowledgement that the characters are doing bdsm. this would be something like Captive Prince, or Phantom of the Opera again, or the vast majority of bodice ripper type stories where an innocent woman is kidnapped by a pirate king or something and totally doesn't want to be ravished but then it turns out he's so cool and sexy and good at ravishing that she decides she's into it and becomes his pirate consort or whatever it is that happens at the end of those books. the characters don't know they're playing out a cnc or D/s fantasy, and in-universe it's often straight up noncon or dubcon rather than cnc at all. the thing about entirely non-diegetic bdsm is that it's almost always Problematic™ in some way if you're not willing to meet the story where it's at, but as long as you're not judging it by the standards of diegetic bdsm, it's just providing the reader the same thing that a partner in a scene would: the illusion of whatever risk or taboo floats your boat, sometimes to extremes that can't be replicated in real life due to safety, practicality, physics, the law, vampires not being real, etc. it's consensual by default because it's already pretend; the characters are vehicles for the story and not actually people who can be hurt, and the reader chose to pick up the book and is aware that nothing in it is real, so it's all good.

this difference is where people tend to get hung up in the discourse, from what I've observed. which is why I started using this phrasing, because I think it's very crucial to be able to differentiate which one you're talking about if you try to have a conversation with someone about the portrayal of bdsm in media. it would also, frankly, be useful for tagging, because sometimes when you're in the mood for non-diegetic bodice ripper shit you'd call the police over in real life, it can get really annoying to read paragraphs of negotiation and check-ins that break the illusion of the scene and so on, and the opposite can be jarring too.

it's very possible to blur these together the same way Phantom of the Opera blurs its diegetic and non-diegetic music as well. this leaves you even more open to being misunderstood by people reading in bad faith, but it can also be really fun to play with. @not-poignant writes fantastic fanfic, novels, and original serials on ao3 that pull this off really well, if you're okay with some dark shit in your fiction I would highly recommend their work. some of it does get really fucking dark in places though, just like. be advised. read the tags and all that.

but yeah, spontaneous writer plug aside, that's what I mean.

[cannibalspicnic]

What cracks me up about Don't Be Afraid, Just Start the Tape is that aside from the vampirism, Daniel's just having such a typical cocaine experience.

He goes home with a guy because he has coke, then ends up listening to the guy rant and bitch about his ex until dawn, then witnesses an implosion between the guy and his current partner, then is forced to answer the question, "Am I boring?" from said partner while trying to figure out the best way to leave.

This is just a regular night on cocaine.

[secretsoftheuniverse1987]

Thinking about how Dean Winchester was an atheist before he got caught up in the biblical apocalypse because in his mind, the two possible realities were an absent God and a cruel one. Thinking about him learning God was real and he had a Plan for him. Thinking about how that robbed him of his faith that a God wouldn't be capable of such cruelty. Thinking about how quickly he came to put his faith in Cas, despite his distrust of the divine. Thinking about The Man Who Would Be King. Thinking about Dean's only on-screen prayer to God being a plea to "bring him back."

[rejoiceinsilverlight]

i have a nine hour layover and still have two and a half hours to kill, here's the sillies :3

[shadowgale96]

Okay but THIS redrawn with Hualian would be perfect. Has anyone drawn this already because I will commission somebody if not.

[chriskotiesen]

I've shared a few pretty straightforward images using my CRT effect, but not much yet that really shows off what an over-engineered monstrosity I've created.

For a start, it's actually 3D. I built most of this in Blender.

Except for the optional bit that simulates composite video artifacts. I wrote that part in shader code and apply it to the base image as a separate step.

I made a high-res shadow mask texture, so it looks pretty good even from absurdly close up.

I can also adjust the scanline hardness and swap the slot mask for a dot mask or aperture grille to simulate different types of display.

Raytracing the whole thing ensures that all of these little details look nice and get sampled correctly, and if I want to change the glare reflecting off of the screen...

...I can adjust it by rearranging the furniture in the room.

So... yeah. That's what is current going on whenever I post pixel art with my CRT effect. It's not quite perfect yet, but I think it's getting pretty good.

[egophiliac]

ENG PLAYERS I BESEECH YOU

I have been informed that you guys are getting part 4 of episode 7 tomorrow, which means we are FINALLY going to get the official romanization of Revaan's name, somebody please tell me because I need to know what it is.

like, yes, it's probably just Revan/Levan, but look, I'm sitting here with my finger over the button of all these Laverne and Shirley jokes and just waiting for the opportunity to deploy them --

[leisi-lilacdreams]

angst is good, but i enjoy this dynamic between the two

tired mentor x chatterbox mentee (+bonus if they're the same person lol)

[blondie-drawings]

Good lord this tomb is full of shitposts 😳😳 pt 1/pt 2

[mbohjeezart]

Hermit a Day May: Day 14, Doc, God of Growth!

Now, I know this one technically doesn't fit in with the rest of the series, but that's because I already made Doc's normal portrait before this even started. You can find him [ HERE ] And here's his full portrait without the text and background:

[seventh-district]

Making Incorrect H:SR Quotes Until I Run Out of (hopefully) Original Ideas - Pt. 6

[Pt. 1] [Pt. 2] [Pt. 3] [Pt. 4] [Pt. 5]

[amelia-yap]

it's april and they are bloody fools

[mildmayfoxe]

bad days