#I'm not reacting to anything

[pocketseizure]

While Ganondorf definitely served as a symbol of resistance against empire in previous games, I can’t see any other way to read him in Tears of the Kingdom except as a symbol of militaristic fascism.

The story of Tears of the Kingdom has a lot of holes, but the information we’re given presents Ganondorf as a rogue military commander and self-identified king who attempted to wage a war of aggression and lost. In the name of peace - and partially out of arrogance - Rauru offered to allow Ganondorf’s faction to join a coalition of other regional leaders (who included the Gerudo sage) as a condition of his surrender and agreement to cease hostilities.

Ganondorf then stalked Zelda, murdered Sonia, and used a secret stone for the express purpose of waging war, including war on the Gerudo. In the present time, Ganondorf triggers climate disasters (once again hurting his own people) in order to create political instability, and he openly says that he sees the “monster” races of Hyrule as servants who exist only to fight for him.

As someone who’s written hundreds of thousands of words of fanfiction about Ganondorf, I obviously think it’s a worthwhile project to dismantle and resist simple narratives. “Fight fascism by killing bad people” is itself a form of propaganda, after all.

Sill, as much as I wish otherwise, my stories are just fanfiction. The game itself goes through great pains to communicate that Ganondorf represents the type of militaristic aggression that seeks to oppress cultures perceived as weaker in order to create an empire. 

Speaking personally, I very much want to read Ganondorf against the grain of the narrative simply because I find the xenophobic elements of his design and characterization to be indications of real-world bias within the developers, who don’t have the same excuse for not being aware of certain types of problematic character coding that perhaps they did when Ocarina of Time came out in the 1990s.

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to work around the plot holes and lore gaps of Tears of the Kingdom, which I dearly wish hadn’t been written by outside contractors. Breath of the Wild presented so many interesting possibilities for what Ganondorf’s character could have been, and it’s a shame that Tears of the Kingdom defaulted to such a one-dimensional portrayal of Ganondorf’s actions and motivations. 

In the end, while the story of Tears of the Kingdom has many strengths, I just don't think it can support a nuanced political reading.

[inkskinned]

today i love the red metal crane in her long neck arching her body over the boston skyline, which means i am okay for a moment. when i am unwell, everything is a little ugly. i always tell myself look for the beauty but when it is bad, i will look at birds and sunsets and little ducklings and feel absolutely nothing.

when my brother got his puppy, i was in a deep depression. what kind of monster isn't affected by a puppy. i was gentle and kind to her - i just didn't have an emotional reaction. she's five now and i feel like i spend all of our interactions apologizing to her - i don't know why. i just didn't feel anything. how embarrassing. i feel like if i admit that, i'll seem cruel and jaded. it comes in waves. like, two months ago when i went out into the world - it was like that. life behind a pane of stormglass. a firework could go off over your head - nothing. like dead skin, no reaction. not to ice cream or rainbows or baby chickens. life foggy and uninteresting.

i love goslings again. i love their little webbed feet splayed over grass. i love good food and live music and long walks. i like puppies. i feel like some kind of my soul has been starved - i keep staring at everything with wide eyes, trying to burrow the sensation into my stomach. it's real. beauty is real. when it's bad again, remember this. i stop and smell the flowers, feeling cliche in the moment. i like the white-to-red ombre of my neighbor's roses. i like colorcoding and yoga and cold drinks. i try to pass my hands over every moment, feeling like i'm squeezing joy out of every instant. remember this. for the love of god, it's real - just remember this.

[drrav3nb]

AYO EDEBIRI as Sydney Adamu WILL POULTER as Luca THE BEAR SEASON 3 | Episode 10 - Forever

Are you close? Yeah. Kind of best friends and kind of lost touch, so. It's nice to reconnect. Yeah, especially when it literally is like a best friend that you saw every day of your life and you kinda went through this sort of battle together.

Bonus:

[martynsimp69]

Dogwarts - A Horror-Themed Minecraft Map

Ever since the beheading, paranoia has taken hold of the Red King.

Dogwarts is a short Minecraft map full of secrets, made for AUFest 2024's Reverse Big Bang. You can find more information on it here, including the world download, content warnings, how-to-play guide, and a video showcase for anyone who can't or doesn't want to play through it themselves.

As part of the event I had the honor of working with two INCREDIBLE writers, Sparrow @erstwhilesparrow and Writer @capriciouswriter207!! Both of them did a masterful job bringing this story to life in a new medium, and I'm delighted that I got to have them on my team <3 Check out their fics:

branches, but softer by sesquidpedalian

The things Martyn carries with him have dwindled to almost nothing. One bucket that he doesn’t dare abandon to the capricious shadows, a handful of glass bottles. A scrap of banner that he keeps in his pocket, that he wipes his sweat on but never without feeling a little bad. If it’s the tunnels themselves that are responsible for all his misfortune, they never make a sound to suggest so. If this place is haunted, it’s not haunted by any ghosts but his own.

What happens below (none will ever know) by Writer207

The enchanter must be protected at all costs. Away from prying eyes, deep below the ground, nobody but Ren will ever lay their eyes on it again. A labyrinth of dirt and stone must be dug to further protect it. The process weighs heavily on Martyn, and the tunnels themselves seem to suffocate him. It's all worth it, though. The enchanter must be safe.

Thank you, and enjoy <3

[eff-plays]

You know what made me really like Wyll? Like put him from "oh he seems nice" to "oh actually he's great?"

He's not sorry about making the pact. Like? Usually when a character does a deal with a devil they're like "Did I do what I had to ... or was I just weak? Should I have done something else? I should have tried harder, been better!"

He's like, no. Fuck that. I know for a fact I did the right thing, and I'd fucking do it again! And yet, you still need to encourage him to break free from Mizora. He doesn't take the initiative, you need to finesse that shit yourself.

He's somehow both meek enough in this pact that he won't even fight against it, but also confident enough that he did the right thing that he doesn't regret it. And it's a really interesting combo, to me, but it makes sense? He's done the right thing, and because he thinks it was the only correct option, every consequence is thus justified in his mind. Yes, he did what he had to, and now he must pay the price he "chose" to pay.

And it ties back to his relationship with his father, because yeah, he's grown up prepared for responsibility, but never felt like he was owed authority. So he will bear the burden, but never expect to reap the rewards. He understands why he was cast out, despite it being a massively cruel thing to do to a kid. Because yeah, of course his dad didn't want to associate with a warlock serving a devil, duh! EXCEPT THAT'S YOUR DAD!! THAT'S YOUR FATHER, WYLL!! HE SHOULD'VE TRUSTED YOU AND CHOSEN YOU OVER HIS POSITION BECAUSE YOU'RE HIS SON!!

It's fucked! It's fucked up! I wanna shake him and be like NO!! YOU DON'T DESERVE THIS!! YOU NEVER DESERVED THIS!!! DEMAND BETTER FOR YOURSELF RIGHT FUCKING NOW OR SO HELP ME!!! AUGH!!

God he's just a little guy fr 🥺

[benoitblanc]

no no you guys don't get it. the x files cancer arc was, excuse the pun, a fucking white whale of a tv plotline that would not have worked nearly as well on literally any other show. it was a complete hail mary. the writers' room nearly didn't make it happen because they were worried it would fall too deeply into soap opera territory. and on any other show, it would! but the x files is about four key things: mistrust in the government, faith in both science and the otherworldly, building a life around trauma, and the fine line between love and codependency. it is the only show where the entirety of this situation- a government experiment on an unwilling young catholic leads to a terminal illness that is counteracted by a literal scientific miracle in the eleventh hour due to her partner's refusal to accept her impending death- could both happen at all and happen well. none of the themes in the cancer arc were new to txf at all. they'd all been lurking, to some extent, in the background since the pilot. the cancer arc wasn't merely milking a left-field catastrophe for the drama, it shoved the overarching themes of the show to the front and said look. look what these people are to each other. look how impossible it is to face the darkness alone. regardless of when the plotline was conceived, it was always going to happen. it was the only way the story could have ever gone. they were always doomed from the beginning

[forcebookish]

the way that phoom is crying and how bittersweet this moment is for him but the look on vicha's face is just pure happiness

SOMEHOW THAT HURTS MORE??

forced to dance and re-experience his death every night for 23 years in a place that only reminds him of who he lost and yet he's just so happy to be reunited, in the most uncomplicated way, knowing that he's where they're meant to be for the remainder of eternity

because phoom thinks it has to end, but vicha knows it won't

[genericpuff]

Hey puff! So you said Hades is a "mess who hasn't spilled over" and there are definitely some warning signs even now - Artemis' dislike, the ominous grin in the last chapter does not bode well for Alex, him treating Minthe pretty badly and dismissively, being open about his attraction to Kore while acknowledging Minthe, eating Dio to shut him up and laughing about it (No Kronos flashbacks, Hades??) Of course he did a lot of this in LO too but that was framed as a good thing and you seem more self aware than that.

My question is are he and Kore still endgame with his bad traits? Or is Kore just hiding a much darker, more selfish side who would like all this?

Hades and Kore are both very, VERY complicated people with complicated backstories that involve both the good and the bad. They're both victims of circumstance as well as their own wrongdoings (even the ones that were well-intentioned, they're both walking the road to hell wink wink), they're both holding on to some pretty dark shit and we're going to be exploring plenty of both sides along the way. I'm obviously trying not to spoil anything, but I will say that Hades and Persephone are not going to have a cut-and-dry 'fairy tale romance' like what was attempted in LO, Rekindled is attempting to be a more faithful retelling of the original Hymn to Demeter after all (or at least its original themes and messaging). They're both incredibly damaged people with a lot of tightly-sealed baggage that DESPERATELY needs to be unpacked and we all know what happens to relationships built on those types of foundations ;0 So that's all ima say on that ~

As for the irony of Hades 'eating' Dionysus, hurt people hurt people. Though I wouldn't worry about Dionysus, he just projects his consciousness into berries, he's alive and well ;) As for Hades... let's just say you shouldn't eat berries possessed by the god of madness, guy is gonna have a harsh comedown LOL

[grayintogreen]

Respectfully, but a character can be and SHOULD BE allowed to be more than one thing without it being considered "contradictory", "retconning," or "negative character development."

[hikato-chan]

Hi dear SVSSS fandom, does anyone have any fic recommendations where SQQ is a complete badass? Please? I want to read that so badly, I got reminded of Inappropriate Use May Result in Strange Side Effects by AceOfDivineChlorophyll and how badass he is in LBH body and now I just need to read something that doesn't immediately wife plot him.

Doesn't matter if the fic is about something else as long as he's allowed to be actually strong! Please! I have no idea how to find this

[skulandcrossbones]

[hephaestuscrew]

When Minkowski hugs Eiffel in Ep31 Sécurité, she just grabs hold of him without making a sound, and the listener only knows about the hug because of the "oof" noise Eiffel makes in reacting to having "the wind knocked straight out of him", and the script directions say that Minkowski has "tears silently streaming down her face", and Eiffel is the one who directly acknowledges the hug verbally ("Don't apologise for hugging"). If all we had was Minkowski's side of the interaction, we probably wouldn't know that they hugged. 

When Eiffel hugs Minkowski in Ep54 The Watchtower, he first tells her "C'mere, give us a hug!", and he makes a happy sound of effort as he squeezes her, and Minkowski - under the influence of Pryce's restraining bolt - doesn't seem to have any reaction at all, which Eiffel doesn't appear to notice. Once again, if all we had was Minkowski's side of the interaction, we wouldn't know that they hugged. 

The question of 'in what ways is the hug made audible?' feels much more significant in audio than it would in any another medium, and I do think it reflects something about these characters and their willingness to be open with their affection. Minkowski "grabs him and hugs him" hard enough to knock the wind out of him, but she does so silently. In a somewhat similar but also very different moment of reunion, Eiffel "embraces her" and he's not quiet as he does it. There's something about how Communications Officer Eiffel is always the one who verbalises their physical affection, whether or not he's the one who initiated the hug. The closest Minkowski gets to verbally acknowledging a hug is through an apology; Eiffel is the one who makes the hugs real for the listener.

[wickedsnack]

varric's best trait and fatal flaw is that he believes in the best in people and if that's what kills him i'd say that's my little guy and i'm real proud of him

[quadrantadvisor]

The Owl House takes place on a corpse. That's clear from the beginning. The people we meet, the fantastical things we see, every part of it is life that comes from death, and it's beautiful. Luz says that, the first time she's far enough away to see the bones. It's beautiful. The Titan was so full of life and magic that what he left behind could be passed on and made anew, and the people who sprung from that, who rely on it, understand that and are grateful. Everything they have is built on the bones of a god.

But what grows from the bones of children? Nothing. Nothing at all.

The Titan hunters killed children. They said they were monsters, but they were children. Children who played games and laughed and from their first conscious moments wanted to be loved and belong. And they hunted them to extinction, and kept their pristine skulls as trophies. An entire room full of them, of tiny skulls that could've become something wonderful and terrible and life-giving but never had the chance. They wear them, as a badge of honor. Look what I've done, look what I destroyed.

Philip Wittebane had been making grimwalkers for hundreds of years, sure, but even knowing that, there's so many of them. How many could've reached 20? There's piles of them, of bones and identical masks, scattered at the bottom of a pit, and god, were they dead, when he threw them down there? It's clear that he doesn't care, that the only thing that matters is disposing of them once they wear out their usefulness, moving on to the new model. Children tossed aside, left to rot and decay, and when we see them the bones are all clean.

[backjustforberena]

"horrendous every time it's brought up"

"uttered privately and across the vast expanse of the throne room many times"

"must smile and ignore it"

"risks perceptions of treason and possible death"

"day after day after day"

[dostyaak]

I HATE how the "Ranmaru-wanting-to-pu-Joe'sAI-On-Himself" thing ins't talked about in the game

Like, Ranmaru just straight up addmited "Oh by the way, I tried to GET RID OF MYSELF just so there's a chance of Sara liking me", and NOT A SINGLE SOUL said anything about it, not even SARA, she just listened and DIDN'T SAID ANYTHING??

SARA, SAY SOMETHING! ANYTHING! PLEASE!