#i do love bastardization arcs

[lunavagans]

Hi! Uhhh I started writing a pre-manga pov of Ganondorf a while ago. Basically his bastardization arc from his exile (which the old woman in the desert tells Green about vaguely) to maybe just after Shadow‘s creation? I‘m not sure yet what I‘ll cover. Neither will I probably try to adhere to the disappointingly few hints from the manga, but I somewhat finished the first 1.5 scenes, so I thought I‘d go ahead and post them, see what the response is. Not to brag, but I think it‘s gonna be not too bad (says the person with zero experience in writing). Scenes under the cut!

Possible trigger warnings: mention of death and its glorification, allusions to losing one‘s mind via possession/curse, one curse word??

The night is cold. It always is, in the desert; razor-sharp and gnawing at one‘s bones. The fur-trimmed cloak fluttering around Ganondorf‘s figure doesn‘t do him any good, only a constant thwap! in his ear. In the faint moonlight, he sees the face of one of his oldest friends, her eyes shaded under her helmet. It gives her the expression of an old depiction of the sand goddess in a children’s book, enacting justice upon fairytale villains.

They stand far enough from the town for its nightly torches to be nothing more than a glowing backdrop to her silhouette. Nobody else knows of th exile’s whereabouts. He can only guess what excuse they will tell the civilians.

Wordlessly, she holds out a hand, in it a bag containing: the few rupees he privately saved for emergencies, hunting gear, branches of the sparse local medicinal herbs. He can barely see it in the darkness, has to instinctively reach out a hand for it to fall into. The goddess‘s hand lingers in the air. He likes the thought that it‘s because this last goodbye is just as painful for her.

Her hand finally sinks back to her side where it twitches once, wrestling with itself, then decisively gripping the spear standing out from the sand. Her voice is pressed and grates like smoke on the horizon. „You know this has to be done. It‘s for the best of us all.“

His own words come out no better; he almost thinks it a monstrous, vengeful someone else. It might have been, he will later conclude in a rare lucid moment. „It is not. You lose your king, I lose my name.“

„We have lost many kings; we‘ve managed. As for you…“ He senses it, the ashamed way she averts her eyes under that goddesses-damned helmet. She thinks his uprooting is worth their survival, their standing with Hyrule. „You won‘t. That is the point.“ He grows quiet after this. She‘s right. This is bigger than him and his mortal desires.

„You heard the seer say what would happen otherwise. And it‘s enough of a mercy that they… we don‘t have you executed for the danger you pose. Or drag you into an alley to do it discreetly. Maybe it was too much to expect for you to defy your namesakes, after all.“

Ganondorf watches her speak herself into a self-justifying frenzy absent-mindedly. The seer, yes. The one that had come in after the news of the princess‘s birth had been delivered. Stepped into the destroyed room, hadn‘t she, gingerly avoiding the shards and ashes. Croaked the damning prophecy as if she couldn‘t have done that sooner, right after his conception when his fate was decided. But no, the goddess could only grant one so much power, and only when they wished so; as if the goddess cared about one measly glorified fortune teller and the seal shit she wanted to pay her board and lodging with.

The guard stops mid-breath. Perhaps she knows of the carmine haze slowly settling over the exile‘s eyes, yet again. It doesn‘t matter. She branishes her weapon in demonstration; they both know she will not hesitate to use it. She will merely battle with herself her entire life afterwards. But what is one mind‘s peace in the eyes of the divine?

Ganondorf scoffs and turns away. His footsteps fade away far too late for her comfort.

————————————————————

The track through his homeland - on the shortest way towards the red cliffs cutting it off from the lush rest of the world - goes by uneventfully. He stops once, staring at the ruins of the Arbiter‘s Grounds. He excuses his behavior with the natural caution one should move with near the territory of a moldera.

It looks exactly the same as it always had. The coliseum still lounges in the sands, surrounded by columns and pathways. It reminds him of a sleeping beast.

He‘s glad he wasn‘t executed here, as his friend said it might‘ve been decided. He would‘ve been dragged into the arena for all to see, before the ancient mirror that had seen another king before him. Presented like a farewell gift before him, the scene feels familiar. It‘s as if he can remember the moonlight at the time, gleaming of the masks of the sages.

Oh, wasn‘t that death but the path to glory!

He keeps walking.

[egophiliac]

You can’t pick Lilia for this. But who is your other favorite short character in Twst?

I like the angry little king boy 🌹

[peofun1]

starting a collection of panels where Nirei is like 😱 and Suo is like :-)

[bonebabbles]

I remember when I was reading DOTC when I was around 10, and ever since Misty died I had been waiting for the moment where Birch and Alder learned about her murder, how everyone in their lives has kept it a secret. And then it just didn't happen.

I also remember obsessively re-reading the part where Quiet Rain blows up at Clear Sky.

Birch and Alder are two characters that are just so...

I WANT to say they were forgotten about, but that word doesn't feel right for how they're constantly showing up on the screen. Clear Sky occasionally feels guilty about how he murdered their mother, but for the vast majority of the time, that's described in passive voice. So you're not reminded of just HOW cruel he was, and still very much is.

It's like they're not allowed to be characters.

Like, how does Alder feel about Clear Sky, who seemed to be acting as an adoptive father until he beat her as a child? How did Birch respond later, when Clear Sky was so busy thrashing his sister that he was threatened by a dog? How do they feel about the man who took their mother away from them?

They keep getting cited as "Good Examples Of Non-Campborn Cats," dodging around the fact they were stolen and raised by Petal. Like a lot of the other "adoptions" in the series, she quietly stops mattering to them. But even this fact... like, they're being OTHERED when they were functionally raised SkyClan.

How do they feel about THAT? That their earliest memory is SkyClan, and yet, they'll never be considered truly, fully "clanborn."

Their whole life taken from them, by Clear Sky's cruelty, their formative years spent in his violent shadow, and the narrative is just not interested in that.

[urahara-lovepage]

bleach media literacy is actually just a measure of how you read urahara as a character

[stuworbutwitheds]

This might be a hot take(?) but i do like how Eddy become more grumpy as the show went between seasons

Of course he is more mean and kinda more aggressive with his friends.

But i think it's a great way to show how trauma can affect your personality, especially when it comes to physical abuse. Not every child that suffers like that is quiet and shy, some of them can mirror the bad traits of their abuser and they're just as valid to get love and support.

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

Are there any tropes you particularly enjoy in media? Just the first that come to mind

I am a sucker for “the villain/monster was redeemable and just needed a new perspective” to be honest I eat that every time.

[firestorm09890]

Day 3 - favorite character

guess.

[the-patrex]

Man what makes Aziraphale even more of a damn fool is that he like believes he can pick himself by his bootstraps, he believes in the system, HE could fix things if only the Right People were at the command. Not that it's well, systemic shit all the way up. The whole shebang just doesn't work.

[xenonsdoodles]

thinking about my beloved daedric girlboss today

[clerichs-xi]

also since im here already another dante sketch where he torments volo in goblin camp by making better rhymes than him

[fullscoreshenanigans]

Norman ratri fuckery or maybe Norman in lambda scenario if im understanding this right!

For an AU with greater canon divergence, I like tinkering with the idea of Peter being more hands on in interacting with Norman to better contrast with Emma and Ray getting Lucas and Yuugo for father figures.

22194 has been a child of interest since he scored a perfect 300 on his first test at age four. Potentially even earlier than that, if, like Ray, the demons kept track of his pedigree and his mother was also a full scorer. Regardless of exactly when it started, he continues to capture the attention of researchers and the demon nobility alike, so by the time Legravalima gives approval for him to be sent to Lambda so she can avoid handing him over to the demon god, Peter was already aware of his general existence.

He's thrown for a loop when he meets him in person though. The only potential photographs he would have of Norman would be from when he was an infant at headquarters. His incredibly light/white hair on its own wouldn't have been enough to give him much pause, but now that his features have had more time to develop, Peter's a bit startled at the Ratri ones he can pick out.

(@bon-nii's comparison of James and Norman from chapters 173, 152, 126, and 154)

(Chapter 74)

There's a bit of vanity in him saying he's too young to be Norman's father (never mind he was eighteen when Norman was born), but combined with the boy's looks, the phrase sits at the back of his mind, nudging him until he can't ignore his curiosity any longer. He looks into the genealogy records at Grace Field headquarters until he can't find any recording of a sperm donor, which isn't more than a few generations back. Odd, given that Grace Field is the top premium farm, but sometimes such documentation snuck through the cracks, and it wasn't unheard of for the occasional scientist to consort with the Sister candidates prior to the refinement of artificial insemination.

It's one of Norman's blood samples that confirms someone from the family—either from the main one or the branch Andrew's from—fathered a daughter with a Sister, and that daughter went on to have a daughter who then bore a son.

Pulling this bit from an earlier post:

…I still have trouble wrapping my head around the idea of Peter knowingly and willingly [putting a Ratri child in the farm system] on the basis of viewing them as an extension of the clan rather than as individuals, so it’s almost like it’s a worse reflection on him not being able to restore the honor of this wayward branch of it by “salvaging” the traitor’s children and raising them “correctly.” He places such great value in being a Ratri and displays such disdain when speaking of the cattle children as food, it’s hard to see him sullying the line in any way by condemning a member to the fate of the latter as opposed to just outright killing them, even if said member was an infant. That’s still Ratri blood—his blood—that would be going into the farm system, and he would never let anyone as lowly as food have any sort of claim to such a noble and prestigious status. […] However, I’m more inclined to entertain the idea of another family member taking advantage of their position as a Ratri to have a dalliance with a Sister candidate, as @officersnickers brings up in this post. It’s not something Peter would ever approve of, but what’s done is done, and importantly there was no explicit denouncement of the clan in this act, which I feel he would take personal offense to. There’s nothing he can do to save these children—the one-drop rule thoroughly entrenched in his mind, and their blood is thoroughly tainted—but maybe their Ratri lineage will win out and they’ll be able to rise above their pitiful status, so he does keep tabs on both as he approves of them being sent on their separate ways in the system.

This is where one has to make the concession that Peter cares more about having an heir and/or believing a child's Ratri heritage trumps their fate of being born into the farm system. Shirai never confirms if he has a partner, but regardless, no mention is made of biological children of his own or if he knows of any potential ones on the way.

And maybe that's getting to him as the thirty-sixth head of the Ratri clan who's going to turn thirty next year, along with this boy looking so much like James. He knew his brother had no children, and despite his traitorous ways knew he'd never father one with a Sister for a variety of reasons. Yet here is this distant relative whose genes were still so prominent even after being diluted with multiple generations of cattle blood (him being vain enough to include Norman's intelligence as being another gift of Ratri inheritance). He decides to take it as a sign and as a duty to reclaim and "salvage" this wayward line of the clan.

Norman knows something's off when he doesn't receive all of the drugs he normally does for the day. Everything else proceeds as routine until dinner, when he's escorted not by scientists or demons, but men dressed in suits to an area of Lambda he's never been to before. They arrive in a lavishly decorated room with Peter seated at a relatively small but well-furnished dinner table. Norman's never seen so much food meant for one person, but as Peter invites him to have a seat, he realizes it's meant for two people.

There's some small talk regarding the spread, Peter's recommendations and whether Norman's favorite dish is there. By sheer coincidence there is some chickpeas and meat stew present, and while Norman is still wary of the entire situation, he doesn't refuse the bowl placed in front of him by the butler. It's the most delicious thing he's ever tasted. Peter makes sure to clarify one of his personal chefs made it.

This segues into a brief discussion about the daily tests Norman's been taking at Lambda. He confirms they're harder than the tests at Grace Field, but he enjoys the challenge, the tiniest bit of smug pride seeping in in the event Peter had any ego tied up in his being bested by one of these tests. The proud tone in the response throws him off before his brain registers the words "as to be expected of a Ratri." Peter then apologizes at the small but still noticeable change in his expression, lamenting how he probably should have started out with that to ease any of Norman's worries.

He goes on to explain how he discovered this, interpreting Norman's silence as positive before moving on to provide a brief overview of how the Ratri clan came to be the mediators between two worlds and then explaining how his life will change now that he'll be staying in the Ratri visitors' quarters for the remainder of his time at Lambda. The process to remove his tattoo and brand will begin the following day, and he'll be weened off the remaining drugs he's been given.

Norman knows it's beyond his consideration, but he still can't believe the gall of this man.

As for what [being a Ratri] would mean to Norman, he’s never indicated any sense of loss related to not knowing members of his immediate birth family or fretting over his origins, but for him to be related to the clan that’s perpetuated this system of abuse over a millennia and with how his rigid sense of morality lent itself to the idea of exterminating every single demon, if he was in a particularly negative thought spiral, it might eat at him on some bad days.

Where Peter expected rapturous or reverential awe at being a long-lost member of the clan, he felt sick. He never knew his birth mother or other forebearers, but imagining everything those women had to endure after seeing what it turned Isabella into, all being said so casually without a hint of guilt over the horrors his clan perpetuated like he's discussing the pedigree of a thoroughbred animal instead of a human being, it's nauseating.

And his neck tattoo…the Lambda brand he wouldn't give a second thought to losing, but the tattoo has this paradoxical sense of kinship attached to it that I briefly go over in this post regarding the children still keeping their tattoos years after being in the human world. Even with it being a horrible symbol of their dehumanization under this system, it's been a familiar sight to him since his earliest memories. It's one of the physical markers of his connection with Emma, Ray, and the rest of his family, and this man will be flippantly erasing that. How easy it is for him having never bore the grief that comes with it.

This is already long but a tangentially related conversation to this eventually comes up with Peter asking about Emma and Ray. On the surface it's to connect with Norman and learn more about his life at Grace Field, but the ulterior motive is to see if there's any information he can glean about these kids to find and capture them quicker. Norman will give it to him for having the tact not to slip and refer to them by their numbers like he's sure he wants to do, but he's still incensed at their names in his mouth. There's also the chance that Peter might reveal a crumb of information himself about their status (because Norman can't see why he would be asking unless he had something to gain from it, so that has to mean their escape was a success and they were all alive. The alternative would kill him), so he entertains the conversation. He tries not to give any tells, but when he talks about them his thumb might have grazed the spot where his number used to be before covering it up with a cough.

Norman's never taken in by Peter's seemingly genial demeanor, but it's odd how personal and almost…amiable the man can be with him. Still, the love he's offering is contingent on Norman's continued assistance at Lambda (Peter sees it as their shared duty to solve the conundrum of faster high quality meat production) and at least the appearance of respect toward the clan. It's not unconditional like Lucas' and Yuugo's.

The clearest hint of this might be Peter mentioning how much Norman resembles James one night at dinner, building his brother up with the same admiration he displays in chapter 173 before lamenting his fall from grace, stressing the sacrifice he had to make by murdering him but still ultimately going through with it because the clan and balance between two worlds takes precedence above all else.

Alternatively, another scenario that's easier to work into canon is the Ratri clan realizing Norman's lineage when the cattle children arrive in the human world, also prompted by the databases at Grace Field sparking further investigation with a DNA test. Once it's confirmed, they keep pestering Norman about leaning into this kinship and actively working for them, along with having his family and friends seemingly on good terms with the clan for some PR optics. Norman finds the idea insulting and revolting, but he can't ignore the benefits that would come with it.

Like some other fans, I greatly dislike Norman becoming a CEO during the final major timeskip, as well as Lambda sickness being conveniently treated with no chronic aftereffects and absolutely no issues with them integrating into human world and being welcomed with open arms by everyone. I understand Shirai wanted to wrap up the series on his own terms after years of dealing with the strain that is weekly manga publishing, and he needed an explanation for how the kids could easily fund their expeditions to search for Emma, but oof, do I hate it lol. All of these remain a concern for the cattle children here, and while the Ratri clan wouldn't outright abandon them if he refused, Norman wouldn't put it past them to drag their feet on certain matters. Their finances and prestige shield them from any misguided resentment some people may hold for them. Their connections are a boon for securing future educations and careers. And god would it expedite the search for Emma.

I like to imagine a late night benefit-cost analysis between Norman, Ray, Don, and Gilda taking place at some point after they've settled in enough. The other three reaffirm that if Norman felt it was going to kill his soul to work for the Ratris, his friends and family would stand by his refusal, but they would be remiss not to acknowledge the pragmatism in further solidifying the relationship (particularly poignant coming from Ray, though not completely analogous situations). The conversation drifts off for a bit before Norman, looking exhaustedly across the table they're seated at with his hands on his knees, states, "I want her back with us."

Working with the clan would be odd in so many ways with how they would laud his status as a cattle child and how he was taking the lead on amending relations between the Ratri and the cattle children while never wanting to fully interrogate what that meant. There's a hierarchy with Norman at the top and the mass production farm children at the bottom in many of their minds. At one point in private after a publicity event someone says offhand, "you can cover that up now, you know," referring to his ID. Even in the winter he tries to make a point not to wear scarves or turtlenecks when he knows he's going to be around them.

I hate the idea of there being one good and upstanding Ratri member that befriends him just because it's too convenient, and if we're being real Norman would never let down his walls enough and let them into his personal world after everything he's been through, but I do like the thought of him maybe getting along with a few scattered members, probably younger, who recognize the terrible fate that befell the children from another world and are genuinely amiable with him without beholding him to form a meaningful friendship with them. A small attempt at a personal level of atonement that he can recognize and appreciate while still maintaining that mental distance. I also think he'd appreciate the very youngest children of the family who could give him insight into what the adults might really think of him and his friends with their uncensored commentary lol.

[hecksupremechips]

Not only did the Shinjiro social link during the femc route actually pull off whatever the fuck Kanjis entire toxic masculinity arc in p4 was supposed to be, it did it without the homophobia and awful friends

[pokemonprofessorintraining]

Well, I am now home... and... well, just look at it:

<photo of Cocoa's frontyard. Some plants have been obviously stomped and one of the windows has a pride flag entirely destroyed, with some parts torn or burned>

at least they didn't break any windows this time, but my poor flowers ;-;

[talentforlying]

woman at the park: aww ... that your little boy, then? constantine: not me, luv. he's me mate's, god help him. woman at the park: cor, 'e loves you though, don't 'e? i mean, 'e really trusts you ...

sb: man that kid really trusts you huh john, experiencing an extreme range of human emotions over the potential velocity of a child on a slide: he WHAT

[fischotterkunst]

literally this BITCH walks in and wants gold coins ON CREDIT and then GETS MAD AT ME and calls me a "cheat" and accuses me of "tricking" him when im like SIR THE COINS ARE CHOCOLATE

AND THEN

THIS BITCH HAS THE AUDACITY TO DEMAND FREE COFFEE AND A FULL MEAL AS COMPENSATION.

and i was like

but my character was nicer to him than i personally would have been cause they're like "i'm sorry we only have tea"

AND HE THREATENS. MY FUCKING LIFE. literally he says "i'm going to get back at you for tricking me"

BITCH

THIS IS A GIFT SHOP AND IM JUST A CASHIER GET YOUR ENTITLED ASS OUT OF HERE!!!!!!!!

and reader. he left. a bad review.

bitchhhhhhhhh im

and my sister. who has been listening to my outrage at this exchange. my own flesh and blood. puts her mic really close to her mouth. and says,

"enemies to lovers arc"

MY OWN. SISTER.