#you can probably guess what storyline inspired me

[thighzp]

chat you're not gonna believe this. i'm itching to start writing again.

[coralinnii]

I saw your request were open and got super excited so here’s my request it’s kind of long so I hope you don’t mind

So the idea is that the beast people have mates and you can feel your partner through the bond and it’s not obvious or some kind of communication link, but you can feel that they’re there, and when you see them you know that’s your mate, like that’s who you’re meant to spend your life with. But Leona has never been able to feel the other side of the bond like he was supposed to. And that was just one more thing his brother had that he didn’t. And then all the sudden one day he can feel some thing on the other side of his bond (when the prefect is magically, transported to twisted wonderland) And when he finally see them he know that they are his mate

And congrats on 2.7

❋ We finally meet ❋

↳ Leona finally meeting his soulmate

feat: Leona

genre: hurt/comfort, open happy ending(?)

note: no pronouns used with the reader, Leona is an emotionally constipated jerk (I’m sorry), follows game-canon storyline through Book 3

I genuinely did not think this would be as sad as I thought, but Leona… he got some issues… and I have met people like him which I actually took inspiration from…so I really am sorry. I still hope you enjoy it

2.7K Followers Writing Event 2023

Just like many things, Leona grew to give up on this fated partner drivel. The world kept screwing him over, so it’s better to not bother with trying, right?

Until now…

The fateful orientation at NRC occured. Leona awoke from his nap as he sensed a new warm sensation in his chest, as though his entire being was burning with excitement.

Leona knew it, the moment he saw you. He didn’t have to ask or second guess this primal instinct. The spark burst in his chest as the beastman watched you stumble about in this new world, his world. The beastly side within him roared within, finally meeting his fated partner.

Leona was…angry. He truly wouldn’t be happy at first. Leona was fine not having the bond after so long, but he has to accept that he does now? Not once did Leona feel the pull of a bond or even a spark of such a feeling as described by those lucky b*stards. Was he supposed to forget all about his feelings of frustration when he as a beastman couldn’t feel this so-called bond that was so natural to others.

What frustrated Leona more was that you weren’t a beastman, you weren’t even a person of this world. You probably never had to go through the bitterness as he did, seeing his brother and so many others find their fated mate so easily while he couldn’t even comprehend what that could feel like.

He knew it wasn’t in your control, but he wasn’t going to be alright with this convenient bullsh*t of a happy ending.

The lion ignored you, he wanted nothing to do with you. He fought against his very instincts because he refused to have expectations anymore. So what if you were his fated mate? It’s too much of a bother to take care of a clueless herbivore.

But alas, Leona sometimes couldn’t stop himself as he gave into his natural connection with you. Despite meddling in his schemes, he felt no hate towards you, even when he tried to. When you needed a place to stay after being kicked out from Ramshackles, he surprised even himself to let you stay in his room.

Sometimes he growls at you, but then keeps you close like a protective guard. Leona feigned indifferent to your attempts to befriend him, but just as those annoying beastmen b*stards said, he felt drawn to you as though his world became weightless with your presence.

This complicated story finally reached its crescendo when you couldn’t handle this confusing hot-and-cold game, breaking down in front of him.

“Do you hate me, Leona?”

You found Leona in his usual napping spot in the greenhouse, because of course he would be there. Sometimes, he would grumble and tell you to leave him in peace. But on rare occasions, the beastman would roll to his side as the two of you enjoy each other’s company, sometimes in silence, other rarer times bantering.

But that was the problem.

“I don’t know what to do,” you steeled your voice with all your might but the cracks in your tone exposed the raw frustration you were feeling. “Sometimes you treat me so well and I feel really safe with you, but then other times I feel like you resent my very existence!”

You felt it too. Since you came into this strange world, you’ve seen and experienced things you once thought inconceivable. It took a while but you will through your new life and you were actually having fun in this loony situation. Except, whenever you saw Leona...

“Some days, all I could think about is you.” You confessed in tears, embarrassment be damned. “I want to be around you, like I feel this pull to be by your side. I feel so happy when I’m with you, but it tears me apart whenever you act like you can’t stand me.”

To be rejected by your soulmate is akin to getting a part of your heart being crushed, that connection between the two of you is tearing at the seams and along with it, a piece of yourself. You were going insane as a part deep inside you was begging to stay with the stubborn beastman, but was all this pain really worth it?

“What can I do?” Do you let him go, or fix whatever is wrong with this relationship? You didn’t care what you had to do, you just wanted this pain to finally leave you. “Tell me, Leona. Anything”

But Leona didn’t say a word. His piercing green eyes just watched you, showing no hint of his thoughts. The only betrayal of his unreadable expression was the way his eyebrows furrow as he saw your tear-stricken face and your body shaking from pained rage.

The beastman’s body was still, before he sighed as he lost his internal fight with his primal instincts. His arm reached out to you, pulling your shaking body towards him as he forced you to lay under the shady tree, pushing your head that - to his annoyance - fit so perfectly under his chin, resting atop his shoulder.

“I’ll explain later. For now, sleep. You’re a mess” you wanted to hit him, argue whose fault it was for all this. But your body felt compelled to curl into this insufferable man’s warmth. His scent irritatingly eased your frustrations as his arm warped around you almost protectively, almost like you were something precious to him.

“You’re awful, Leona” you let out a last stab at the senior before surrendering to sleep. Leona smirked sardonically, not the least bit angered by your weak attempt at an insult, even without being overwhelmed by the feeling the sensation of satisfaction having his fated beloved finally in his arms.

“I am, huh?”

[astralnymphh]

AUTUMN DIRECTORY, 2024. (KINKTOBER)

ORANGE BEGINS TO TRICKLE IN, meaning it's time for newfound romance and horrors written in blood. this index contains upcoming pieces—everything from oneshots, headcanons, blurbs—and instructions for autumntime requests! quite similar to kinktober, but this isn't limited to kinks, is open to requests, and is not restricted to a daily schedule (because that would be hell).

REQUESTING RULES:

I. see rules here for general, annual information that still applies. fluff, smut, angst and horror is allowed. only writing for tlou characters. II. to be within the autumn realm, requests must (obviously) be related to festivites, occurences, or genres entailed under fall. this encapsulates october and november; halloween and family gatherings—but is not limited to those. (e.g something like a date in a leaf-scattered park, intimacy in a carinval, or mundane settings such as a college campus, count.) III. halloween requests can be directly related to the celebration, or complete deviations into horror. i have a horror oneshot cooking up at the minute (quite a few, technically), so most requests will be written into blurbs or drabbles. mythological creatures, murderers, folk legends, and movie-inspired dynamics are some ideas. but some of you are very creative, so please, do bend and amalgamate tropes to your heart's desire! (e.g a posessed, ballerina murderess would be fucking insane—in the best way possible.) IV. you can still send requests for kinktober, but this is just here to announce that i'm taking anything autumn-related. multiple versions are allowed for different kinks (e.g sub!reader, dom!reader, would count as seperate versions). also, do be wary that i won't write every kink, especially if it violates my rules.

LIST OF FICTION TO COME:

𝐧𝐲𝐦𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞 | vampire!reader x hunter!ellie [predator and prey dynamic, can you guess which is which?]

information: chances are, if you're an old reader of mine, you've seen this draft announced here and there a year ago—it has gone through metamorphosis. now, it has a predator and prey storyline to it. probably the only kink related oneshot, but it is not tied down to that. it explores a serious, horrific, non-sexual side of it, and gradiates into something more sexual. (using time skips)

𝐟𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐬 | jackson!reader x jackson!ellie [a request from one of my lovely anons. congratulations, it's a oneshot!]

information: this is where fluff, and romance, will nestle in a hearth setting. one of my anons requested a fic where ellie and reader cook dinner for joel and a special lady friend (yay for side charecter romance), ellie totally disgusted by the fact that joel has a supposed girlfriend now. (in a weirded-out, daughter type of way, y'know?) also ellie cannot cook for shit.

𝐬𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐮𝐦𝐩𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐬 | jackson halloween party, gone wrong! [title is a double entendre, you'll see why.]

information: so. funny little title. basically i just wanted to write something about a jackson halloween party, how it would go, what everyone would wear, who would be making out in the bathroom of whatever building it happens in—oh and some murder. it isn't a party in october if nobody dies, so.. yeah. (ellie and reader totally aren't the ones making out and getting freaky while someone gets killed. definitely not. heh.) this one will probably have comedic undertones to it. love us a good comedic fic, honestly.

(let me know if you want to be tagged for any of these)

SHORT WORKS:

every request for this directory will go here. check later!

[lanareadsbooks]

I’m confused about us?

Inspired by this mood board I made 🩷

This is basically just ooc Billy and literally doesn’t fit into the show’s storyline at all but I love me a good cowboy so I had to write about him.

Tags: Dom!Billy Sub!Reader punishments are given, spanking, smut, oral (m) lemme know if I missed any!

It’s 18 something (?? I have no clue when the show is set in) and you’re 19 when your parents decide drop you off with a man you barely know. William H Booney. They said “he’s a the son of some good friends of ours and they said he’ll straighten you right out” I don’t need straightening. You think. Geez you steel one truck and a bottle of liquor and suddenly everyone thinks your a problem. When you were first introduced you thought “hey maybe this won’t be so bad” You. Were. Wrong. Within the first 30 minutes your parents had left you, you couldn’t stand him. He came and sat down in front of your spot on his couch, Ok listen here little girl. He said, You frowned. Little girl? You thought. These are my rules. Follow them and you and me will be just fine. He smiled. No.1 please don’t steal no trucks or anything I have enough trouble with the neighbors around here I don’t need you making that worse for me. 2 Dont back talk me. There is nothing I hate more than an undisciplined girl. Your frown deeper. Though.. I guess that’s why your here isn’t it? He laughed like it was funny. You scoffed. No I’m here because my parents expect me to stay home and clean or embroider. You laugh, And that’s not something I can do every day. Oh? Speaking of that. You’re not gonna be goin out for the first two weeks. WHAT?! You said shocked. Yes mam I think it’s exactly what you need. He said patting your thigh. I need to not go outside? You asked rudely. No you need to realize you only get what given to you. Now I want you to understand if you break any of my rules you gon be goin over my knee that minute young lady. You understand? He asked. You turned red, w-what? You said hoping you misheard him. Yes mam I don’t know about y’all city people but right here when you misbehave you don’t like what happens to ya. N-no you don’t understand, my parents would never let a strange man do that to me. S-so call my daddy and he’ll tell you you’re not allowed to do that to me. You said almost confidently. Sorry sweetheart your folks were real clear I should do whatever need be to make you behave. Tears came to your eyes, but as long as you’re good you’ll be fine. You can do that right? You said to yourself.

No. No you can not.

Less than 24 hours later you found yourself over his lap, it happened because you saw some boys going on a trail ride through the window, you saw one of them had a flask. You thought how bad do I need that, you had been up since 5am thinking about Billy, how blue his eyes were how commanding his voice was (how good he’d fuck you) but that he’d probably never want you. He apparently he saw you as a little girl. Ugh I don’t like older men anyway (wrongg) you thought. As you tried to quietly sneak down the stairs and out the front door. You saw it was locked with a padlock. Shit you thought. Your eyes darted to the window. You smirked, I don’t know what he was thinking I can fit out of these windows easy. As you were lifting the window up all you saw was two hands towing over you and pushing the window back down. Your heart almost stopped. He leaned down to your ear and said. Now what do you think you’re doing little girl? He asked darkly. Uhhhh. before you could come up with an answer. He had picked you up and put you over his shoulder. You squeaked Ah! You yelled. Put me down!- he did in fact put you down… just over his lap. No! You yelled. Oh hush. No need for a tantrum now. I’m not having a tantrum! I’m a grown woman and you can’t do this t- you were cut off by him putting his hand over your mouth. You tried to wiggle your way out but he easily lifted up your skirt. And you felt a warm hand on your bottom. His hand rose, and fell quickly, alternating cheeks. If there was anyone else in the house they would have definitely heard the loud smacks! Billy was giving you. And your muffled cursing. After about 4 minutes of him doing this you were about to cry. You tried to get away but to no avail. He easily pulled you back to position and gave you two extra hard slaps. And kept going. He finished soon after you started crying. Your bottom stung. Nobody had ever done this to you before. It didn’t hurt that bad but the humiliation hurt He brought you back up and sat you on his lap, you quickly adverted your eyes down as to not make eye contact. But he harshly grabbed your face smooshing your cheeks together, listen, he said dominantly like he was scolding a child. This or worse is gon happen every time you disobey me , you let out a light sob just thinking about it. So I’ll let you decide whether or not you want this kind of stuff to keep happening.

No I really do not you thought.

It was two days later when you ended up in this position again. Billy had jokingly bought you an embroidery kit. And you had not so jokingly told him to fuck off. So he threatened to wash your mouth out with soap… what ? You said. I said you better watch your tongue or I’m gon have to wash your mouth out. He said dominantly. You suddenly felt very wet.. and figured what’s the worst that could happen? There are other things of yours I’d like in my mouth more sir. You said in a lustful tone, while looking up at him from your spot on the bed. Literally two seconds later he was unzipping his pants, he used your mouth roughly holding your hair in a ponytail. After he had came in your mouth and regained himself. You stood up and grabbed his shoulders, pressing yourself against him your body asking him for more- huh? You thought as he quickly sat and pulled you down and back over his knee. W-wait Billy- you tried to protest as he cut he off. Hush. Was all you heard before your skirt was lifted and smacks rained down on your poor bottom. “Luckily” for you it was a lighter one than your first but you were still confused. He was spanking you like a disobedient child. Not like a woman that had just sucked him off. “I’m confused about us” you thought.

This is it for today I’m totally planning on making this a series so request anything that would make sense in the story line once I get a few I’ll write part two so the more yall request the faster I’ll write. Also if you guys want to make any mood boards more this id love it! Also my request have been a bit wonky lately so if it doesn’t seem to be working just dm me please! Thanks for reading!

[rawliverandgoronspice]

THE GERUDO POST

(aka an attempt at a critique of how gerudos were handled in BotW and before)

Oh no. TOTK being right around the corner, it might finally be time for the Gerudo Post.

(aka half of the reason why I made a Zelda sideblog in the first place)

So I want to preface all of this by saying that, as you could probably tell already, I’ve always adored the gerudos. They have fascinated my small child brain when I was 7; then the obsession made its comeback when I was 14, and now, here we are, almost 28, and I’m still thinking about the gerudos. I think they might be among my favorite fictional cultures for their potential and their understated storyline. I guess growing up in a very Arabic neighborhood, coupled with being bi-culturally latinx (?? does Brazil count?? you tell me), also always made them feel like home to me –especially when I was very young and there was not a lot of cool female representation flying around that managed to involve fiercely independent PoC women, flaws and teeth included.

This whole weird-essay-thing tries to do two things. First: analyze the place gerudos have occupied in the series, their initial problematisms and their subtextual narrative arc during the Myth Era coupled with their relationship to Ganondorf. Second: tiptoe to Breath of the Wild and poke it with a stick to see what happens –and in doing that, explain why I believe a lot of their characterization was defanged in service of smoothing their past with the hylians instead of deepening the culture on its own terms, and why I’m a little apprehensive about what that might mean for TotK even though I adore seeing the best girls at it again.

Those are the uhh terms of service??

And now, we must go back to 1998.

OCARINA OF TIME ERA

There’s so many things about the gerudos that are noteworthy and rich, and they’ve made for a complex piece of Zelda lore ever since their introduction –and when I say complex, I don’t 100% mean it as praise. The very racially charged decisions made about their inclusion have been discussed at length by the fandom, especially when it comes to orientalist and Islamophobic tropes being deployed pretty thoughtlessly in Ocarina of Time (their sigil being literally a crescent moon and star originally, the parallels are pretty obviously there).

We’re talking about a band of amazon-like, big-nosed brown women from the desert ruled by a single Scary Evil Man born once every hundred years hellbent on conquering Hyrule who they apparently worship like a god, characterized primarily as thieves, decked in jewelry and orientalist-inspired harem/belly-dancing clothing, hostile to the white good guys of Hyrule (especially men), unblessed by the Goddesses and so deprived of elongated ears (this is true for OoT –we’ll come back to that), also known as a demon tribe with their deity straight-out described as evil-looking by Navi (on my way to cancel you on twitter Navi you watch out), and secretly led by evil twin witches who can turn into a single seductress and, as two mothers, raised their Scary Evil Guy king who happens to basically be the devil.

In so few words, gerudos are the future that liberals want.

It’s worth notice, also, that Ganondorf’s characterization in this game is… kind of relentlessly uncomfortable to play through, especially before the 7 year skip. The utter assumption of depraved and evil intents from every character surrounded by dialogue that does little to hide its biases in spite of having generally very little proof to back them up –even though, in the game’s context, every character is correct to call his eyes evil and the darkness of his skin a moral judgment in on itself. The scene where Zelda demands that we believe her conclusion that the sole and only brown guy in the entire kingdom is evil and will do harm, and the game straight out refuses to progress until we concede that her dreams are prophetic and that this man must be stopped at any cost even though she has no more proof than her discomfort… hits different on replay.

I’m restating all of this not to pretend I’m making a novel and thought-provoking point, but to bounce back on a tumblr post I saw a while back (that I can’t find anymore!! I’ll link it if I find it again) –and so express what it is that gripped me with the gerudos in spite of their pretty damning depiction… and actually maybe thanks to it.

There’s a surprising amount of texture to Ocarina of Time’s worldbuilding that exists folded within the things introduced and left hanging, or in its subtext –and whether on purpose or not, I believe it is why people keep coming back to this iteration of Hyrule.

What was that about the king of Hyrule unifying a war-torn country? Why did the gerudos break the bridge connecting them to the rest of the kingdom during the 7 year timeskip while still worshiping Ganondorf, and why are the carpenters trying to rebuild it against their apparent wishes? What was that about gerudos imprisoning hylian men trying to force entry into their lands? What was that about the secret death torture chambers right next to the Royal Family’s tomb and connected to the race of people who were, apparently, born to serve them?

Nothing? Oh okay… okay… okay….

The same can be said about this strange depiction of this hostile tribe, consistently described as wicked yet suddenly friendly once you prove you deserve their respect once you... defeat them, so you now have joined them? Ocarina of Time isn’t very consistent when it comes to characterizing them as their occupation (thieves) or as a proper culture, with a king and a strange system of rulership that seem to involve at least 5 people: Ganondorf, the Twinrova, Nabooru and the unnamed random woman who decides you’re now part of the gerudos because you slashed enough of them with your sword and hookshot, which, uhh ok.

They’re but a ragtag and negligible group when discussed next to gorons and zoras and hylians, but they also clearly have their own religion and at least a 400-hundred years old history (probably far longer than this) and hints of a written language of their own. I’m not sure the game itself knows what it wants them to be, beyond: intimidating and hot and cool, but also wicked and, because of Ganondorf and the way you barge in their forbidden fortress (heh) with the explicit intent to dismantle their king, in apparent need to be saved from themselves.

Speaking of rulership and the Spirit Temple, let’s have a quick tangent about Nabooru: I always found her characterization when meeting with Child Link pretty strange. I refuse to mention the promised reward, which feeds into everything orientalist mentioned above, but I always found her moral compass so extremely convoluted for someone coming from gerudo culture. Nabooru says that, despite being a cool thief herself, she resents Ganondorf for killing people as well as stealing from women and children. Stealing... from women. Nabooru. Why are you this pressed that he steals from women!!! This feels so out of place, that the only girl of that hostile culture that betrays her king and befriends you, is the one that upholds moral values that only a hylian could possibly hold.

Either way: the strange unquestioned contempt of the game for them as a culture, mixed with the occasional bouts of heart, friendliness and badassery, makes it hard not to consider their depiction as pretty biased in favor of the hylians finding them at once exotic, scary and exciting, and could hide a more complex reality you might only get one side of –especially when you know there were originally plans for Ganondorf’s character to be more gray and motivated than what the campy final version ended up being. To be blunt: even in the context of a game for children, and maybe because of that fact, it all reads like a reductionist and imperialist/colonialist reading of a more complex situation.

This might seem like A Lot coming from a game where the actual game writing can be this overall flimsy and simplistic due to the standards of the time (it’s rough, it's so rough). But I would have never dwelt on that thought about a little children’s game if not for the mainline entries that came soon after, because... ooo boy.

The sense you’re not getting the whole story was certainly not helped by the introduction of Wind Waker Ganondorf, and the chilling emptiness of Gerudo Desert in Twilight Princess.

AFTER THE TIMELINE SPLIT

(I’m skipping Majora’s Mask, not because I dislike them in the game or think they’re not worth talking about, but because it’s a parallel universe and they’re never even called gerudos and their reality seems extremely different from their sisters in Hyrule so I think it’s okay to call them tangential and not dive too deep in this particular depiction)

Here’s something I want to highlight about gerudos and how they were characterized before BotW came along: their absence. Not only their physical absence, the lack of any gerudo character that calls themselves gerudo, but their absence from the text itself.

It’s not that Wind Waker and Twilight Princess retroactively scratch them off existence: we can clearly see Nabooru’s stained glass art in WW as well as recognize them being mentioned in Ganondorf’s final boss soliloquy, and WELL there’s quite a lot to say about their imprint over the world of TP. They are there –or at least they... were there. But nobody ever talks about what happened.

In Wind Waker, there was the deluge. It’s assumed lots of people died then, and those who survived scattered across the Great Sea. Are they sealed under the waves? Have they drowned? Is Jolene, Linebeck’s ex-girlfriend in Phantom Hourglass, a distant relative of one of the rare survivors? It’s unclear, beyond the fact that Ganondorf is the only living gerudo we see in this entire branch of the Timeline split.

In Twilight Princess, the desert which bares their name is empty. The hylians never mention that it used to be the name of a tribe: they’re not even named when Ganondorf is introduced for the first time, reduced once again to a mere band of thieves. We learn his plans to steal the Triforce in OoT were foiled, and that he may have turned to war. Then he lost the war, and was executed in Arbiter’s Ground: a strange structure in the desert, a mixture between a temple, a prison and a coliseum. What looks like gerudo writing coexists with hylian symbols, which often look much fresher. This dungeon is the Shadow Temple of TP: a prison hosting the worst criminals the kingdom has ever known, now haunted and cursed. Besides the locations, the only character that vaguely look gerudo in the entire game besides Ganondorf is Telma, a character with pointed ears that never seems to identify as anything but a hylian. What happened? Who’s to say. Nobody ever says anything. Not even Ganondorf bothers to mention them the way he did in WW –and though the game’s story is quite focused on another exiled tribe seeking revenge and dominion over Hyrule as retribution, the parallel is never explicitly drawn. So who’s to say what happened there. Who’s to say.

And in A Link to the Past and the games forward? The only mention of other gerudo characters are Koume and Kotake, resurrecting their son in the Oracles games through their own sacrifice and failing to bring anything back but a monstrosity incapable of making conscious decisions. Granted, most games in that extremely weird Fallen Timeline predate OoT and therefore had yet to make gerudos up at all. Still: canonically, between the gap of OoT and ALLTP, whatever it may be, gerudos disappeared here as well.

I think there’s something subtle and a little heartbreaking about the fact that no matter what Ganondorf does, the gerudos always end up dying out. His yearning for Hyrule, its gentler wind and the Triforce blessing its lands always costs him the kingdom that he does have already.

Now, does he care? A lot of people would argue that he doesn’t, that he used them like pawns for his own ambition and saw them as servants more-so than sisters, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Nintendo’s official opinion, but… One very powerful thing about most of Ganondorf’s incarnations (focusing on the human ones) is that he never seems to reject his cultural heritage. They could have gone for him wearing more kingly hylian stuff given the whole underlying theme of envy and pride surrounding his character, but never once does he try to look more hylian, beyond the ear situation that seems to be tied to the Triforce of Power? Either way: he is gerudo. Several of his outfits reference his mothers, as well as general gerudo patterning and jewelry. His heritage is something he proudly displays, even hundred of years in the future when there is no one left to remember what it means but him. I think it’s a very potent piece of characterization, an arc that crosses over multiple game and says something pretty intense about this character’s fate and his inherent destructiveness over the things he touches –starting with the Triforce, all the way up to his very own body and mind. His mental breakdown by the end of Wind Waker, when the king of Hyrule himself forces him to give up on the thing he sacrificed everything for, takes a new kind of weight with the whole picture taken into account.

(not to excuse genocide or general egomania-fueled madness and violence, but one thing doesn’t mean the other isn’t also relevant)

Regardless of whether this is a tragedy for Ganondorf as their uhh complete failure of a king, honestly, it is undeniably a tragedy for the gerudos themselves: a once-in-a-lifetime joyful event turned into a never-ending nightmare from which there seems to be no escape, their legacy now condemned to fade to black, leaving nothing behind but a demon boar forever laying ruin upon the world.

One may say I’m taking on the bleakest explication for the gerudos’ absence when there could be others. It’s true! Perhaps the gerudos are just chilling off-screen, completely fine, not interested in whatever is happening in the kingdom nearby and their disaster child having yet another temper tantrum about not being the Goddesses’ favorite boy. It’s possible! But regardless, what little elements we do possess as players doesn’t seem to support this, even if it remains possible –and regardless of actual gerudo lives, gerudo culture is definitively a goner in every single timeline.

Even if they did survive... Hyrule still won its unification war.

(I won’t mention Skyward Sword as they are not really a thing there, except for a butterfly that seems to suggest the Gerudo Province was a thing before the gerudo people –I don’t know what to do with this honestly– and the whole Groose situation, which, I’m not sure what to make of either beyond the fact that he may have gotten cursed by opposing Demise? And then went on to start the gerudo tribe, which ended up being an all-women group for some reason? Maybe? It’s not confirmed? I feel like it’s more of a fun tidbit than a central piece of the gerudo puzzle, so I’ll leave it there like I would a cool rock I brought back from a walk and that I don’t know where to put in my house)

Then, Breath of the Wild happened and changed things.

BREATH OF THE WILD

(Additional short note, but: while I won’t mention Four Swords Adventure, since it’s a weird one that almost nobody has played and severely messes with the Timeline, we kind of see the beginnings of what is about to happen in Breath of the Wild in this game –gerudos coming back without much explanation, then distancing themselves from Ganondorf to become friends with hylians because he was too hungry for power and now they are nice and have good reputation because they are our friendsss)

I was actually so happy to learn gerudos were making a comeback in a mainline Zelda game, and this got me more excited about Breath of the Wild than basically anything else the game involved. And getting to explore the Desert once again, meeting this new batch of impossibly tall buff girls, getting more about their language and their culture, Riju and the rest of the little girls are adorable, the grandmas are so cool, the sand seals??? sign me the fuck up??? And above it all, hanging around Gerudo Town at night and feeling as warm and cozy as little me liked to imagine how freeing it would feel, to stay there and watch the desert behind the safety of their walls in OoT… This was great. I loved it.

It was a huge compensation for the criticism I’m about to make, but did leave me with… questions regarding how their culture was going to be handled moving forward.

I’ll start with something small yet deeply revelatory, then work my way from there.

So... gerudos’ ears are pointy now.

This is pretty significant. Lore-wise, it’s been said that the elongated ears of hylians are there so they can better hear the voices of the gods. It’s considered a sign of holiness in-universe. There's a bunch of really thoughtful analysis on tumblr over that whole Ganondorf ear situation, which is a mess but also very interesting, but the short answer is: I think the absence of pointy ears was a clear design choice to originally signify them as Less Good. Even when Ganondorf gets pointier ears, they never get as long as hylians’. Worth noting: not every non-gerudo character has pointy ears: gorons, zoras and ritos (among others) do not possess this trait, and there are even some humans that have regular rounded ears in the series –though they always seem to be of lesser relevance, if not downright peasants in Twilight Princess. Pointy ears always tended to implied a strict hierarchy in the series: basically, the more pointy, the more Protagonist you become.

(also their eyes becoming green instead of the traditional yellow/golden, which looks more wicked and demonic --and cooler also tbh)

The pointy ears imply two things. From within the game, this could be interpreted in two ways: either that gerudos… converted, for a lack of a better term, and are now considered holy through their worship of the Golden Goddesses and/or Hylia, or that their mingling with hylians through tens of thousands of years had them acquiring this trait out of sheer genetic override (though they have kept their mostly-women birth rates, their big nose, darker skin –for the most part– and red hair). Probably a healthy mixture of both. Design-wise, it signifies something quite simple to the player: they are on hylians’ side now. They are good guys. We can trust them, even if they still have a little spice in them. They aligned themselves with us and against Ganon in all of its manifestations (even if he’s but an angry ghastly pig being parasitic to everything it touches in this iteration). They are on the side of Good, definitively, and will fight evil by our side.

On that note, I think it’s worth bringing out another major change from their initial iteration, which is their overt friendship with Hyrule as a whole, and with the Royal Family in particular. Despite not allowing any voe inside their walls (we’ll come back to this), their relationship with hylians is pretty neat. They have booming trade roads, travel and meet with the rest of the cultures, and are fierce enemies with the Yiga clan, who are renowned for being huge Calamity Ganon supporters. The tables certainly have turned. I want to bring out, in particular, Urbosa’s friendship with the queen and her role as the cool aunt taking care of Zelda and protecting her from evil (to be noted: I am not familiar with Age of Calamity so if I’m mischaracterizing her in any way, please let me know). The gerudo sense of sisterhood has been extended to the royals they used to fight against. I would go on and say the cultures peacefully coexist, but I think that what we’re looking at here is a case of vassal behavior, just like we used to have from zoras (in the non-Fallen Timelines) and gorons. This is a huge departure from gerudos being openly rejecting of Hylian culture in their initial iteration, and something that is worth returning to later.

Okay. Now it’s time to mention the weird obsession BotW gerudos have with romance. I didn’t take notice of my issues with their writing until I realized how prevalent of a theme that was. Now, the reason given for gerudos to refuse entry to males (of every race) has much more to do with preventing young gerudos to make mistakes than anything else, and is actively being put into question by the younger generations –which would make sense. But the amount of NPCs that either lament their lack of match, talk about their husbands (because they marry now apparently) or are invested in romance, and a very limited understanding of romance at that (heterosexual, closed, etc), makes for much more of the population that I initially expected. There’s no mention of what’s going on with their males, if there are new males being born and either exiled or abandoned, or if Ganondorf being technically still alive have have cut them off male heirs. Either way: no more kings, only girlbosses chiefs.

To have the gerudos so interconnected with Hyrule, not only through trade but through extremely coded romance where they have to make themselves palatable to a future male partner and enforce fidelity, was… a choice. The extremely brief and skippable mention of gerudos sometimes going to Castle Town in search for boyfriends in OoT became half of their personality traits in this game. We went from a race that was fiercely independent and mocking of the unworthy men who tried to mingle with them, to… this. Now I’m not saying some of the sidequests aren’t cute, or that I didn’t like the wedding, or that the grandma near the abandoned statue of Hylia (so she was worshipped at some point) clocking us and talking about her love life wasn’t one of my favorite gerudo conversations. I’m saying that the vibes have definitively changed. For the better? I’m not sure.

I once stumbled upon an article that said that Breath of the Wild gerudos were a huge improvement compared to their original introduction, because they were no longer presented as evil and hostile thieves groveling at the boot of a single man, but as a full culture allied with the protagonist and actively involved in the story, while still getting their Cool Girl Badass moment (again can’t find it anymore, I’ll link it if I stumble upon it again). I see where this comes from, but I honestly can’t help but consider it a reading that assumes something pretty major (though through no fault of their own, as the games tend to hammer this down as hard as they can), and that being hylians as the unquestioned anchor of Good.

Which, in spite of what the games want me to believe, I… feel uncomfortable taking at face value.

To me, regarding how gerudos are being incorporated in that goodie narrative, this is kind of a case of surface-level feminism trumping over colonialist/imperialist concerns. It becomes more important to perform the aesthetics of being cool and friendly and independent than scratching at any deeper problem that would risk making people uncomfortable. This is kind of Green Skin Ganon all over again: oh wait, isn’t it a little icky to have the evil bad guy being brown while faced by the most aryan-looking ass heroes of all time? Okay, then let’s take the brown guy and make his skin green so we don’t have to feel bad anymore that the conflict has racial undertones!! Solved!! There’s nothing questionable about changing a PoC's features to make it more monstrous and less human, right?

To me, it’s kind of the coward option: instead of accepting the messy reality those initial choices created (and their interesting nuances if taken at face value), let’s just… rewrite the PoC culture’s history to make it feel less uncomfortable for the white heroes. In many ways, it is an extension of what hylians have always done: scrubbing the weird and messy things about the past and shoving them deep down into the spooky well and far into the desert prison and away in alternate hellish dimensions, and then make up a very simple story where they get to feel good about themselves –except this time, it’s the fabric of the games, the literal reality, bending backward to make it happen. Which, in my opinion, makes it much worse than before. Now, there’s no conversation. The fabric of reality is changing their own history so that there is nothing to discuss anymore. Ganondorf was always evil incarnate. He never had any point. It was always 100% his own fault, his own hubris, his own fated wickedness. He was always demonic (and green, very important –having a flashback to people on twitter accusing artists restoring the TotK green skin to the original brown of wanting to make Ganondorf black, and like….. how do I put it gently…..)

And, above all else: gerudo are to distance themselves from his legacy so they can stay in the club of the Good and Just and Holy.

Because here’s the messy thing: as much as I love seeing the gerudos again in Breath of the Wild and as much I love for them to have survived the Era of Myth (??? somehow ???), this… kind of changes Ganondorf’s character arc. No longer do we have the story of a king who wanted more, either for his people, for himself or both, and led his culture to its destruction in his search for absolute Power, while remaining ironically incapable of maintaining what little he already had. This starts from him kneeling to the king of Hyrule in OoT and leads to the deluge, Arbiter’s Ground, his own mothers dying for the sake of his failed resurrection. Breath of the Wild changes this: now, the gerudo were apparently fine without him? They apparently did their own thing and became suddenly and inexplicably disconnected from his actions? I know it’s kind of implied they side with hylians at the end of OoT, but it’s honestly never really explored why they would cheer for the death of their king while never seeming to resent him before except for Nabooru –there are mentions of brainwashing for those who resist him (as well as “other groups in the desert”, tho they are never mentioned again), but it’s hardly a proper plot point for the majority of the tribe, aaaand they still die by Wind Waker in the Adult Timeline, in spite of their potential alliegance…

(again, this shift towards submitting to Hyrule actually started with Four Swords Adventure, getting crisper with each iteration)

There used to be this polite blur regarding Ganondorf’s relationship to them, how much he used them and how much he acted in their name (with arguments for both sides), and I think this messy and debatable question mark was one of the most compelling aspects of his character. Gerudos rejecting their relationship at a near-cosmic, reality-bending level, removes a huge layer of complexity to both parties… all for the benefit of making hylians come out cleaner out of this whole exchange, their moral grayness barely a whisper in the distance.

I’ll kind of go on the record and say that I suspect the addition of Demise to the canon to serve a similar purpose (at least in part): if Ganondorf becomes but the manifestation of a demonic curse, and is no longer an extremely messy character brimming with agency and drive, forcing the heavens to reckon with said agency in a way he was never meant to access, born from a complex set of circumstances from which we clearly get only a limited and biased perspective, then it becomes extremely clear that he’s a Bad in a way that isn’t worth exploring further. Even if he does have some points, he is a Bad. It’s what matters most. Not to say I even hate what this angle can bring to the table or that I want him to become Good (I don’t –I’ll talk more about why I dislike most takes on him being a helpless victim to the curse), but once again, who benefits from adding another Unquestionned Baddie to the equation to rest upon? Not him, and not the gerudos, that’s for sure.

So. Why did I, me, personally, like the gerudos in the first place?

Beyond the inherent coolness factor of their culture and the fascinating mysteries of what is merely suggested, I think… I think I loved gerudos because we were obvious outsiders. Because their rejection of Hylian culture was so sharp and extreme, their value system so different, and their writing, their religion, their relationship to power and hierarchy and worth wanted nothing to do with hylians. They didn’t need hylians, beyond them having potential resources to steal. In fact, the threat of hylians influencing their culture was such that the entry to the Fortress was forbidden to everyone (I don’t think men were ever singled out, by the way, even though they are mocked relentlessly). I think there was something inherently hopeful about this semi-matriarchy resisting the outside world, and especially its notions of what girls were meant to be –it was 1998, and every other girl character in OoT, besides Impa and Sheik that?? is another can of worms entirely, is either helpless or someone to save. For them to reject this narrow vision of femininity was, in my opinion, much more radical than what we got in BotW. Less nuanced, more problematic perhaps? But also much more powerful. Gerudo Valley is home, not to a town, but a Fortress.

Hylians were worth being resisted.

In Breath of the Wild, their refusal to let men enter their town is kind of boiled down to a fading tradition over-focused on romance, a meek little game of chase. Their entire goal seems to be finding a hylian to settle down with. Say what you will about the single man and the many girls (never explored and completely open-ended in its implications, btw), but at least it wasn’t… that. At least it opened the way for different ways for people to exist and imagine culture and civilization, outside of the heterosexual couple, the christian-infused patriarchy and its trickling down implications. What I want to say is: let my girls tell hylians they ain’t shit!! That they aren’t the end all be all of reality! This is what made gerudos so compelling in the first place! Where is that bite now? Where is that self-definition?

It’s gone, because hylians need to be Good. So we tee-hee at the creep running laps around the town, we disguise ourselves to breach their trust and infiltrate their town (though there is nuance to be had there, gender be complicated etc), we watch them pine after shitty dudes and take classes to become the perfect approachable woman and make love soups with ?? strange ingredients honestly, and we witness them get very friendly with the Royal Family they used to conspire against, dying to protect the princess against the manifestation of their ancient king reduced to a raving puddle of Bad Boar.

Hyrule, unified against him.

TEARS OF THE KINGDOM

For posterity’s sake: this post was made before the game was released. I’ll probably update my thoughts on a separate thing later on.

I don’t think gerudos allying with the hylians and burying their own legends about Ganondorf as deeply underground as they can until it blows up in their face is a bad setup at all. It’s actually pretty juicy, and there’s a ton of fascinating stuff that could happen here –even some involving gerudos taking a firm stand against him while still reconnecting with their past and the choices they made once. This is my hope with the title of the game: Tears of the Kingdoms. Let’s examine them all, account for the damage, and decide how we move forward from there with the full knowledge of where we come from.

What I am afraid of (and I already made posts about that) is the scenario where gerudos rallying against Ganondorf, which I expect will forcefully try to take back his place as their king, is used for cheap feminist points that completely fail to examine, well. Everything mentioned above. Where reality bends itself out of the way of the Goddesses, and hylians’ responsibility in any of this mess, so that everything bad is 100% Ganon’s fault and so he must be cast aside and torn away from the Cool Gerudo Girls and this is 100% justified and deserved because we are Independent Women Who Take No Shit from No Men (unless they are the king of Hyrule or any random hylian they wish to marry apparently).

I’ll say this here because it’s been burning my mouth every time I see discourse about Ganondorf and the gerudo: gerudos declared him as their king. To make a really bad comparison that I dislike: he didn’t run around to assemble girls and make a cult around himself, he was born with the cult already formed around him (and it’s not a cult, it’s just a different mode of governance –hylians also revere the Royal Family like gods, don’t they?). This heavily changes the dynamics at play. Not to remove any agency from him to do a little invasion about it, but chances are the ancestors to BotW’s gerudos fully expected him to behave in this way, at least to a degree –in OoT you see very plainly that they value physical prowess, feats of thievery, witchcraft and general violence. It’s more complicated than him being a Bad and making the poor helpless women go along with the plan uwu –even taking the brainwashing into account, AND Koume and Kotake counting as gerudos too, even if they might not be not fully innocent in shaping the culture and the man himself. If manipulation and forced servitude is the explanation given, I’ll be genuinely mad –because, once more, all the nuance and messiness would be flattened for the sake of making Ganondorf Bad and the gerudo Good (= on hylians’ side).

It bears to be said: I think feminism stances that require, not to criticize (which is fair), but to fully dehumanize and bestialize men of color to make any sense are uhhh bad, and it's worth questionning who they end up serving in the end.

The flip side of this would be to make Ganondorf a poor little meow meow that was secretly controlled by the evil Demise all along, and... I’ll be real. I really don’t think it solves our problem at all. It might even make it worse.

My problem with how gerudos have been handled thus far, being mostly connected to how they behave in relation to hylians Good, is that they’ve been systematically defanged not to threaten the status quo as much as they used to. I think it’s pretty clear why I’m not a fan of Ganondorf being a mere victim of cosmic circumstances; I have a post that goes more in depth about this, but to simplify: my man has legitimate grievances. To make him a mere puppet to Evil Incarnate would, to me, be just another attempt to erase the despotism of the Goddesses, the unjust hierarchy of the world, what hylians have historically done to the races they were in conflict with (looking at the Yiga for the most recent example…)

I’m not saying his fight is clean or even legitimate, that he isn't driven by his own sense of self-importance above anything else, or that he should win (he has no plan beyond domination and victory, that's not a future). But I think there’s something really important about having someone being willing to fully consume himself and everything around him for the simple fact that someone should resist the order of the world. Even if that makes him a heartless, cruel, and egomaniac demon-pig. Even if there’s no Hyrule left to rule. Even if his own people despise him, or are long gone and forgotten.

Is it a little heart-wrenching? Uhh yes to me yes most definitively. This is why Wind Waker Ganondorf hits so hard, and remains (I think) his favorite entry in the series so far. But… I still find this fate of eternal resistance more resonant and empowered, and far less grim, than if Hyrule’s lore absorbs his hatred and rage, gives it to another entity that would be Badder (= more opposed to hylians and the goddesses), and scrubs it off anything icky and uncomfortable, rendering it completely domesticated and non-threatening to hylian domination; rubbed of his skin color, of his complexity, of his own emotions, even made... kind of sexy now, in the same way his sisters have been made before him? I am very, very afraid of him being turned from furious and an unapologetic subject in his own legend to a "redeemed" (according to whom??) and palatable object in somebody else’s, that you now end up having to… save from himself.

Again, I want to trust that Tears of the Kingdom can walk that line and preserve everything sharp and contrasting and profound and thrilling about this fascinating setup. I don’t expect a philosophy course, this is a game for children –but it doesn’t mean Nintendo didn’t do an astounding job with similar setups in the past. Again, I’ll invoke the Wind Waker conflict, but Twilight Princess did a lot of great things as well (Zant’s speech, if you can get past the weird stretches and stumping and NNHYAAAs, is pretty fantastic) –and the subtle writing of Majora’s Mask is also proof enough this series can be complex without being impermeable.

So this is where my hope lies. Not really with BotW’s writing, which, I’m sorry to say, but I found to be below what the series has done in the past (I have no problem with the setup and how the story is explored, I think it was a great idea, but wasn’t ever sold on the actual writing the way I may have been with previous titles –it felt… very tropey to me overall, with a couple of highlights). But Nintendo has shown to know how to write compelling stories for children that know where to sprinkle its darkness and how to preserve its hope, and this is this side I’m relying on for this delicate storyline moving forward.

And now? Now… I suppose we wait and see.

(thank you for reading my impossibly long essay what the actual hell, at least I got it all out of my system, see you in part 2 for when TotK comes out I suppose aaa)

[anxresi]

They're absolutely right...

...It's the writers that deserve the lion's share of the backlash, for poor, innocent, boring-as-hell Zoe is merely a tool of the oppressor, aka Mr Astruc. What's being oppressed, you may well ask? Well, interesting storylines, proper continuity, two-dimensional personalities... I could go on. Everything that makes a show compulsive and rewarding viewing that Miraculous Ladybug conspicuously and utterly lacks in every department due to his increasingly destructive machinations, basically.

This pink-streaked plot device masquerading as a serious character can (along with another equally pointless individual called 'Soquerline' who was so unmemorable I almost forgot she was ever a thing) exists for one reason and one reason only: to diminish Chloe's relevance and role in the show to the sum of precisely nothing. Well after S5, job done I guess guys. Well done. Well done indeed. (Although apparently not... they're bringing Miss Bourgeois back for more torture in the London 'special'. Guess Tommy Boy just can't keep away from his favorite punching bag, can he?)

The irony is though, having such a super-sweet but dull-as-ditchwater Mary Sue to replace a well-established and multi-layered person such as Chloe actually sends out a seriously awful message. Why? Because if I was a bad kid and saw S1-3 Chloe, I'd think 'what a fascinating redemption arc, I can inspired by that and do better.' But after seeing S4-5 Chloe and what an arguable downgrade as a replacement the incredibly tedious Zoe is, I'd be more like 'well, obviously there's no point in trying to be good, because you'll probably turn into a psychopath overnight with no explanation in the middle of your genuine efforts to improve. And if what the show is presenting to me as the ideal for a teenage girl to be is the waste-of-blank-space that Zoe clearly is... then a life of deliquency sounds more tempting with every passing minute! Now, where did I put my spray can?'

The most shameless aspect to this whole argument though, is by those trying to paint the hapless Zoe as some kind of lesbian icon. Pardon? She got a plot-mandated crush on Marinette in one episode and somehow that makes her insipid and needless presence an asset for the gay community? Somehow a few people have got it into their heads if you 'dare' to make someone non-straight in cartoons these days you deserve a big pat on the back for that 'risk' alone. WRONG. They should also be fleshed-out, complex, necessary characters whose sexuality isn't just define them or deflect from deserved criticism as to what the hell they are doing there if they turn up in the middle of proceedings with no prior explanation. See: The Owl House for how it's done.

And that's all Zoe being gay is... an irrelevant trait Mr Astruc can point to cynically and say ' you're a bigot for disliking her whatever your reasons are, so I'm not listening to you' instead of engaging with the actual argument which is SHE IS NOT AND WAS NEVER NEEDED IN THE SHOW. Everything you required to make Chloe the brilliant character she could've been was RIGHT THERE in the script but you CHOSE to rub it all out and scrawl some hastily scribbled doodle with no personality other than being 'very nice' in her place. A tragedy. The worst case of self-vandalism I've ever seen. No wonder Jeremy Zag wants to start from scratch with his rebooted movies. More power to him, IMHO.

Needless to say, nearly all the above in the quoted post about her father loving her (we haven't met him yet, it's DEFINITELY not Andre Bourgeois, his name ends in 'Lee' for a start) her supposed growth (the only 'growth' she's had is when she turned into that giant golden Chloe after being akumatized) her alleged pansexuality (all in the desperate mind of the OP) her 'abusive' family (I think you'll find Chloe had it FAR WORSE over the course of the show in that regard, so why not idolise her?) is complete bunkum. and to be frank I couldn't compose a much delusional post if I tried. Sometimes I wonder: what planet are some people on to reach such implausible conclusions? I don't understand it, I'll never understand it and quite frankly I feel quite sorry for the arbiters of such risibly deluded takes.

Last but not least though, we have...

Now this I ALSO agree with 1000%. And I know just the place to 'flush' her... ;)

[alpaca-clouds]

Sypha as the Paragon

I will openly admit. I will always be confused by people, who call Netflix Castlevania nihilistic or cynical. Because... It really is not, is it?

The usual argument goes, that it is cynical/nihilistic mostly for showing cycles of violence. But that does not make it either thing. And it is one of those "media literacy" things, that I wish people would understand. (Because no, CV is not the only show suffering from that criticism while actually telling a very hopeful story.)

Usually the people will argue about this because of season 3. Aka: All the storylines (with the exception of Isaac's arc) in S3 ending in betrayal. The people then will further argue that either the story did dirty by especially Lenore, but possibly also Taka, Sumi and the Judge, or that those characters are the absolute worst and deserve to die.

But I cannot help but feel that both attempts are actually really bad takes.

So, let me talk about Sypha. Because it is fairly clear that Sypha is the paragon of the series. Which is interesting. Because one should think that Trevor or Alucard would be the paragons of the show. Sure, in some way Alucard takes a paragon role in season 4. But for the most part Sypha is the paragon of the series.

A paragon usually is the hero character in a story, who not just does all the heroic stuff, but also more than anything is exemplary for the "moral of the story". Very often they will also go on and inspire other people to do the same.

And that is the point: This is Sypha. It is not Trevor or Alucard, who are examplary for the moral of the story, it is Sypha. She is the one to do good not for any personal reasons, not for any cynical reasons, but because it is right. Because it is right to help people.

What makes her the paragon, though, is that the story does proof her to be right. In the end she converts the people around her to those believes, which is most notably in Trevor of course. Because he does start out as a cynical nihilist - but in the end is willing to die for this greater cause.

More importantly, though: The story validates her believes. It does end up confirming again and again, that while in hard times so many people will suffer and struggle, people in generall can and will be good - and do right.

Okay, but so what about the betrayels?

Simple. Kinda simple at least. It is our old favorite topic. Or rather the topic that keeps coming up in current media so often: Cycles of violence/abuse. This is the clearest in Taka and Sumi, because we know their story. They were slaves. They were abused. They are probably (at least judging by their designs) additionally from a group that was marginalized in Japan at the time. They indeed only know people lying to them and betraying them. And because of it they do the same in return.

With Lenore it is a bit more complicated. Because with her everything is subtext. While it is fairly likely that she is Scottish and hence the entire war in her Backstory that we know about has been linked to the first attempt at Scottish independence, we can just guess about everything else. But lets face it: We know what happened to noble girls who got taken prisoner by the English during wars.

And while there is not a tragic story to the Judge, he also is an example of how hard times provide those best cover for those corrupted by power.

In the end, Sypha (and also Lisa) are the ones who might as well turn to the audience to tell the moral: "Make the world better, and people can be good."

Hells, just to confirm it, they also make sure to hammer it home in season 4. With both Trevor and Isaac having their monologues about "building a better world", and "building a future for people to live in".

It would be cynical/nihilistic if what the story here said was: "Welp, some people will be assholes and they will inevitably get you at some point. Better be careful." But that is not what the series is saying. What it is saying is: "The world out there is hard, and some people know nothing but hardship. They will not know any better but to hurt others. But if we made the world better, they would not be forced into this situation."

Lenore is a tragic figure. Taka and Sumi are tragic figures. That is the point. They did not need to be "evil". But in the world they lived, they had no choice.

[murderlight]

Ive been rereading your stuff recently and its always so refreshing and charismatic w/ how well you portray the world of bleach!! grimmichi is a ship with a lot of sauce to begin with but i really think your biggest strength is how you make it feel natural and responsive to the setting that they're established in even when youre writing something funny and out of character. I think you also balance a good job of like, the corny camp bleach is known for and also it's grit, when a lot of writers i think go one way or the other. Bleach is a lot like the SAW franchise of shonen imo and like a lot of gore-y slapstick horror its a really specific note to strike that gets it right. I DIGRESS HOWEVER as the point of this being an ask is i wanted to know; what gives you inspiration for writing the two of them together? Not so much the fic ideas or storyline, but the dumb in-betweens when they're just stuck being people together?

thanks for the great message!! bleach helps me a lot with it's totally weird characters, violence and humour so honestly i'm probably just trying to match kubo's freak as best i can 😂 in a very different way, ofc. i'm glad you think i'm managing to hit the right notes!

as for your question...when it comes to the dumb in-between moments i guess i look at their character traits like two scorecards. they're insanely easy to put together and find complementary ways to make them interact, even if that interaction is a negative one.

grimmjow is an absolute no-lifer where anything ichigo is concerned, he's smart and insightful but also a violent bastard who loves to laugh and get one over his opponent, even if it's only verbally. ichigo will take people exactly as they come and has a pretty unshakeable confidence in himself, so they can clash and bounce off each other really well without taking much personally.

once you add those vibes to the lazy peace of post-canon (pre-epilogue) it's easy to bring the anger down a lot and move it into snark, bickering, hard truths, laughter, even some hard-won compliments. as long as it all ties back to the core of their personalities and what they respect and value in each other, i think it's possible to do pretty much anything with those two dweebos. :)

[boyrobott]

i fully get it bc i know what u mean about original astro boy manga being silly with it vs pluto being relentlessly sad. but i do think it's really important to say that pluto's themes draw on a LOT LOT LOT of stuff present in the original manga! like, the stuff about hate making a robot closer to a human/allowing them to kill a human despite most robots being physically unable to is pulled directly from the blue knight story. the original greatest robot on earth story that pluto is based off is about pluto struggling with not wanting to be a robot made only for killing bc he had a nice time hanging out with uran and doesn't wanna make her sad. epsilon still dies saving his adopted human son, and atom ends the story mourning for all the robots who got killed for goji to prove a point. the moral (which multiple characters say) is that what makes a robot OR a person strong is their love and humanity not their killing power, and it is both stupid and perpetuating the cycle of violence to force robots to hurt each other. the robot hate group man in pluto is inspired by the villain of a segment in astro boy tales part 2&3 where he literally is in a group wearing kkk hoods and does a whole pr attack about robots killing his son because he is campaigning to remove their rights.

and it's not just the stories pluto references! hell, in basically half the stories at minimum a robot is forced by a human to do a crime, the police go 'dang i guess we gotta take the rights of all robots away and destroy them for scrap :(' and atom has to find the human responsible so that doesn't happen (the third magician, electro, and his highness deadcross are some good examples). the plot of the story robot land is atom struggling with wanting to save a bunch of robots being beaten up and worked to the bone by their creator, but he can't because robots are still technically property and helping them escape would be stealing and therefore illegal. in the little intro comics tezuka drew in the collection, he literally says 'yeah this is about the vietnam war being awful' about like fully three different stories. and that's just off the top of my head!!

'what makes a person, where is our empathy, why do we quest for vengeance when it only sucks us into a cycle, have we lost our humanity' are literally the most important core themes of astro boy, which is why it's so so impressive for kids comics that are still broadly super super cute and funny!

legitimately sorry for putting a huge wall of text in ur inbox because i know it's unsolicited and probably uncool. but astro boy is super important to me and so is the idea that a story can be goofy silly child adventures and also explore dark and serious themes? so i had like. a moment when i saw ur post lol. i get it if u dont wanna read all this etc but i wanted to i guess encourage u to give the manga a second pass even if u aren't into pluto at all. there's an insane amount of stuff there that really really legitimately is that deep

Okay, may I just say, I'm absolutely loving your impassioned defense of the manga here. You're bringing so much ride-or-die energy to the table right now, and I'm loving it. But I've been slowly reading through the manga over the past few years, so I... kind of already know all this??? That's pretty much the whole reason I made the joke in the first place -- because there are so many similar storylines and themes between the original manga and the Pluto series, but the individual tones literally could not be more different. The fact that a grim dystopian anime about the horrors of war and the true meaning of humanity is saying the same exact things as a fun, lighthearted, campy manga series?? Sorry, but that's just hilarious to me.

I can definitely see where the misunderstanding came from, but I promise, you do not need to defend the manga to me, LMAO.

[zylphiacrowley]

Do any of your OCs know each other? If so, how'd they meet? And how well (or not) do they get along?

Hello friend! Thank you so much for the ask! ♥

This is kind of a complex question lol (I'm answering only for my FFXIV OCs or else this answer would be more of a novel than it already will be), also prepare for a very stream-of-consciousness answer.

So I have two OCs that I actually play who know each other: X'vahl and Lyra

Lyra Kisne is X'vahl's (and I suppose now by extension Erenville's) future adopted daughter. I originally made her just because "viera pretty I want one but I love my catte too much to replace or fanta him. Also I want to make a viera inspired by albino bunnies" but due to me always referring to her as "my sweet bean bun dóttir" and X'vahl already having strong dad energy what started off as a joke became me actually making her his daughter. In X'vahl's storyline she's still a child. I haven't worked out how he meets her yet since as of current MSQ he hasn't. I get around her being an adult in her save as her actually imagining herself older while listening to stories of X'vahl's adventures as WoL and putting herself in his place. She kind of exists in this weird nebulous age situation though because of it. Like in all my gposes with her, it is in the future and she is an actual adult, but her going through MSQ she is a child imagining herself as an adult. It is very obvious that I didn't make her with the purpose of being X'vahl's daughter in mind lol.

I also have a bunch of NPC OCs that also know X'vahl. All of his retainers canonically exist and know him (2 or maybe 3 of which are not canonically his retainers, but serve other roles in his backstory). Out of all of them Levi'ra is probably the one I've mentioned most previously.

Levi'ra Bajhiri (or just Levi, pronounced like Levy) is an old friend that X'vahl met when he first traveled to Radz-at-Han in his 20s. Levi beat the shit out of someone who was trying to harass X'vahl right after he made it to the city. X'vahl ended up also being implicated in the shit-kicking (despite only being the victim) so he and Levi got to spend some time being detained for disturbing the peace and that's when they actually got to know each other. Levi is/was (he is now retired after the Final Days) a dancer working in Radz-at-Han so he taught X'vahl combat dancing (though it was a struggle. X'vahl is not good at combat dancing). I realize that some of this makes Levi sound like he's a magnet for trouble and a little too eager to throw down, but he's not. Levi is a ray of sunshine that X'vahl desperately needed in a friend at the time since he was still struggling to climb his way out of his lowest point at the time. X'vahl lost contact with Levi after he left Radz-at-Han the first time, but after he returned on WoL business in EW, he's made it a point to keep in touch. Levi always refers to X'vahl as just "Vahl" (he kind of didn't wait for permission to call him that, he just sort of did it almost immediately and X'vahl was like "okay I guess that's fine."). Levi is also responsible for helping X'vahl make the bracelet that X'vahl gifted to Erenville under the condition that, should Erenville accept it, X'vahl has to bring him to Radz-at-Han so Levi can meet him. Levi is basically X'vahl's "big little brother" since he's younger than X'vahl but he's very much acts like X'vahl is his kid brother (Levi himself is actually the youngest of five boys and as he puts it, "My mother wanted girls, but instead she got me and my brothers. She gave up trying after me, but she loves us all the same.")

Again, thank you for the ask! I appreciate it! ~♥

[newpathwrites]

Arms Wide Open - Chapter 4

The coldness in that familiar voice stopped you in your tracks as you rounded the corner of the cabin.

Dread and even a bit of mild rage seized your heart.  

Was it all an act?  How could you have misread the situation so badly?  The force had never led you so far astray…

Main Masterlist Series Masterlist

Summary: Your budding relationship is cut off at the pass.  Can you recover from this misunderstanding?

Notes: We’re about halfway through, and there will be some mild, very temporary angst and misunderstanding in line with the movie storyline that inspired this fic.  But guess what will come once they’ve moved past it?  The good stuff… 😁  Stay tuned.

RIP Carl Weathers.

Warnings: Angst, misunderstandings, mild implied threats.

Word count: 1.6k

Read on AO3

________________________________________

Din awoke with momentary confusion.  Why was he sprawled on the couch instead of comfortably laying in his bed?  This did not bode well for his sore back.

Oh, yes…

He couldn’t help a boyish smile as he recalled last evening’s events.  Spending half the night talking… falling asleep with your head on his shoulder… your touch… your patient understanding…

You.  

He almost didn’t dare to dream that this could be something.  He hadn’t felt like this since he was a boy with his first crush.  

But could he really have this?

Besides the nature of his work, of which you were aware, there was also the issue of the creed.  You had been curious about it, asking a lot of pointed questions, but appeared otherwise unbothered and not the slightest bit judgemental.  Ultimately, though, would you really be interested in a relationship with a man who could never show you his face?

You’d left at some point, but he tried not to read into it.  It was late morning already, and you likely had places to be.  It wasn’t like he didn’t know how to find you.  In fact, your own cabin was only a short walk away.  

Maybe he could pay you a visit later and thank you for dinner and a pleasant evening - perhaps ask when he might see you again…

His musings were cut short by a rap at the door.  Probably Karga making his morning rounds.

But to his disappointment and great annoyance, it was instead a former guild colleague - one with a decades-long chip on his shoulder, who blamed the Mandalorian for his own shortcomings.  The humanoid was generally harmless, in line with his less-than-stellar bounty hunting skills, but Din had always kept a wary distance - the man seemed to be a loose canon at times.

“Mando.”

Din didn’t even bother greeting him by name.  He just wanted him off this property before Grogu woke up.  “Why are you here?”

“Nice to see you, too,” the man responded sarcastically.  “I saw a woman doing the walk of shame from your cabin this morning and thought I’d come by to offer some wisdom.”

Din didn’t respond.  The impassive visor would do the talking for him.

The awkward silence enticed the man to keep speaking.

“Anyway, you know as well as I that men like us don’t get to keep nice things.  A lady like that is a weak spot, even for you.”  He shrugged, adding, “You wouldn’t want anything to happen to her…”

Within a fraction of a second, the visor was not an inch from the man’s face.

“Do you have a habit of harming innocent women?  Because that would be a problem for me,” Din stated coldly.

“No, no, Mando, I…” the man shook his head wildly, panicking thanks to his own stupidity.  He was still smart enough to know what the Mandalorian could do to him.

“She is innocent.  She is nobody.  You leave her alone, or you answer to me.  Understand?”

He nodded, too scared now to speak.

“Good.  Leave.”

Di’kut.

Din pushed the incident out of his mind as he woke Grogu and prepared for the day, thoughts again and again turning to you.  Gosh, you were really doing a number on him - and he was enjoying every second.

________________________________________

You were practically walking on air.  What a lovely feeling.  Whoever said romance was reserved for the young?  You might have thought so, too, had you not met Din yesterday.

He was so real and respectful and interesting.  He didn’t appear capable of leading you on, honest nearly to a fault, and it was him who slowed things down - wanting nothing more from you in this first rendezvous than a quiet evening of conversation.

And it was so refreshing.  Men pulling you in with pretty words and then leaving you high and dry once your clothes came off was the reason you’d given up some years ago on meeting people, getting by instead on romance novels and your own devices, resigned to a fate of perpetual solitude.

You did have one reservation, though.  And it wasn’t about his face - you honestly didn’t care about that.  But would his cultural and religious restrictions really allow him a relationship with an outsider?  That was something you’d need to seriously discuss if this went further.  

Maybe you were getting ahead of yourself here.

For now, it was best to focus on what you could control - a quick morning visit with a fresh pot of steaming caf and the promised reading material in tow and to perhaps set a date for another meeting.

“She is nobody…”

The coldness in that familiar voice stopped you in your tracks as you rounded the corner of the cabin.

Dread and even a bit of mild rage seized your heart.  

Was it all an act?  How could you have misread the situation so badly?  The force had never led you so far astray…

Maybe he was just like everyone else - playing the long game just to get you in his bed.

Without further thought, you turned on your heel and walked quickly back the way you came.  

Perhaps there was an explanation?  No - that was only wishful thinking.  You’d spare yourself the humiliation.

________________________________________

It was a hard pill to swallow, but it had become clear to Din after nearly a week of you turning the other direction each time you came into his line of sight.

You didn’t want to see him.

Was it the creed?  His work?  Did someone enlighten you about any of the many terrible things he had done in his past?

There was no way he had misread things between you quite so badly.  He wasn’t that oblivious.  And the mutual attraction had definitely been acknowledged, albeit not in so many words.

But he supposed he had no choice but to accept it.  It would be both disrespectful and rather creepy to continue any pursuit when you’d made your disdain so clear.

Fate would have other plans.

“You called for me, Greef?”  Din addressed his old friend as he stepped through the already open office door.

Greef was at that moment in a meeting with another party, but the man stood and welcomed Din in his typical booming manner, arms raised in the air ostentatiously.  “Mando!  You are just the man we need.  Do you think you could set up security for some greenhouses?  Here now, have you met our lovely plant doctor?”

He gestured to the human sitting across from him who swiveled their chair around.

________________________________________

“Flora…” Din addressed you in surprise.

“Mr. Djarin…” you returned cooly.  Kriff, you weren’t even using his name now.

Greef looked between you both quizzically.  “Do you two know each other?”

But his question was ignored.

“You left,” Din stated.  “And you’ve been avoiding me.”

You steeled yourself against the hurt manner in which he spoke - it was only part of the act.

“Why do you care?  I’m nobody.  And you’re a bounty hunter - you could have found me if you really wanted to…”

Din was silent for a moment.  Your entire demeanor was so angry - what had he done to foster such resentment?

“Well, I don’t use my skills to stalk women…”

Okay, he got you there.  But still, you owed this man nothing.  He was the one who deceived you.

Din turned toward Greef who was utterly confused at this point.  “I’ll take care of the greenhouses, if that’s what she still wants.  Send me the details later.”

Damn, this was awkward.

“Thanks,” you offered half-heartedly.  “I guess.”

He turned back toward you.  “Look, Flora… I won’t bother you again, but I don’t understand why you’re so angry with me.  Could we just talk?”

Well, kriffing damn it…  The hurt and confusion in his voice was breaking down your walls.  You didn’t want to trust him, but it sounded so genuine.

You sighed, resigned.  He would have this one chance to explain himself.  You were way too soft.  “Fine.  Meet me at the cafe in an hour.”

Din nodded gratefully and took his leave as you turned back around to face Karga.

“You’ve been holding out on me, doc,” he said, eyes twinkling with amusement.  “You got a little thing going with our resident Mandalorian?  It’s fitting, actually.  As soon as I met you I thought you two might get along.”

What did Greef think of you, then?

“I have no interest in cavorting with that womanizing liar,” you returned, voice stony.

But your simmering anger was cut off by Karga’s booming laugh.  “Womanizer??!!” he chuckled in delight.  “A word I never thought I’d hear associated with Din Djarin.  Oh, that’s hilarious!”

“I don’t understand…”

Karga calmed himself and grinned at you.  

“Flora… that man may have the emotional intelligence of a rock, but he is anything but a rake.  I reckon he’s got the worst case of blue balls in the entire parsec.”

He shook his head, smiling fondly as he continued.  “In the old days, when the other hunters would buy an hour with one of the workers, he’d head out directly on his next job.  And now that he’s settled, I’ve not seen him so much as socialize with another human being.  He’s refused my every offer to go to the twi’lek baths.  Even his few female colleagues are not ones to be interested in men if you know what I mean…”

Even as Greef poked fun at Din, he did so with great affection.  Apparently, he knew him well - and for a very long time.

“Oh,” you responded, a bit dumbstruck.  “Perhaps I’ve misjudged…”

“He’s a good man, Flora.  He’s protective to a fault, brutally honest… but he’s respectful and honorable.  I think you should give him another chance.”

In the short time you’d known Greef Karga, you’d come to greatly respect his opinion.  And so you gave in.  You hoped your impression would be proved wrong - because you’d really, really liked Din Djarin.

“Okay, okay.  I will.”

________________________________________

Next chapter

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Hi Theitsa, I came across followers of Hellenism on YouTube, mainly Americans and I am just perplexed. Why would USians adopt native European religions/belief systems? It would be equally strange for me as a European (Lithuanian) to take on a specific Native American tribes belief system and practicing this out of its original context, or even Greek religion for that matter.

I guess Im just weirded out that Americans have been living in America for generations would gravitate towards European religions rather than Native American religions and belief systems that are tied to the continent they live on. Does Hellenism or Norse Paganism even make sense outside of their lands/environment of origin?

Why is this not considered cultural appropriation in some aspect? Hellenism consists of Greek names, Greek ideas, Greek imagery, Greek everything. Same with Norse religion, it is tied to Scandinavia. Maybe this is an extension of westerners separating Ancient Greek culture and society from modern Greeks and treating it like some magical fairyland where they can insert their own anglo selves.

I suspect western media and movies promoting characters and storylines inspired by Greek and Norse culture might be the culprit. If western media was obsessed with Hinduism for example, they would probably adopt Hinduism instead. Seems very LARP-y and superficial to me.

I apologize for the long rant, just my opinion of course. I would like to hear what you think of USians taking on these religions Theitsa, your takes are always interesting!

On the treatment of ancient cultures and religions in the US pop media I just made this post and I think you will find most points there aligned with yours. More and more people are noticing this phenomenon, meanwhile the US continues spitting out hollow retelling after hollow retelling and generic movie after generic movie on the Greek myths.

As for religion, I imagine that you, like me, don't blame anyone for being spiritual. But, like I've done in the past, you speak of those worshipers who treat the Greek religion more like a fandom than a foreign ancient practice, and insist on fully Americanising it.

Sadly, this LARP-y "worship" is quite common in the US. A writer who's kinda popular on Twitter/X right now claims to worship the gods and at the same time writes spicy erotica novels with them as protagonists for profit. And if you critique this person, they tell you that you disrespect them as a worshiper. Make it make sense dude...

Even the term Hellenism is wrongly used by them! See why here

There are minorities in the US who want their culture to be more mainstream in the country so they can enjoy their life with less bigotry. While the sentiment makes sense, I know that they will regret it if this ever becomes a reality for them, simply because that's how the US operates.

I already see Arabs, Indians, Chinese, and more, gasping in terror online when WASPs take their cultural items or customs and use them in a classic Murican way. And their voices are DEFINITELY not going to be heard even after 50 series inspired by their culture come out. If anything, their exotisation will continue. Been there, done that 😩

my tag #xenoi doing bs has similar content if you want to take a look at the expense of your mental health 😂

[vengeancewise]

🎮, 😍, 🎧 !

MUNDAY  ASKS !

🎮 — favorite video game(s)?

I don't really have an all-time favorite, but my current obsession in gaming is probably Lies of P. I guess Honkai Star Rail too, and Sun Haven.

Lies of P is a soulslike/soulsborne. Whatever people call it. Now I'm not too find of soulslike games because I'm a casual gamer. I'm moreso into a video game for the storyline and development. I also like to play casually. Sometimes I'm not up for the challenge. I just like to take my sweet time, go at my own pace, enjoy a game, and enjoy a story instead of trying to speedrun or rush through.

Anyhoo what got me into Lies of P is because I'm a sucker for fairy tales and folk tales. I'm also a sucker for like medieval, victorian, steampunk, renaissance, all those ancient stuff ahahahaha. I even own some renaissance-themed clothing that I also wear to work. LOP is probably gonna be the only soulslike game I ever play. Most people seem to be into soulslike for the challenge. 'Least the ones I've met. So far despite the challenge, I'm enjoying LOP, and I do write a muse from there.~ Still have yet to beat the game though.

Honkai Star Rail is one of those gacha games meant for mobile, but can be played on playstation and desktop. It's alright. I wouldn't give it too much praise, but that's just me. It can be f2p-friendly, and sometimes it can be p2w. Depends on how people wanna play the game, I guess. I tried to avoid HSR but then I saw Gallagher, and it was very hard for me to resist him, so I finally gave this game a chance, and yeah. It's fun. It's alright. It's a simple game and doesn't feel too overwhelming for me. I said Genshin Impact was gonna be the last gacha game I ever play, but I think HSR will now be the last gacha game I ever play since tbh... I've played a lot of gacha games end eventually got bored or burnt out from them. There are better games to play and completed too imo.

Sun Haven is one of those farming simulation games. Right now it's only out on steam. They said they have plans to release it for the Nintendo switch, but no idea when exactly. You can do quests in this game. You can make anything your main focus. My main focus is to plant stuff, harvest them, and then sell the plants I've harvested. I'm also slowly trying to make my farm look better than before.

There's quite a lot to do in this game. It might be overwhelming for some with all these quests we can do, and I admit I got burnt out from this game at some point because of that, but once I got back to it I just decided to go at my own pace and do my own thing.

This game is also multiplayer btw, and I think you can have up to 8 players~

😍 — celebrity crush(es)?

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh............

Does Revo from Sound Horizon count???? LOL. He seems to be known for Linked Horizon these days now.

I use to have a crush on Justin Timberlake LOLOLOLOL.

Aaron Tveit is neat too, I guess, and it seems his latest role in the world of broadway is Sweeney Todd. It seems he's also starring in some new show now that I forgot wtf it's called. He seems to mostly land roles in broadway though than shows or movies.

tbh I don't really have any celebrity crushes, but Revo and Aaron Tveit are cool. Uhhhhh.... I guess Justin Timberlake is okay too LOL.

I admire my "celeb crushes" from afar.

🎧 — do you write while listening to music/podcasts/videos/etc, or do you need total silence?

I do listen to music while trying to write stuff! It helps with inspiration a lot for me. Though sometimes even with music, I might not get any inspiration at all still, but I'll still be vibing with my playlists.

[flowersfortheghost]

snippet for my new fic that will probably be posted soon! the title will probably be "i wouldn't love you, not in this universe or another" since this is a ghostflower fake dating au but at the end they do love each other. its inspired by everlark's romance which i love btw (when will i stop with the hunger games stuff)

enjoy! (snippet under cut) also, @lilunaire, here im feeding you now

-----

“Wait, Gwen?” She really didn’t have much of a choice now. She wasn’t that rude that she would just ignore him and swing off. So instead of going back to her mission, she swung towards the window of what she assumed was Miles’ room. She didn’t take off her mask, she just sat on the windowsill and waited for Miles to say something.

Both didn’t speak, she should’ve just swung off. That would’ve been less awkward (but probably a lot more rude). “What are you doing here?” Miles asked, breaking the long, awkward silence between the two. Gwen decided to make it clear that she wasn’t here to see him, she had somewhere to be. “I’m on a mission.”

“For who?”

God, he had a lot of questions, but of course he would, she thought. “Miguel O’hara, he leads a society full of spider-people that are trying to keep the multiverse from collapsing.” Gwen was being straight-forward with this. “Look, I really shouldn’t–”

“Wait, wait, wait, you can travel the multiverse now?”

“It’s not like I’m allowed to go anywhere I want to.” That came out pretty harsh, Gwen doesn’t know if she regrets her use of tone or not. She took off her mask, revealing the fact that her hair had grown out again after Miles ripped half of it out, the tips were dyed a light shade of pink too.

Gwen saw that Miles noticed her hair. Growing out her hair wasn’t just because she wanted to move on from Miles, it was also because it brought back memories of home. She wanted to completely forget everything about her home dimension.

“How have the others been?”

“Alright, I guess. I don’t see them often.” Gwen knew she couldn’t keep talking to Miles, she had to stay focussed. 

“I really have to go, I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine. I’m grounded anyway.” Gwen doesn’t reply, she just turns around, ready to leave (and never come back). She just wants this mission to be over. She had one more thing left to say though.

“I’m sorry for not saying it clearly before, but I don’t think I can have new friends yet. You and I were just on a mission to get me and the others together. We’re allies, not friends.”

She’s lying, she has made new friends.

Gwen noticed the slight hurt look in his eyes, but it confuses her a bit. They weren’t close at all, why was he hurt? She should leave now before she makes things worse. She slipped her mask back on before shooting a web and swinging away, leaving Miles behind again.

-----

this chapter will probably end with them finding miles in earth-42 and proposing, this chapter is mainly changing stuff from the canon storyline so it fits this au better. this part might be changed/stuff might get added so im sorry if this looks different then to how it will look in once its posted on ao3.

also, let me know if this is too ooc. its really hard to write them in a way they aren't friends since that means changing so much from canon and my main reference is hunger games, but i hope its good.

[crepes-suzette-373]

Oden = Oda Nobunaga???

This is not a theory or anything, more like just an observation of character inspiration. I probably should have posted this first, because this is the more sensible one instead of my wild theory.

Anyway.

I had wondered if young Oden's story is partly inspired by the younger days of Oda Nobunaga. I mean, I hate to keep harping on this fellow, but his name is kind of the homonym of Oda-sensei's name and he's a very famous samurai in Japan to boot.

I would not be surprised if this fellow was used as inspiration for multiple people in One Piece, but very cleverly hidden. Like how Law and Zoro both took inspiration from pirate François l'Olonnais, for example.

For one, the name. The -da kanji 田 from "Oda" 織田 can be read as "den", which means that technically speaking "Oda" can be read as "Oden". This is not usually done, but for the purpose of jokes and puns, it's not wrong.

Secondly, the character. Young Oda Nobunaga was a wild young lad, and it was to the point that the entire town called him a fool, and his tutor eventually killed himself out of despair for Nobunaga's chaotic behaviour. Much like how Oden was such a troublemaker that he got disowned.

All the quoted Nobunaga biography texts are from "The Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga", which has free previews in Google Books (thank goodness, the actual book is expensive as hell).

There's no official biography quote for this, but there is a famous legend that at age 2 Nobunaga would bite all his nurses/babysitters that they can't stand it and all quit. As seen in the manga panel above, Oden has been causing problems since he was a baby.

Though, unlike Oden, Nobunaga was apparently never disowned. after his father died he still was the heir, and became the new head of the family. He cleaned up his act and became respectable.

And just like how Oden was still pretty sassy even after getting all "cleaned up", so was Nobunaga. It wasn't his father that he met though, as his father had died then, but his father-in-law.

Another thing is that, there is a trope in fiction that Nobunaga does not discriminate the outcasts, and would not mind picking up random people off the streets to be his vassals. The most famous case in point is Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who would go on to become the ruler of Japan in later years.

Oden took in fellow troublemakers like Kin'emon and the minks as his followers, not discriminating against them like the other citizenry.

The final thing that made me really go "hmmm" is the Akazaya (Red Scabbards/Sheaths). Young Nobunaga himself had a red scabbard and his group of rowdy vassals had been "outfitted in red". This term is a bit unclear, I checked the raw and it only means something to the effect of "army in red", and it doesn't say if that means their clothes, armour, or weapons.

Either way, I specify "Young" because the rest of Nobunaga's life has nothing to do with Oden in One Piece. If anything, Nobunaga's later vicious career reminds me more of Germa, but that is neither here nor there.

Plus, younger Koudzuki Sukiyaki happens to somewhat look like the ukiyoe of Oda Nobunaga, take that as you will:

Hey look, Sukiyaki even has the flowery patterns on his coat too.

As a bonus, the fan Wiki has noted that Oden and the Koudzuki family story seems to also take inspiration from the deity Susanoo. What with the whole saga being centred on the fight against "Orochi", like how Susanoo fought against and defeated Yamata no Orochi.

So, you see the flower patterns on the ukiyoe above? That's the Oda family's house crest. And guess what? It is also the divine crest of Susanoo:

Legends say the Oda family ancestors were shrine priests or strong believers of Susanoo, and a Susanoo shrine was declared "the ancestral Oda family shrine".

Maybe sensei knew of this and took inspiration from both Oda Nobunaga and Susanoo to create the Wano storyline.

To be honest, this is why I somewhat wondered if Germa specifically has connection to Wano, like maybe they had ancestors from Wano? Same historical inspiration, Sukiyaki weirdly looks like Judge, and so on.

But like I said, Law and Zoro had inspiration from the same person, but I don't really see any signs to suggest they're relatives thus far, so maybe this is just a big nothing.

(unless the bombshell is that Zoro and Law are related somehow)

[not-wholly-unheroic]

Do you have any controversial headcanons that go against what is generally accepted by the fandom? Do you incorporate this into writing your muse or keep it to yourself?

For Hook please ///

I’ve been trying to think on it, and while I may have a few opinions that are divergent from the majority, for the most part, I don’t think I have any super controversial headcanons about Hook. I guess maybe the fact that I insist he lives and give him a redemption arc is unusual but not really controversial. Some of my preferred ships (and the ships I don’t like) might be a little out of the ordinary, but I mostly just don’t reblog things with a NoTP and don’t go out of my way to push my own ships.

Also, for me, who I may ship him with partly depends on the version. For example, Pirate Fairy James I think is cute with Zarina but I like Jake-verse Hook with Red Jessica. Original Disney Hook I actually like with Cruella because neither has a canon love-interest and they are both British, fashion-conscious villains without magic who just seem like they’d be on the same page in the villains hangout. Isaacs Hook and Barrie’s Hook (which I often group together as one character) I ship with an Adult Wendy…which is probably the most controversial ship I have, but I grew up with the 2003 film and was one of the many little girls around Wendy’s age who had a crush on his version of Hook so… 🤷🏼‍♀️ Some versions of Hook (like Hoffman’s) I don’t particularly ship with anyone.

Two semi-popular OTP’s I really don’t care for are Smee/Hook and Jafar/Hook. With Smee, I can at least see the reason why some people ship it…I just personally see their relationship as more of like a father/son thing and also headcanon pretty hard that Smee is aro ace and is content being single. I don’t think Hook had a loving male role model in his life and Smee just sort of ends up adopting that parental role. Smee is the opposite of the dad I headcanon Hook grew up with—violent, controlling, hypermasculine… Smee is this gentle, friendly, soft character and that’s exactly what Hook needs in a father-figure even if he doesn’t like to admit it. Jafar is more for personal reasons. He’s a great villain but in my headcanon storyline for Disney Hook, they have a MAJOR falling out that would prevent them from ever even being allies again after a certain point, much less anything else.

These days when I’m writing, regardless of the version of Hook, I often (though not always) intentionally leave any romantic interest at least somewhat vague so the reader can decide for themselves who they want to pair them with. All of that said, I do think I’m in the minority in that I headcanon Hook as being heteroromantic and somewhere on the ace spectrum. Hook is—at least in modern interpretations—often overly sexualized in my opinion. We don’t get any hints anywhere in Barrie’s original material that Hook might have any sort of romantic or sexual interest…which leaves the door wide open for how people want to interpret him. Hook’s personality lends itself naturally, I think, to romanticism (love of music, flowers, etc.) but I personally choose to interpret his lack of any canon hints at ever having had a love interest as meaning that he’s not really going out of his way here to look for someone. Also, Barrie drew at least some inspiration for Hook from his own life, and we have good historic evidence to believe that Barrie was ace even though he did marry a woman. At the very least, if Hook isn’t somewhere on the ace spectrum, he IS canonically a gentleman and I despise any interpretation that has him jumping into bed with just about anyone regardless of how they feel about him. I think the Disney Twisted Tales book “Straight on Til Morning” sums up my idea of (pre-redemption arc) Hook well when a pirate tells Wendy, “He might slit your throat, but the rest of you is safe.”