#is there like a very scary fandom around this game | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

comfortless · 1 month

Note

what's ur most unconventional Headcanon? like ones you have that most of the fandom doesn't agree with. mine is that I don't think h's 6'10, in my mind he's closer to 6'6 or 6'7. Also I don't think he would be the most caring bf 😶😶 like not abusive or anything, but to me he will almost always prioritize himself in the long run

HA… well….. i do not think any of mine are too strange! but i can not ever shush when someone has lent an ear to listen!!

warning for nsfw content, mentions of injury, and unhealthy relationship stuff below the cut.

i agree with you about his height. he’s significantly taller than Simon, but i would place him at 6’7”-6’8” max. i’m no health or military expert, but i do not think that he could do the work that he does efficiently if he were a complete Goliath. he would stand out so easily! and there are a slew of issues that can stem from someone being “too tall”. he probably doesn’t have the best posture, either.

i love the conventionally attractive, long-haired König headcanons, they’re fun! but ultimately… very, very unrealistic for my interpretation of König. i tend to side with Salome and Ghost when it comes to their takes on how he actually looks under the hood. his character description suggests that his face is scary, and judging by the game that he’s in, i do not think that the other operators are going to find some goth guy nor… Jim Boeven… to be worthy of such a rumor!

König’s face is always going to be a fluctuating thing for me, heavily dependent on the setting/time period i’m shoving him into or reading about. the thing that’s stuck with me however has always been facial scarring!! where he got it? who knows… i mentioned it on my headcanons post, but the cause is just as changing as his appearance.

i like the thought of him being a little different looking: crooked teeth, pockmarks, maybe a harelip or a broken nose, burn scars, something. maybe his hair is so light it simply looks as if he doesn’t have eyebrows. maybe a combination of all of those things! the less conventionally attractive the better, it’s not his face that had us scrambling from the rafters with our hearts in our hands, after all. though i am and always will be a glitched default face model König defender. it’s just so unbearably adorable to think of that soft, sad-eyed face making that much noise while he’s rushing around in battle. ):

and though i believe he would have the best intentions at heart… you are right, he is likely a very selfish lover. still hopelessly devoted and needy, but he would be the king of double standards. most decisions are made with his preferences in mind, and the bullying has stuck with him. König is insecure as hell when it comes to anything but his skills in killing or bashing through a door.

he likes the idea of you dressing up for him, but he’s also actively pulling up your dress/top to hide your cleavage if he even thinks another man may have glanced your way. yet… he will go to the gym shirtless, and if other women happen to ogle him, well it’s just fine because he didn’t notice them anyway.

you don’t like the house you’re living in when you move in together? well he does, you’re staying… he’ll just fix it up a little to better suit your needs. even if he screws up setting up a new counter or painting, that can all be fixed.

you want to go out with your friends? he should be allowed to come with you… spending time with you makes him happy. why wouldn’t you want him to come too? yet, when he wants time alone to focus on his aim, decompress with a book, or mess around with a vehicle or a house project, you’re expected to leave him be.

he’s too blunt about what he does for work, doesn’t bat an eye when he tells you he put a bullet through someone’s head and watched the spray. he’s so used to it, it doesn’t even faze him anymore, but… you don’t want to hear about it? oh that must mean you think he’s something filthy or worse. he’s not going to cry, but he might bring it up when you tell him about something you enjoy.

just ridiculous, petty things that would drive most up a wall, but he’s firm in whatever he decides. there’s always a little room for compromise, but not much without an argument.

he has his savings account and the house is in his name in case you decide to leave. it would gut him, of course, but a part of him also expects it.

he’s not above begging for you to stay, trying any way that he can to convince you, but… he’s never expected to have things handed to him easily. his childhood wasn’t the best, why would his adulthood be any better? the way he sees it is simple: he doesn’t hit you, his cock and heart are reserved solely for you, if you can’t love him enough to stay, then… maybe you’re not any different from the people he’s known before.

he’s self aware enough to know he can be a complete arschloch, thinks with his cock more than his brain, but he’s completely lost when it comes to matters like love. he wants to console you when you cry, when you’re angry, but asking you a dozen times just why you feel such a way while squishing you into a too-tight embrace doesn’t help much. his search history is filled with things like “why is my girlfriend mad at me” or “how to make a woman stop ignoring me”. his communication toward you isn’t great, but he tries in his own way. very easy to break an argument up when he tells you some silly, scripted thing like, “I’m here for you. I’m listening.” when under normal circumstances he’s staring at you with wide-eyes and swallowing hard the very second you seem a little ruffled. you tell him to stop reciting some guide he read online, and he’s immediately worried sick you’re going to think him a complete fool, in utter denial about ever having searched something like that up.

can’t see him as being god’s gift to women in the bedroom at all. König has probably watched a lot of porn. he doesn’t care for the scripted, practiced stuff, but his tastes have always been a little odd. the amateur, solo stuff is what piques his interest the most. he knows a vibrator can make a woman come, knows that a dildo can be nice too if she sets the pace. what he’s watched with a proper couple, well… the men are always smaller than him. the terms and dynamics are lost on him, he knows what a safe word is and that he should be a gentleman and make sure his partner finishes too, but each time that’s happened has been a miracle really. he’s not a virgin, but he’s never had a partner long enough to bother learning. if he can make you feel good and vice versa, that’s enough, right..?!

he’s not going to bludgeon you with his dick, he knows he’s a bit too big and thick to just fuck you recklessly, but often times he does get excited or fretful— too deep or too shallow, flicks your clit like it’s indestructible or keeps his head between your thighs waaay after you’ve already come. he’ll stop when you ask, when you’re teary eyed and overstimulated repeating the ridiculous German word he makes you use. not above begging you to use your hand on him instead, though…

switching positions is difficult if you’re a lot smaller than him. he’s not against having you on your knees, but he wants to be so close, pant into your ear about how good you feel, smother you with his weight all the while. missionary is a nightmare because he’s drooly and comes far too quickly when he can see your face and overpower you like this, cue further squishing even after he’s done; you’re likely going to be lying beneath him all night. cowgirl seems to work best, though he’s a bit too fond of having your tits so accessible - expect biting!!

when i try to think of König with any sort of hobby my mind just blanks. i think he would try a lot, but never stick to one thing! he’s got a few sporadic collections, but nothing he keeps up with to the same caliber as his guns and knives. books are often half-finished these days, keeping focused long enough to sit through a puzzle or the like is rare. definitely longs to have something for comfort that isn’t some winding trail to no where or suffocating you in himself to just have a hint of what it feels like to be entirely happy and ‘normal’.

he’s become a bit of an amalgamation of all of the things he liked as a child: knights with their swords he thinks of as his knives, deities with bolts of thunder cascading from their hands like the bullets from his guns, loves in the way he read men of myths fall in love - utterly unfathomably devoted but always the leader… if he could he would probably whisk himself and the object of his affection to another place entirely where he could be someone deserving: someone who’s loved despite the way that he looks or behaves, someone who’s never had to question what love was at all.

149 notes · View notes

rawliverandgoronspice · 1 year

Text

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)

881 notes · View notes

carlyraejepsans · 1 month

Note

hey, you don’t have to answer this at all, I just want you to read it. I have been following you for only a few months now as I’ve only recently gotten back into the undertale fandom; but fuck that callout post. Fuck that callout post, fuck whoever’s is spreading it around and fuck whoever is harassing you for it. From what I’ve seen and heard, you are a very real and cool person, and all your analysis are banger as fuck, and it saddens me to see that people are trying to push you out of this fandom because you believe harassment is bad.

I think it’s incredibly insane how the game about being pacifist, and being kind, even when people are flawed has such a toxic fandom as this - and its not toxic because of the ships. Or the fanfics. Or the porn. Its toxic because people keep trying to push and hurt those who make such content, and it scares everyone else into a strict line and if you dare to even step a foot out by simply going “I don’t want people to be told to kill themselves”, you are the #1 enemy. This fandom is fucking scary, and I am so sorry you have become a target of it. You are in my thoughts, and I pray that this blows over relatively easy for you. <3 you are a great person and whoever thinks otherwise is a miserable, jealous wrench.

awww HAHAHA you're sweet, that's very thoughtful of you. no need for hopes and prayers, just a fucking break from it all a word of kindness was enough. I've had a few nasty anons claiming that the fandom "doesn't need someone like me" which are just hilarious. half this fandom isn't even about its source material, i promise to you I don't care what the Great Undertale Fandom needs. I make my art for myself and write my analysis for myself and my friends, and i know for a fact that they made people happy. people who were moved by it, who were pushed to think more critically about stories at my prompting, and who just plainly had a laugh. i know because they reached out to thank me for it. if I'm on here for anyone other than myself, those are the people I'm here for

this was always just a shitty little hole for an opinionated asshole, but it sure had a larger, more positive impact on the people around me than anyone currently trying to crawl up my ass. that's enough for me

#it's not even just people who make problematic content that get bodied it's literally anyone and anything for any reason #I've literally never drawn or written anything that even approaches what these ppl deem ''problematic''#the terrible horrible crime of minding my business.... alas poor biscia #answered asks #but like i said thank you for the kind words #I'm kinda used to it at this point. people will be stupid

85 notes · View notes

blueberrythefrog · 1 month

Text

Hello, Kinitopet fandom!, (me included, hi) I shall give you info that will bless your knowledge of Kinito! So I replayed the game today, to kind of, experiment what the creator added for responses that I did not see any let's player do, same for people just joking around with him And I have discovered some small details that I have yet to see anyone talk about! 1. Kinito responds to his name, when you try to use it as your own name. He actually will deny this input and tell you to stop messing around, and that he was asking for YOUR name. not his. If you keep messing with him after putting endless fake names, he will actually insult you when you say no multiple times to; "Is this your actual name" by saying; "Your not very good at this, are you?", and he starts getting passive aggressive, in telling you the correct instructions for that segment. If you finally give him your real name, he and I quote, insults you more by going; "at last!", my man is just so done with the player at that point And we haven't even gotten fully used to him yet! 2. He actually responds to his name during the "What's your favorite game segment" as well! If you input Kinito, he will happily respond with; "That's great to hear!, That webworld section was a real blast!, huh?" It seems he sees the name Kinito and instantly goes to the webworld, instead of his own name. (Which obviously, as the webworld is named after him!) I thought this was worth mentioning. as I wanted to see how many times he'd actually respond to his name. so far he doesn't respond to favorite food with his name, nor does he respond when you use it via the scary parts of the game, but I'd like to mention one last thing, where, he acknowledges you, saying his name.

3. Use his name as a pet name, really go do it! if you use his name; "KINITO", during the "what would you name your pet" segment, he instantly goes; "Hey!, that's my name!, well, I suppose I'll take that as a compliment!" I discovered the pet one by mistake while streaming it for the second time with my other friends!, and the other ones, I went out of my way to look for!, due to discovering the pet one by sheer coincidence! Anyway, that's all of the discoveries I found so far!, if I find anymore, or find smaller details that I usually see people gloss over, I will make another post! Or if any of you have any discoveries that I have yet to know about, reblogging surely helps me learn!!

#kinitopet #secrets #small details #I like finding secrets #if you wanna try these yourself go ahead!#kinito the axolotl #kinito pet

60 notes · View notes

williaml0ver · 3 months

Text

☆ <3 Naib Subedar General Dating Headcanons ☆ <3

[🖇️] word count: 1423

[🖇️] warnings: g/n reader, talks of ptsd, miscommunication, not proofread wdgaf!!!!!

[🖇️] author's note: I don't really know how big the IDV fandom is since i am still quite new to both the game and tumblr itself. I have no experience in writing so i am sorry if my work seems tacky, i will be working on it 😭 Like i said I don't know if this fandom is active here so someone will either read this or i will be feeding myself self delusion for these sweet characters. I'm confused but i got the spirit id love to make some mutual followers!!!!

I love Naib. He's so precious i want to cuddle and take ibuprofen with him. I'd like to write more about him if i stick around.

☆ ☆ ☆

-You are his soft spot.

-Everyone in the manor would notice that his attitude changes when he's alone with you.

-He is going to absolutely always have his eyes on you when you're near. It's his love language.

-Naib's life has been forever stained by his early years in poverty and fighting during war, after so many hardships he would definitely try his best to make his loved one feel safe. He couldn't stand losing someone close once again. Showing you that you can feel protected near him means the same as saying "i love you".

-Naib is a mature person but you may sometimes hear flirtatious compliments from him.

-He sometimes questions himself why do you love him. While he doesn't necessarily understand he doesn't need any answers - he will cherish the moment as long as it lasts, making sure you know he is devoted to you.

-Naib may be a little insecure, but he'd like you to think he actually isn't. Whenever you'd praise him he would answer "I know".

-He's not afraid of showing you affection in public. And while he's not going to make a big show out of it, he would simply kiss your palms and hold them. Or hold you by your waist, sending death glares. That's enough for everyone around to understand that you're his and if someone messes with you they better start running.

-If you ever tell him you feel threatened by someone, he will tell you to go to his dorm and take matters into his own hands. You can beg as much as you like, but he will never tell you what he did.

-When someone hurts you, someone attempts to hurt him too.

-A lot of people may consider his ways rather weird, but to him, as someone who was forced to be the head of his household, defending his significant other is something very important.

-He would stand up for you every time.

-If no one is paying attention to what you're saying, he'd quickly tell everyone to let you speak.

-When he comes back injured from a match, if it's not something life threatening, he prefers when you take care of him. He's capable of bandaging himself etc. but the fact that his dearest one worries about him makes him feel loved.

-While Naib is protective it doesn't mean he believes you are defenseless. He will respect if you want to be individual, he hopes you understand that you are free to do whatever you desire, though if in need, he will instantly be there. If you are scared or anxious, please come to him.

-He may not be the tallest, but he is still strong, he wouldn't mind carrying you if you're tired.

-If you ask him to teach you some self defense moves, he would proudly instruct you.

-He may not always read you properly. But he's not doing it on purpose. Tell him about your mood and he'll do anything in his power to cheer you up.

-His protectivness may lead to some arguments. He is not going to hesitate to scold you for doing something rather dumb.

-He could come out as mean sometimes.

-If you are injured, he is going to take it very seriously. That moment pulls a big trigger. Naib becomes very aggresive.

-He worries. A lot. He is afraid of hurting you because he is aware of his mental struggles. He may even raise his voice at you - but while it seems scary please be understanding. He's never had a lover before and he wants to shield you from danger. He tries to quickly apologize to you.

-He just needs you to be safe.

-Communication is key in your relationship.

-Early in your relationship, there may be some misunderstandings. At first glance, Naib may seem closed off. He is not the best with his words.

-He TRIES for you.

-As a soldier, he developed an unhealthy habit of keeping every emotion to himself. It will take a lot of time for both of you to open up. You promised to Naib that if anything ever bothers you, you will immediately talk to him. And vice versa.

-He's a man of few words, he may struggle with talking you through it, however he's going to make sure his partner feels comforted and heard.

-His advices are always well thought and wise.

-You spend a lot of time together just talking about your worries, thoughts or hopes. Sometimes in his bed, sometimes on a peaceful walk. He may make a few comments, or give advice if you ask him, though he mainly just listens carefully and holds you. He wants you to feel like he's a boulder that stabilizes you.

-While supporting you, he has issues with opening up with his worries. He fears you would call him weak.

-Naib struggles with PTSD, therefore he's also in need of comfort and reassurance. He likes when you ground him, by covering him with your body, your face hidden in his chest. But there are also times when he may push you away during one of those times. It's important for you to keep talking to him. Not shaming him for who he is.

-He desires honesty.

-He'd like you to sing him to sleep.

-He is a considerate lover. While he rarely initiates any touches without reason or words of affirmation, Naib shows his love by being with you.

-But when the touches or kisses ARE initiated, you know he absolutely means it all.

-Speaking of which, he doesn't have a need to take you out for fancy dates. But don't take it wrong. He thinks all you need is spending time together, simply in bed or on a walk in solitude. If you don't feel like talking - that is fine too. You can sit on the grass and watch him train. Those are worth more than the most expensive restaurant. That doesn't mean he will never take you to a more lively place though.

-Naib isn't also keen on huge, extravagant gifts. Roses, necklaces, love letters are his favourite of showering his lover with romance.

-He is a good listener. He remembers several small details about your interests or preferences.

-Extremely supportive. He may not word it directly, but he worships you. Your inside and outside. He would very indescretely check you out when you wear something pretty.

-If you ask nicely, he is going to give you some of his clothing. He feels absolutely proud of the fact that his love wants to wear something that is his AND he could smell them when wearing it later.

-He would keep a photo of you in his pocket, along with a photograph of his mother. He captioned it "My treasure" in his native tongue. He never tells you what it means.

-His favourite photo of you is a picture of you wearing his elbow pads.

-Pet names are not his thing. Though on rare occasions he will refer to you as his love, or his treasure.

-A treasure he worships and is willing to die for. Naib may be very reckless when it comes to your safety. You have to make sure he is well taken care of as well. He enjoys taking baths with you, when you wash his hair and cuddle.

-Although enjoyable, he sometimes may push away your need for physical closeness. He just sometimes needs to be left alone. It's always good to ask if he would like to be touched. Consent is very important for Naib. He doesn't mind it if you are very clingy. In fact, it makes him feel appreciated. He himself though thinks that intimate contact is meant only for special situations.

-One of the few ways into his heart is, of course, through his stomach. He loves waking up to breakfast made by his lover. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. Just the fact that you cared enough to prepare something for him is enough.

-He would love to show you some traditional nepali dishes and guide you while preparing them!

-As cliche as it seems, he'd like it if you'd directly feed him.

-I feel like he swears a lot, both in english and nepali. You'd unawarely pick up a few of them because of him. He would feel surprised that you paid so much attention to him you even managed to memorize a few words in a foreign language.

-He'd teach you a few sentences in nepali if you'd ask.

☆ ☆ ☆

This took longer than expected to. The way i had to post this once again because of a certain issue. Ijbol... i'm kind of intimidated by this fandom. By the way if anyone's reading this i'd love to do William headcanons next omg

#idv #identity v #naib subedar #naib idv #idv hcs #idv headcanons #idv naib subedar #naib subedar hcs #naib subedar x reader

70 notes · View notes

transhoverfish · 3 months

Text

OK SO IM LATE BUT. MORE SUB3 NEWS!!!

so a few days ago, krafton (their publisher), apparently had this like presentation of their plans over the next like 2 years. and during that they talked a bit about sub 3!

and this obviously creates a LOT of questions. not to worry, though, because unknown worlds added on to this:

im honestly not surprised by this. iirc, when below zero released they said it would be a WHILE before the next game, and they only announced this back in like... january? now, the first game's release was in january, and bz was in may, so it's definitely possible early access with be in spring of 2025. those games did not have multiplayer aspections tho! its possible we'll wait until mid 2025, and full release will likely not be until 2026. but who knows? the first game took like ten to be fully finished!!

and honestly. THANK GOD. i can't imagine any subnautica game having BATTLE PASSES or LOOT BOXES. i would have just straight up ignored this game 😭

i do wonder what these updates will entail! "many years to come" is definitely something interesting to me, because other than bug fixes... i dont remember sub or bz getting many updates post full release. is this referring to bug fixes, or is it implying that it will be in a state of early access for much longer? are they going to just keep adding new things (like the building update for sub1) and taking fandom suggestions? very interested!!

maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but i actually,,,, dont want multiplayer. now i do like bz, and these games arent really intended to be horror games, but also bz is very noticeablely less scary than sub1. and some of it i think definitely has to do with all the extra characters and dialogue. its hard to feel isolated when you know al-an and marg are nearby. so im very happy that it's optional, bc i know i will probably enjoy single player a lot more enjoyable!!

so now... SPECULATION.

so the first thing im curious about that the development team didnt mention:

"uncover the mysteries on an entirely new alien planet"

apprently we are NOT returning to 4546b. which im kind of sad about!! ik the story is very obviously done there, but it feels weird that its going to be some other planet this time around. THERE WONT BE PEEPERS!!!! (well there could be but it would be weird if some other random planet had the exact same lifeforms)

now my next immediate thought is: is this a direct continuation of below zero? my opinion is: no. probably not.

mostly because it mentions up to four players, and robin and alan are, if you look very closely, only two people. now they COULD just create two new characters to go alongside them (my fanfic brain loves the au idea of marg and ryley 🥺) but im just going to assume that with the addition of a new planet, we're going to drop the old storylines. which means no more degasi, sunbeam, aurora, or ayou sisters. we might move away from architects/precursors altogether! (my basis on this is absolutely nothing and i could be wrong, this is 100% just theorizing)

also, i imagine that it would be difficult to keep the plot the exact same with two established characters and then two new ones, depending on how this multiplayer aspect works. if its another crash, it would be a lot easier to just have the extra players die/survive, then try to work in a balancing act of one guy playing al-an.

(also i like keeping the ending of bz vauge. if they show up again, they would have to mention what happened to the rest of the architects, and i think it's much more fun if thats a mystery!)

((also also, im gonna drop a bomb on u all for a second. i actually,,, dont like al-an. i have a deeper connection to probably every single other character in bz. i think they really fumbled al's character and story and he is so incredibly bland to me. it feels like they go nowhere with how he was responsible for the kharra outbreak because the game ends immediately after he confesses! it would be nice to give him another chance, sure, but i personally dread the idea of even more al-an. sorry everyone for this horrible news))

HERE'S A CONCEPT IMAGE

i hope they bring back some cut content creatures for this!! i noticed this new area looks VERY similar to the safe shallows, and several of the fish seem to be variations of ones we've already seen (im already seeing bladderfish and hoopfish color pallettes, and the shark resmbles some early concept art for the shadow leviathan, but with the ice worm's colors...)

will there be more land areas?? is it going to entirely underwater?? more kharra?? NO DISEASE AT ALL?? AAAAAA!!!!

#so excited so excited SO EXCITED #sub 3 news #undescribed

59 notes · View notes

gabessquishytum · 2 months

Note

The mob front chef hob ask sent me reeling with that last line about how hob has dream up in his flat now sleeping and soft and how hob wants to keep him there safe. Maybe he decides he will!!

Im thinking maybe not a mob chef but hob could be an AM type assassion like weve been enjoying in the fandom as of late and maybe he doesn't even work for dream, or has even been hired against him! But hob has seen dream around, always looking so beautiful snd untouchable. But one day at a meeteing with hobs current employer hes got a bruise on his cheekbone, and cant move his shoulder without wincing in what hob knows must be agony behind that cool exterior.

He corners dream in the hall, something hes already pissed he can even do when dreams been so recently hurt, and prods him with questions about what happened. Dream knows hob is in love/clinically obsessed with him but theyve each kept distance bc their respective jobs. Dream knows hes possibly the only person alive that hob wouldn't ever hurt so hes casual saying there was a "minor spat but he took care of it" hob doesn't lile that answer and dream can tell. He sighs and says if hob is so worried he can work security for The Dreaming.

Hob agrees, calling dreams obvious bluff. Dream’s office is still destroyed and shot up which only solidifies hobs resolve when dream has to invite hob into his actual flat and he despises that it could be anyone but him right now here while dream is vulnerable with a bullet wound in his own home.

They discuss business, or, dream tries to but hob keeps trying to usher dream off to bed to relax. Dream is still obviously very injured and hes exhausted from pretending he wasnt so hes more pliant than usual, eventually hob undresses him from his suit and changes his bandages, talking about what he would have liked to do who did this. Dream is redressed in the coziest pajamas hob could find and settled into bed. Hob watches over him, he looks sweeter than hob could have ever imagined even with the rose tinted glasses he wears around dream.

Dream wakes up. Its not in his bed. Hes in a bedroom though which is surely better than a interrogation room, he hopes.

Hob is going to make sure dream never gets hurt again if he likes it or not. He obviously can't be trusted with his own safety anymore.

And dream has the sinking feeling that as prolific as hob is known to be in the criminal underworld, in reality this is a man where the mafia is a child's game to him and if theres one person who can ensure that someone as dangerous as dream stays captured without binding or hurting him its hob, whos primary goal is seemingly to protect and care for him. In the back of his mind, dream knows he can never escape, anywhere.

-🔪

Oooh, scary A.M!Hob. Is it bad that I wanna be in his basement too.

I love the way you've outlined this because I definitely feel the level of unhingedness from Hob. He's a grade above the mafia in terms that he isn't doing this for organised crime reasons. He's doing it for pleasure and for his own personal gratification. He's not loyal to anyone except his own desires (and to Dream. But maybe Dream wouldn't necessarily see it that way).

Maybe there's even a part of Dream that wants to give into Hob and just go along with his whims. No one has ever wanted to take care of Dream like this before, and they've definitely never worked so hard to make sure that he's safe and looked after. As terrifying as it is, there's also something in Hob’s plan to keep Dream safe that is definitely tempting. He could just give in and let Hob take responsibility, and he would never have to be in danger or even do anything for himself ever again. Dream acts angry and lashes out at Hob plenty. But he also catches himself relaxing, smiling, allowing himself to be held. Its quite addictive to be worth something to someone.

And Dream knows deep down that there's probably no one looking for him. Because Hob is the only one who has ever truly cared about him enough to do that. So is it really worth trying to escape from the only person who truly loves him, even if that love is unhinged and obsessive? Dream really isn't sure anymore...

#🔪 anon #the sandman #dreamling #nsft #mafia au

49 notes · View notes

toskarin · 10 months

Note

So, I don't mean this in a rude way, but I genuinely don't understand the appeal of Fear & Hunger outside the fetishistic angle, and I was hoping you might be able to tell me what you like about it. Everything I've heard and seen about it seems to not be particularly scary, but rather just a sequence of gore and sexual assault related scenes that everyone assumes make a horror franchise because Bad Things are happening.

Oh? You killed someone? Well, congratulations, pal, you learned the masturbation skill! You lost a fight? Whoops, looks like that genie is going to fist your anus until you die! You're fighting a guy who tried to sexually assault your character? Now he turned into a horrible penis monster and is telling you to choke on his balls!

I know those examples are all from the sequel, but my impression is that the first one is very much like that as well. I'm totally willing to believe that I'm wrong, but from the outside, it genuinely looks like the fandom is a bunch of people insisting to each other that this is Actually Very Deep, when it's ultimately just weird porn that's honestly kind of sophomoric in its delivery. Again, I'm willing to believe there's something there, but I haven't been able to find it in anything I've seen of the franchise so far.

And to be clear, I'm not coming at this from the angle of someone criticizing people for being into weird porn, and I'm by no means unfamiliar with or against the concept of sexual horror. If people are into games where the penalty for losing is their character getting fucked to death, more power to those people. I guess what I'm saying is that it just feels like at least a portion of the fan base isn't being honest about what they get out of it. Like, if someone is really into the considerable amount of horny stuff in Fear and Hunger, that's fine, but own it.

I guess I'm ultimately hoping for either some clarification as to why I'm getting the wrong impression, or, like, confirmation that a lot of the appeal is the sexual stuff.

ramble below the break

so, before anything else, it should definitely be clarified: even through the lens of ryona and eroguro, Fear and Hunger isn't actually very much of a fetish game. it's got lots of gratuitous violence, a lot of which is sexual, but the actual content of the game is more like a splatter film than a guro doujin

it's a very silly qualification to pull, but I've got more than a passing familiarity with the other side of things and don't really think the game has that going on (I tried the game because I thought that's what it was lol)

a lot of it comes down to the fact that not only are those scenes unpleasant, but you also know they're paired with material consequences. kind of like how playing survival games in hardcore mode gives them an otherwise absent tension. you've gotta make hard choices, and sometimes those choices make you miserable

most players don't want to see those scenes, which is why it ends up being an effective (albeit absolutely not tasteful, no argument there) horror element. it has to be taken along with the restrictive saves, the harsh atonal music, and the fact that everything you run into in these games looks disgusting

the end result is a game where you have a number of saves that most generously can be counted on one hand with room to spare and spend your time running around a world where nearly everything wants to kill you, do something horrible to you, or some baroque combination of the two

Fear and Hunger's horror works because, unlike a lot of splatter horror, it forces the player to be in a prey mindset just as much as the protagonists are. it's really scary when you're rationing your saves, think you're almost in the clear, and then the game asks you to call a coinflip

if Fear and Hunger were presented in any other medium, I wouldn't think it makes for good horror. it's extremely silly to read about and is frankly either "Berserk with the labels sanded off" or "Majora's Mask but fucked up" depending on the game. the user-hostility of the mechanics turns those incoherent masses of scares into paranoid nightmare simulators

the abstract dread of "this character is about to have their arms twisted behind their back and their organs pulled out of them" becomes very tangible when the player is actively trying to avoid a consequence. the tasteless sexual horror lands in large part because it's using the mechanics to force you to take the threat seriously

when you've got an infection on your arm and know that you could theoretically treat it but that it also might kill you in the time you're trying to find the medicine, you feel like a hunted animal asking yourself "maybe I should just saw it off"

or at least that's my read!

165 notes · View notes

magnorious · 2 months

Text

The Reveal that Changed Percy Jackson

*Spoiler Alert*

I’m talking about the Nico vs Cupid scene in book 8, House of Hades. I picked this scene, even though there were a great many in the original series that defined Percy Jackson as a story far more meaningful than just “cool tweenage demigods with magic and superpowers who fight evil”.

When this book came out, Nico vs Cupid was almost all anyone talked about. Why? Because Nico came out. Nico, an explicitly gay character in a book published by Disney, in a rather high profile series. Nico, the little angsty brat displaced from the timeline, comes out of nowhere with a world-shattering reveal.

House of Hades is already the darkest book in the series and, I think, the most polished and successful with this tone and how it feels so complete. While Percy and Annabeth are in Tartarus, the constant clever and horrific callbacks to quests from prior books quite literally come back to haunt them. The others trying to carry on without them, the ridiculously high personal stakes, the drama, the storytelling, it spares no expense in this book.

The Nico vs Cupid scene was something else, though, and all these years later… I’m not so sure it was done for the better.

—

Independent of the Big Reveal, this scene does a lot of things we’d never seen before in this series, namely this: Cupid is scary, and no one expected him to be.

Percy Jackson, though it does have its serious moments, is the series where the god of wine wears leopard print shirts and the god of the seas has a fishing chair for a throne. These characters quip and joke even when they’re trying to be intimidating and Percy’s personality, snarky and sassy and very rarely shooting straight, undercuts a lot of the attempts at looking competent and threatening (and we love him for it).

They’ve fought gods and monsters and demigods and characters have died really tragic deaths, but for the most part, these serious moments all come when we expect them to.

This scene comes out of nowhere and for anyone who hasn’t read the book in a while, here’s the context: Percy and Annabeth are in Tartarus and Nico is kind of the de-facto leader in their absence, knowing the most about Tartarus of the remaining crew. He and Jason are sent on a side quest to go retrieve the Staff of Diocletian from Cupid and Nico is not at all happy about this venture, but we don’t know why beyond that he’s Nico and he’s never happy.

Right out of the gate, Cupid is not at all who we expect him to be and this fight scene, absent of Percy, is suddenly very serious. Cupid doesn’t quip, he doesn’t show himself, and he fights dirty. The god of love, not the god of war or anything we expect to be violent and dangerous.

He’s whispering in characters’ heads, throwing them around like ragdolls, and taunting Nico ceaselessly all in Jason’s POV. Cupid gets some seriously badass lines, too.

“I’ve been to Tartarus and back,” Nico snarled. “You don’t scare me.” I scare you very, very much. Face me. Be honest.

Love is no game! It is no flowery softness! It is hard work—a quest that never ends. It demands everything from you—especially the truth. Only then does it yield rewards.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say Love always makes you happy.” [Cupid's] voice sounded smaller, much more human. “Sometimes it makes you incredibly sad. But at least you’ve faced it now. That’s the only way to conquer me.”

In all this, unfortunately in Jason POV, we’re primed only once by a previous god finally acknowledging that gays exist in this universe. This universe, based on Greek Mythology, famous for its not-straightness. Even then, audiences have spent 7 and a half books accepting that there won’t be any gays. No one is expecting this from Nico.

So when it comes, when Nico reveals he has a crush on Percy… the fandom lost our minds.

—

And I’m not so sure that’s a good thing, looking back. On the one hand, obligatory “we need representation,” but on the other, there was this one reviewer who knew what was up long before anyone else did.

She’d said something along the lines of raising damning concerns that Nico’s entire character arc was now defined by his homosexuality, that this scene frames all his anger, all his hate, all his rage and depression, about this one aspect of his character, and diminishes him because of it.

All these years later, I’m disappointed to say I agree with her.

This book series’ only major canonical gay (so far) is forced out of the closet with a proverbial gun to his head

Now, Nico likely never would have come out without that gun, but the way it happened, especially in front of Jason who he’s not friends with, showing Jason his memories because it’s not Nico’s POV and Jason has to see somehow because Nico sure won’t detail those scenes himself is... not good?

Jason handles it well, as well as he can given that this is Nico, and Cupid is an explicit villain so him forcing Nico out is in-character and not my problem. The narrative forcing Nico out is the problem—that this is a big reveal both to Jason and the audience is the problem.

The book isn’t new and with respect to when it was written and who wrote it, it’s not a terrible scene or terrible representation. But it’s not just forcing Nico out of the closet, either.

All of Nico’s character development is retroactively pinned on his sexuality

I get it. Nico’s… 14? 14 and from an era where being who he is was a death sentence, with zero education on the matter. Internalized homophobia is a thing (though Nico doesn’t actually seem to hate himself for being gay, he hates himself for crushing on Percy. Nor does he hate other gays or the concept).

Nico, though, is the one demigod who can summon any ghost he could dream up to teach him to hate himself a little less. He could have summoned the ghost of Freddie Mercury and what a dazzling mentorship that would have been.

The way the scene is framed makes it look like all of Nico’s rage comes from this one relationship, when it comes from so much more. He’s a son of Hades, a god no one trusts or likes and is synonymous with death, evil, and deceit. His sister, his last living relative, died on a quest as just a teenager. He has no friends at camp, powers that scare people, and is almost a century removed from everything and everyone he knew in his old life.

And he went and left camp *only* because of his crush on Percy? Not for any other reason?

When he does get his crush on Will, that only makes it worse. Nico did have friends, even if he didn’t believe it. He did have Percy and he’d earned the respect of his fellow campers after the Battle of Manhattan. He back-slid in HOH for this reveal, as if a romance is the only thing that could make him happy.

Cupid’s message is the narrative’s message: The only way to conquer love is to face it [in combat]

With a gun to his head, in front of a veritable stranger, instead of in, I don’t know, therapy with Apollo? There couldn’t have been any other way to fit this reveal in? He couldn’t have made his own group therapy session with other ghosts? Persephone or Demeter never sat this boy down for The Talk with a literal captive audience?

And that it’s a “reveal” at all, in incredibly dramatic fashion, a plot twist for shock value. The book couldn’t drop hints in Nico POV? Couldn’t casually state it anywhere at any time in the previous 3 books? Couldn’t treat it at all like this is normal and not a life-or-death situation?

I just feel bad for the kid. Nico can’t be the only demigod who has a guilty, unrequited crush. Cupid is forcing this out of him because that crush happens to be on another boy.

It’s in Jason’s POV

This world shattering, deeply personal reveal, and the character who’s having it isn’t even the narrator. Jason is a fine character and I know why it’s him out of everyone who could have gone with Nico, but this should have been solely Nico’s moment, not Jason’s commentary about Nico’s moment, being a non-consenting voyeur into Nico’s very personal memories about Percy.

Even if it’s not Jason’s POV to retain the surprise, it certainly starts to feel like Jason’s POV to retain the surprise. Jason can still be present, but even then—Cupid needed Nico to face Cupid, not Cupid and Jason.

—

It sucks because the scene as a whole, removed from the context, is incredible. The choreography, the pacing, the intensity of the battle, Cupid as a villain and Nico and Jason’s desperation to just stay alive.

Its impact on the series can’t be ignored. Blood of Olympus is no one’s favorite. It’s a terrible last book and not all that great as a book, period, but the ending?

Among other travesties, Nico confronts Percy, tells him he had a crush on him, and then *immediately* starts pining after Will. Percy doesn’t get the chance to talk to him, stunned at this reveal. They never have a heartfelt conversation about it, what this means for their friendship, how Percy never noticed or how this makes him feel, if he’s at all guilty for potentially leading Nico on and being a bad friend.

We get none of that. Nico just finds a pretty blond boy after, what, four years pining after Percy? One awful confrontation with Cupid and a few lines of dialogue traded with Jason and all his angst and moodiness is cured off-screen.

Can’t Nico go five minutes where he figures out who he is before he’s trading one crush for another? Can he not define himself independently of who he likes for just a couple chapters? He tells Jason after the Cupid fight that he’s over it, but… c’mon, he’s absolutely lying there, or he wouldn’t have been so hurt and upset and hesitant to reveal himself.

I love that he’s popular now, I love that he does have a healthy relationship (one that eclipsed the whole fandom for better or for worse), but the way he went about becoming popular still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Nico did walk so the rest of the series' extended universe could run. We did get Solangelo, we got Apollo being Apollo, we got a world based off Greek Mythology that stops straight-washing history. It's just a shame that he had to be forced out the way he did, and that his whole character is now defined by his relationship with Will.

#percy jackon and the olympians #percy jackson #pjo #nico di angelo #solangelo #house of hades #blood of olympus #retrospective

29 notes · View notes