#to that sort of behavior
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Not me, booting from menu, because microsneaky tried to force me to finish installing Edge with registry entry, and then uninstalling their shitty chrome browser, fuck you very much.
#kkglinka does stuff#like battle#unwanted software installs#this is why so many of us#loathed windows 10#not because it was bad#but because my home pc#is not a damn cell phone#even those shouldn't be subject#to that sort of behavior#when they're owned outright
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I love how Gerald was trying to keep Shadow from spoiling anything about the future meanwhile literally everything Shadow says and does around Maria is the biggest death flag ever
#in fairness iām sure both past robotniks just assumed her illness would be what killed her h a#sxsg#sxsg spoilers#sonic x shadow generations#shadow the hedgehog#maria robotnik#ark siblings#sonic#comic#my art#doodles#so this was pretty much entirely done 24 hours ago#but ironically was distracted from posting earlier by playing sxsg#and then watching snapcube play it cause her delight is addicting#iām missing 2 chests and 2 bolts and I wanna see if I can pull it off without a guide haha#anyways now Iām thinking about the fact that maria and gerald probably went back to their time assuming maria would die of her sickness#and how that would change their respective behaviors#i bet gerald would be holding out that maria would still live a bit longer#just cause shadow inadvertently revealed heās from at least 50 years in the future due to having met black doom before#(which rewatching cutscenes to remember this quote he Did try to play off a little bit with some sort of#āoh what do you think the alien squid meant by āthis time iāll beat youā thatās so crazyā comment)#so hey maybe it wasnāt a perfect cure but she managed to live another 10-20 years at least?#all the more reason to press harder surely!#meanwhile maria is coming to terms with her mortality at age 14 or whatever she is#frankly I bet she came to terms with it long ago the way she seems to be written#okay back to snapcube
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Even after learning their secret identities, the hero community always insisted that there was something inhuman about the bats. No one doubted that their intensive training had a lot to do with it, but it never quite explained how they could evade a Kryptonian's super senses, how they could melt into shadows, how they could function so long with little food, little rest, little oxygen if need be. Most people dismissed their uneasy feelings, but there was something strange about the bats, something uncanny, something that made them different from the arrows and other vanilla human members. And, slowly enough that no one really noticed, it was getting stronger.
Until one day, during a diplomatic meeting with the ruler of the Infinite Realms, when High King Phantom turned to Batman and his brood and literally brightened. "Oh! I didn't know you had liminal members!"
Or: through a variety of factors (proximity to death, their own death/near death experiences, exposure to the Lazarus Pits, the favor of Lady Gotham, immersion in Gotham's own cursed ambient ectoplasm, being a close knit group who continued to expose eachother, etc.) the batfamily have been becoming liminal/ecto-contaminated without noticing. The powers they're developing have been subtle, and align with the skills they expect to have, so no one brought it up when they started being able to hold their breath beyond human limitations, or got so sneaky that they literally seemed invisible, or had a lucky miss when they expected a bullet to go right through them. And they always exuded an unsettling aura of fear, so no one else thought anything was out of the ordinary either. By the time they meet Danny, Gotham counts as one of the most fiercely defended ghost haunts on the planet, with so many territorial liminals patrolling the streets.
#bruce is probably pretty upset that he and all his kids are now noticably undead#also alfred stopped aging at some point and seems to be functionally immortal and noone really thought about that either#danny is able to explain so much shit to them#a lot of stuff that they thought was just normal vigilante behavior because 'hey we all do it' turns put to be very definitively ghost shit#I'm imagining them having something close to ghost powers but less flashy#like maybe they can't go fully invisible but they can meld into shadows well enough that they functionally are#and they can't become intangible at will but they can get potentially harmful strikes to pass through them#they have a common suite of powers because of the way they trained together but some of them develop unique skills#Barbara gets a bit of technopathy and Cass gets shadow travel and Jason has the strongest intimidation aura that sort of thing#dpxdc#dp x dc#danny phantom#dc#batfam#my rambles#my writing#edit: fixed a typo lol
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Bonus chapter from SOFT : The Nest
An image from my Murder Drones Sort Of Fairy Tale fanfiction that I'm trying to put as a bonus chapter on AO3. If I can't, here's the description:
Disassembly Drones have many programs that imitate the behavior of certain animals that have disappeared from Earth, mainly to hunt, defend themselves or feed (fauves, birds of prey, bats, etc.)
I decided to incorporate into SOFT an element that I sometimes find in certain fanarts and other Murder Drones stories: the nest.
In short, like a bird, a Disassembly will create a nest to house its mate and their young. An elegantly decorated, comfortable and secure environment, which the Disassembly will watch over very carefully:
Beware of any intruder who gets too close! X)
So here's the nest N made for Uzi not far from the bunker (mixing his and Uzi's tastes), a scene I plan to write in the future ;)
#fanart#murder drones fanart#sketch#uzi doorman#n murder drones#nuzi#animal behavior disassembly drone#n made a nest for uzi like a bird#sort of fairy tale#fanfiction md
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whoever is running this fucking tumblr ad campaign for the op movie is making it really difficult not to develop actively hostile feelings toward a franchise i know many of my friends genuinely enjoy
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More bunny clickclack because living with a rabbit inspires me to make stupid images.
#great god grove#ggg click clack#needed to draw him as shapes again its like an addiction /silly#mad his boyfriend tried to clean up the stacks of books in his room and messed up his VERY SPECIFIC SORTING OF REFERENCE MATERIAL#my rabbit gets so mad when i clean his cage. for NO REASON#Whisp will quite literally flatten himself as much as possible angry style if i try to pet him after cleaning. my horrid little shape#no amount of snackrifices get forgiveness#thats the inspo for the top one#the second image is not only based on rabbit thumping but because I ALSO stomp when overstimulated / upset and trying to release energy#so ofc we put this behavior on the silly old man
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its so frustrating how a lot of scu fans cant handle other sonic fans not having the exact same taste in sonic media that they do. like i feel like you can say something negative about literally any other sonic media on here and people generally wouldnt care that much but the second you say anything less than positive about the movies people start getting all weird about it and trying to argue with you ive had it happen to me and seen it happen to others as well .... like the sonic franchise is very big and has many different media types and writing styles not everyone is going to uncritically love everything. get over it ? im not trying to be mean but idk what else to tell you
#this isnt solely about the person who sent me that ask last night i was actually already thinking abut it before#(though it is very confusing that they did i literally havetn been talking about the movies lately they just yelled at me out of nowhere#i mean they apologized so no big deal i guess but like. huh)#i mean i understand not wanting to see a bunch of hate of something you like and its fine to disagree with peoples criticisms#but people are being VERY unreasonable about it when it comes to sonic 3#cant help but wonder if this sort of behavior is a result of the fact that a lot of people acting this way got into sonic through the movie#after sonic's reputation improved a bit and dont know what constant widespread hate for everything sonic actually looks like#so they dont know how to handle criticism or opinions they disagree with regarding what sonic media is good or bad#and place sonic fans criticizing it because they love sonic and think sonic and its stories and characters deserves better#in the same category as people who just mindlessly hate on sonic for no reason#not that im saying anyone who likes the movies is a new fan or that new fans are fake fans but you get what i mean hopefully#also this is going into hater mode but personally. sonic 3 is one of the least deserving candidates of this type of defensiveness#like. for one its not that goodand actively disrespects the source material in so many ways. but thats more of a subjective opinion i guess#but also its a very popular and successful movie . most people who watched it liked it from what ive seen#randos on tumblr not liking it isnt taking away from that ??????#also paramount doesnt deserve your money anyway#like whats the point in defending it so hard . who cares..
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"I simply can't communicate my needs-" learn how to.
"I'm bad at communicating my feelings-" learn it then.
"I constantly lose friends because I don't keep up with them-" make an effort.
"I just have terrible emotional regulation-" self-reflect. Get better.
"Sorry I'm always late-" improve your time management strategies.
"Everytime I meet this person they make me feel awful-" don't meet them anymore. I know it's hard, do it anyway.
"My relationship with my partner is suffering because I never talk to them about what I need and want-" they can't read your mind. Learn to talk.
If you are an adult, you can learn how to handle your own feelings. Sit down, write it down, self-reflect, make strategies. Seek change. Better yourself.
Weaponized emotional incompetence, where you expect people around you to handle your issues without ever trying to change, isn't the way to go. You have agency, use it.
Edit: if you're a terf, this post isn't for you and you will be blocked š
#mental health#weaponized incompetence#for the record before anyone with piss-poor reading comprehension comes at me:#this of course doesn't go for people with serious and detrimental mental illnesses#but I'm 100% sure that we all know the kind of person I'm talking about#maybe we are that person!#who constantly complains#or finds excuses for their own behavior#and yet refuses to make any sort of change#weaponized emotional incompetence#āØ#look inward and take a mop and some soapy water to it if necessary
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I think thereās a decent case to be made that MCD Laurance was a victim of some form of sexual assault by Michi and that informs a lot of his actions in season two, but I donāt know if Iām reaching or not.
#minecraft diaries#mcd#laurance zvahl#aphmau#discussion#two prominent time where he turns into a shadow knight and sort of crashes out are related to situations where thereās lacking consent#when he frees michi and Sasha it reads like him going back to his abuser and an enabler of his worst behavior#i just dont think you can look at him being missing for 2 days in the custody of michi and come to the conclusion that NOTHING happened#aphblr#tw sa mention
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āHe cannot deal with adversityā
George saying that is deadass hilarious to me considering Max since he entered f1 has had a massive target on him with regards to pressure from media, his team, his father as well as the ongoing vile abuse that come of the British media.
For him to turn around and basically call Max a violent bully knowing the consequences of that sort of sentence as well as saying Masi would have feared for his life after 2021 knowing that Latifi had to get off social media and Masi still gets online threats is crazy to me.
Also George hit Bottas in Imola 2021 on the helmet after a massive accident but apparently Max is the big bad violent bully?
Saying that Maxās team wanted to leave Max this year when they literally treat Max like their own family is disrespectful as fuck to hear. Shame on George honestly and as the head of gpda he should be ashamed and the job taken back off him.
How can you convince people this is a bullyš„ŗ
#disappointing behaviors from George#absolutely embarrassing#heās lost his head#imagine having to sort a press conference to abuse a fellow driver#bring your TP and all your English media mates#this is so embarrassing#max verstappen#rambles#red bull racing#f1#formula 1
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Unrequited/One-sided Radioapple but it isn't treated like an angsty end of the world thing.
Imagine they slowly get closer after all the banters, and eventually becoming close friends. Lucifer ends up catching feelings for him, and after a long while, decides to confess and ask Alastor if he felt the same.
Alastor admittedly does not feel the same.
He's getting uncomfortable, struggling to keep his composure because he's DONE this before. He KNOWS how this ends. He remembers Vox and all his insistent declarations of affection and desperate pleas for Alastor to reciprocate; the possessive entitlement. He remembers how all those sickly sweet words morphed into something venomous when he didn't give the lowlife what he wanted. He remembers the anger, the ridiculous notion that it was Alastor's fault why he was so mad, that Alastor led him on and that he obviously deserved something in payment for it all-
So yes, Alastor knows how this ends.
It doesn't mean he isn't disappointed though, because he actually LIKES Lucifer, far more than he ever did Vox. Perhaps not in the way the king might have wanted, but he did. He treasured their little talks, their drinking sessions, their shared love for their instruments, Lucifers singing, their little duets, the banter, the playful jabs, the sparring.
He'd even slowly grown accustomed to the other's touches, not feeling the same surge of disgust and discomfort whenever the shorter man would grab at his arm in excitement, forgetting his usual thoughtfulness of Alastor's touch aversion for the short moment of whatever distracted him. Alastor even enjoyed it at times, relaxing at the feel of soft feathers beneath his claws, or the sensation of gentle scratches against his ears.
Difficult as it was to admit, Alastor had grown to care for the angel, the same way he had for Rosie orv Mimzy.
But no matter how fond Alastor was of Lucifer, it didn't change the fact that he didn't feel the same way romantically, or even sexually. No way in the 7 rings of Hell was he going to lie to Lucifer about either, not going to even entertain the idea of pretending he reciprocated for Lucifer's sake. He respected his friend too much for that.
So a clear, direct rejection it is. It was a shame, but nothing could be done. He said his piece concisely, and waited, shoulders set, back straight, smile and eyes a careful blank canvas as he prepared for the inevitable.
Lucifer nodded, a normal soft smile still in place, "Thank you for your answer, it means a lot."
Which......what? Alastor expected an outburst, or at the very least sharp words.
What he did NOT expect was....acceptance? And not just that but, a happy one? Contentment?????
"You're....alright with that?", he had to ask, he had to. Lucifer was clearly just very good at masking his upset.
But the damn angel just smiled?? And it didn't even look fake, just as bright and soft as his normal smiles, albeit a little confused?? Lucifer smiled at him, his brows furrowing in a bit of confused disbelief, as though Alastor is being the weird one here.
"Uhh, yeah??? Why wouldn't I be??? Yeah I may have some feelings for you but its not like you're obligated to feel the same. Above anything else, we're friends first and foremost and i'm alright with that..."
Then he seemed to have reached his own little conclusion as his words trailed off, because suddenly Lucifer's eyes widened in realization of something, and his words picking up with a sense of panicked urgency.
Alastor would really like to know what Lucifer's supposed realization was about himself because he had absolutely no clue.
"I mean, we ARE still friends right?? I don't- I- I hope this doesn't like- change your opinion of me. You're not- oh gosh I'm not making you uncomfortable am I? I- I won't mention it! You can even forget this whole confession ever happened! We can just go on as before! I don't feel any different or would act any different! Honest! I mean, I don't regret confessing because you deserve to know and I'm not ashamed of my feelings, but I don't want you to be uncomfortable! It doesn't change the way i'll treat you! Or change any aspect of our relationship! I don't even think I like you more as a lover than as a friend! I really, really do love our friendship, it matters more to me than any thoughts of being in a romantic relationship with you! So please just forget it all-"
Alastor let the word vomit wash over him, every word leaving him more confused by the minute.
Because yes, there's the desperation he expected, but...it was more about, convincing Alastor to remain friends?? Reassuring Alastor that nothing has to change?? That their friendship is the most important thing here??
(If anyone asks, no Alastor's heart didn't swell. Only lesser beings would have had the urge to cry, and Alastor is anything but.)
Lucifer is unknowingly reassuring Alastor of every single one of his insecurities about the situation. Because Alastor DID want to remain friends, he cared too much about the man to let it go so easily. It was rare to find people who treasure friendships above romantic relationships.
"I don't tend to forget easily, nor will I forget this one in particular.", he spoke, finally finding his voice. At Lucifer's defeated, pained expression( is their friendship really that important to him?), he continued. "But....yes. I'd like that.. To remain...friends."
He didn't often say the word out loud, being comfortable enough with each other that it need not be reassured with the label. But with Lucifer brightening up like his namesake, relief and happiness palpable, Alastor felt no qualms at declaring their friendship out loud.
So life went on as usual. True to his word, Lucifer remained basically the same. The following weeks were a bit stilted for Alastor, as he put some rather painful distance between him and the angel; limiting their interactions, their usual touches.
Anytime now, Lucifer would break and show his true colors, Alastor would think, waiting for the boot to drop. Lucifer would end up angry, and dissatisfied, and that was that.
But it never happened. Lucifer never expressed discomfort when Alastor avoided him, seeming to be understanding of the others need for space. He was just as affectionate as before, though initially a bit held back, as though gauging Alastor's comfort.
Months would pass, and the king never faltered. Their friendship remained strong, if not growing ever closer than before. Alastor found himself even growing more comfortable with the man. Affectionate touches were becoming common, hugs and head pats and cuddles being a welcome thing, with the reassurance that the shorter king would never disrespect his boundaries.
Lucifer seemed genuinely happy about it, despite being clearly told that none of Alastor's actions hinted at anything romantic. In fact, he seemed ecstatic that Alastor was getting more affectionate towards him as a friend. The embarrassment the radio demon felt at having Lucifer basically tear up (no really, he was crying so hard, full on drama sobbing) with joy in front of him was intertwined with the sheer incredulous fondness he felt for the man at that moment.
They were sitting at a couch one night, more than a year passing since that confession. Lucifer was leaning back, resting against the cushions, while Alastor had his head on the smaller one's shoulder, nuzzling at the crook of his neck, legs tucked close to his body. Both had a book in hand, two nearly empty cups of tea on the table in front of them. Every so often, Lucifer would flex his fingers that rested on Alastor's head, running a digit against the other's ear, often prompting the demon to lean into the touch. White wings enveloped the two, blanketing them against the chill of the night.
As Alastor turned the page of his own book, relaxing into the touch of his dearest friend, he wondered how he ever got so lucky in hell.
#this may have gotten away from me lmao#this was supposed to be a rlly short prompt of 'Unrequited love but overbrimming friendship' but instead i typed out this word vomit-#i don't know if im labeling things right here??? this may not look platonic tk others but ig im sort of projecting here#bc i want friendships like this soo badd. i mean this is still platonic right??? this is normal friendship behavior like come onnn#I've been teased about being ace bc of this mindset but i always just go RIGHT this is how friendship works y'all blindššš#bloopnik writing#bloopnik rambles#radioapple#appleradio#platonic radioapple#platonic relationships#aroace alastor#alastor hazbin hotel#alastor hazbin#hazbin hotel alastor#hazbin alastor#alastor#duckiedeer#unrequited feelings#BUT NOT UNREQUITED LOVE HELL YEA#one sided radiostatic#lucifer morningstar#hazbin hotel#THEY LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH AND ITS BEAUTIFUL#queerplatonic#i think#fic#fanfic#radiosilence
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okay but why DOES solas have naked statues of ghilan'nain holding hands with andruil
taash has apparently determined that he's not smuggling it to fund the rebellion
#solas#ghilan'nain#davrin#taash#trying to work out the timeline in my head to determine what kind of weird this was#so the letters between solas and ghil in veilguard indicate that it was during solas's rebellion that ghil ascended#(presumably from a priestess of andruil. assuming the dalish held onto that detail. with priestess in effect meaning more like 'scientist')#but before her ascent they were familiar with each other as like. preeminent researchers both working for the gods#presumably people are only making statues of ghil and andruil being intimate after ghil ascends?#unless solas personally made a statue of his colleague yuri-ing out with her boss#but otherwise he what? stole a statue depicting their lesbian relationship made by their worshippers?????#probably the real answer based on taash's observations is that this whole statue collection of the evanuris is emotional somehow#like either he's pacing around the statues hating them or he has some sort of reluctant repressed nostalgia for being part of them#and so the naked statues of andruil and ghil are just a part of that emotion-driven hoarding behavior#but even then. solas. surely they make andruil and ghilan'nain statues with clothes on
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I need your most controversial Sailor moon opinion.
Well, hello! You really wanna get me in trouble today don't ya lol.
I am pretty opinionated as some of you might know, but I don't believe I have some REALLY TERRIBLE 'fandom card revoking' opinions, but I do have a couple which I stand by firmly that even close friends of mine disagree with.
I'll give 2 this time.
..
I'll say my first is that I don't like the default belief in the fandom of "sailor senshi = hero, good person who would never do anything wrong unless they are established since the beginning to be evil". I'm married to the idea that senshis are like real people, just cause they have powers and most times they want what's best, doesn't mean they're not capable of doing selfish acts.
With this, I'm mostly talking about the inners and outers not being allowed to act on or follow different moral codes outside of "follow Usagi and believe in everything Usagi believes in" without the fandom being at their throats for it. It's infinitely detrimental to their individuality in the team and honestly.. it's boring! I said it, it's boring af.
Beacause ultimately what you get when you follow this train of thought is 'Usagi and her mindless team of cardboard cutouts' and I hate that. Also. I'm sorry, but Usagi's morality is most often inherently flawed and simply relies on her being Jesus and being able to do anything with 0 consequences. I love her endless empathy and hope, but if the show didn't back her up every single time, it would not work. Uranus and Neptune get so much shit for what they did in S, and don't get me wrong, they ARE idiots, but they also acted in a proprationally rational matter to the situation at hand.
The inners and outers should be allowed to act on their own different morality and beliefs without being crucified for it just because it might not align with Usagi's pure lawful good morality.
A simple example I have is sometimes people criticize art of characters I make looking ominous or 'evil' while in canon they are 'good'. It never sat right with me, sorry.
..
The second one is.. sigh. Listen, I love Usagi, if you don't believe I love Usagi then you are just plain wrong, you are, because I do love her, but God, I'm kind of up to here with the fandom babying Usagi to infinity.
I get it, Usagi is the main character, I'm not taking that away from her (at least not in canon), but the fandom has a way of only really seeing everything and judging everything through Usagi's eyes and only really caring or thinking about Usagi's pain.
Let me give you an example, a lot of the fandom realizes that Usagi suffers terribly from the fact that she is basically responsible for dragging her friends to war and leading them to die for her. It is tragic for Usagi, but only ever stops there. Rarely I see anyone bringing that though of tragedy to the other victims, the inners and outers, it's just about Usagi's suffering for causing her friends' suffering. But.. what about her friends' suffering through their own perspective??
It's tough to explain how I feel about this cause in a way, I agree, we are supposed to feel for Usagi, I feel for her. I get it, but why is it always ever talked about when it's about Usagi.
All of this mainly leads to people in the fandom getting incredibly defensive toward Usagi as a character and attacking anyone who ever judges her character, her actions, or how other characters act toward her.
Like in the anime a lot of the girls, especially Rei, can be quite harsh to her sometimes. An example I see brought up all the time is how, when Usagi lost Mamoru in the manga, the girls stay by her side and all care for her, while in the anime Rei slaps her. But like.. Rei is not wrong, Rei IS being Rei, and you are free to judge her methods but Usagi needs this pushback. She is acting irrationally, and that behavior should not be supported by her team, who is trying first and foremost to not have the world blown up. Could they have been more supportive afterward? Sure, but the fact that people demonize Rei for that slap is really infuriating to see.
#ask me stuff#I'll leav it here#ik many folka may disagree or may think I' beign too harsh on Usagi#ans is truly nothing against her#it's juat the behavior this sort of mentalities lead in fandom#that type of hostility and unfair criticism I have experienced first hand
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i do think it's silly to care enough that someone else bought a switch 2 that you're posting angrily about it or god forbid sending them anon hate. like are you also going to send angry letters to every middle class parent that buys one
#if theoretically someone complained about the price and supported not buying them only to get one themself then like#yes that's corny and annoying. but still. why dedicate time and energy performing anger over them#(and i doubt very many people did both of those things because that is always the situation on this website#when there is any sort of perceived contradictory or hypocritical behavior. it is different people stating those opposing opinions.)
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oh, you know
Plutarch, Brutus 7 (trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert)
this is an older rough comic from my WIP folder I had been planning on redoing from scratch, however I was re reading Plutarch's Brutus (as one does) and came across this line and decided to hit post because it'll be awhile before I can get around to doing a finished version of it, but I have thoughts about Brutus (derogatory) right now
#komiks tag#roman republic tag#gaius cassius longinus#marcus junius brutus#i promise i do not hate brutus. its just that he's sort of a sell out and for that he must suffer#it's what makes him compelling but also makes re watching (redacted) so so so hard#heās everyone elseās darling Iām just trying to put some spice and bite back into him#like his loan shark summer? With that behavior he shouldāve been hooking up with Crassus#fil tag
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re: sympathetic ganondorf vs evil for evilās sake ganondorf, i think this is misrepresenting and underselling whatās actually offputting to people
āiām evil because iām evilā or āiām evil because demise is evilā and the associated lust for power simply for its own sake has always been lame and low effort. thereās a reason itās āshit tierā on the classic āvillain motive tiersā thing
āiām evil but thereās enough nuance to make the player at least somewhat sympathetic to me even if iām still ultimately a bad guyā is a good thing that people like? iāve never personally interacted with a zelda player who thinks windwaker ganondorf ruined the character or anything - heās generally regarded as the gold standard of villain writing both in and out of zelda. this is roughly āhigh tierā on the tier chart
āactually TWIST iām not evil at all, itās the good guys who were evil all along, iāve done nothing wrong and iām completely justified in my righteous quest against the status quo, youāre the real secret true villain for being complicit in preserving itā is technically regarded as āelder god tierā on the motive tier chart but i would personally label it as āoscar bait tierā. these things *can* be compelling in conversation with the existing landscape, but often it comes across as a deliberate effort to subvert the audienceās expectations for the sake of being unpredictable (or worse, for the sake of proving youāre the smartest one in the room). in separate works where this conversation/critique is the entire point (eg. Watchmen or The Boys), thatās not necessarily a bad thing, and the audience sets their expectations accordingly. in an established, long-running franchise, however, this almost always reads as dripping with contempt for the audience, like walking into a room and going āyou morons like this shit? let me, a person much smarter than you, explain what itās Actually about, because youāre an idiot if youāve been a fan of this series before nowā
on top of that, in the context of a series like zelda, this type of story feels myopic and disrespectful to the future of the series. āwelp i burned down the 20+ years of lore behind this character so i could do a deconstruction, good luck using them in any capacity in the future, sounds like a you problemā
all this is to say, i think itās a bit disingenuous/strawman-y to suggest that people put off by this want ganondorf to have 0 depth at all. thereās a lot of room for different kinds of depth, itās just that the trend of the last decade has been for ādepthā to mean ācondescending deconstructionā
Hey!
Thanks for taking the time to write this ask, I think it warrants an interesting conversation. To me, there's like, a lot of things about what you're saying, and tbh I do see where you're coming from --in part.
First thing first... No yeah unfortunately some people Are hostile to even WW Ganondorf. It's been a rising trend in the fandom since TotK was released --people being very against the concept of any additional complexity to the character, either not getting it or considering anything he says pure manipulation that doesn't even warrant a conversation, literally making fun of people who were intrigued by this and wanting more out of this particular thread. This position not only absolutely exists within the fandom --less so on tumblr, I'll agree there-- but it's not even hard to stumble upon as a pretty regular opinion that gets tossed around. I had some interesting asks thrown my way, let's say. The idea that Ganondorf is a remotely interesting character that deserves more thought than what he gets is very much Extremely not the norm, and the very fact that you, as a fan, likes him as a guy is perceived as weird and missing the point by a lot of people. Like a lot a lot of people.
So I'll just... I guess I haven't clarified my position in a while, so I will reclarify my position on our favorite evil dude: I do like him perfectly fine as a villain, I do not want him to be "redeemed" by the narrative, I think he works fantastically as an ongoing threat, I think they could make him even scarier and more offputting and that would be super fun and thrilling... and I also think he already is complex. Like, inherently. Everything Nintendo has been putting into him since his first appearance is complicated --even their attempts at flattening him back in TotK do not fully work because they can't scrub him of the extremely loaded ideas they injected into him from the get-go. Nobody forced Nintendo to do a Mega Orientalism when inventing him, nobody made them write the NPCs to have this super weird antagonistic relationship to the gerudos in OoT, nobody made them have all this lore of the one man born every hundred years, raised by twin witches --and then nobody made them press on that tension point in Wind Waker explicitely, and then, in a more subtle fashion, in TP too. Nobody forced their hand when it came to having the strange "round ear" situation, suggesting (confirmed even, in additional canon) gerudos are born unblessed. The fact of the matter is: everything to make the relationship between Hyrule and the gerudos complicated has been there since 1998. There's no need for a Switcharoo to prove that anyone is smarter than the audience: everything messy has always been baked within the worldbuilding itself. It's in the cartridges already!!
Perspective on it is what could change, though --because, except in Wind Waker, we never get even a hint of a sense that we should think, as an audience, that Hyrule's super weird relationship to the gerudos is maybe questionable. Worth thinking about at least. Which, given the optics, is wild to me that to bring this particular can of worms up is still very largely considered crazy talk within the fandom (that, or the Sheikah situation across the series, also insane in many ways). And yes, it would perhaps lead to themes that are a bit heavier than what Zelda has been overtly dealing with (though, again, Majora's Mask exists --and I do find a lot of unpacked ideas in the Wild Era, like the very unquestionned gerudo bridal pipeline, very uhhh unfortunate already if I'm being honest --even moreso because it is unquestioned). But Zelda, when well handled narratively, can do wonderful things with evocative subtext, open doors never fully crossed, a lynchian pressure on what should feel offputting. We don't even need a sad monologue about it. It doesn't even need to be handled explicitely. But I think the pressure point is just better when understood and incorporated in some form, instead of being denied so hard the world itself start to feel incomplete and unlived.
I do want to say... I get what you mean with the whole "oscar bait" thing. There has been, historically and in recent years, a tendency to be driven by an external, almost panicked sense of morality rather than by the internal drive of a story, its internal thematic logic. I also do think it can feel very corporate, very "Disney looking back at its own movies and scrubbing off everything Buzzfeed deemed problematic in 2014 while making everything glossy and lifeless and awful" and it's not that great!!! and tbh I can't say I would trust Nintendo to handle any appreciation for the fact that the story of an eternal golden kingdom cheering on beating the evil outsiders who want to corrupt everything good and pure and blonde about that perfect inherently good place, is like, extremely not neutral. It absolutely is a delicate thread to weave, and I agree that putting a definitive end to Hyrule is probably not the smartest IP move to do. But, Hyrule doesn't have to be condemned as Bad, it can be merely complicated. And ongoing, regardless. To keep on with the Disney parallel: The Lion King would feel weird if we started to peel off the internal politics of the hyenas, it's just not the right place for it, when everything about this story revolves around the Righteousness of the Divine Right to Rule. But if the Lion King was an ongoing series that had been looping on itself for a while... wouldn't it make sense to figure out how to achieve majesty by studying other angles too, eventually? Is it that strange to suggest the exercise is like, possible? That it can be handled with artistry and soul?
I feel like... Yes, to acknowledge Ganondorf's humanity --not even to coddle it, just to acknowledge it-- implies taking in everything that makes him who he is, and that might rattle some foundational ideas about why this ancestral fight is even happening in the first place. I also do not think it means that he must be Good now. He can still punch a child and cackle maniacally, he can still be unredeemable --he can still destroy himself and others out of the most unconstructive spite ever, and we can still see the purpose in defeating him while basking in the "yea....." left in his wake (Wind Waker did that!!! Wind Waker did that and then we had more Zelda games!! crazy how that happened). This is hardly undoable. It does take some narrative skill, and some commitment to taking a bit of a risk, but Ganondorf is genuinely unmanageable as a character if you insist on your refusal to acknowledge his foundations --and I think it's partially why TotK's story is such a mess. He sells a TON, but you can't have him breathe slightly too loud without risking the entire world falling apart. They did try in TotK, so very hard, and to me they still failed--as insane as he behaves, Hyrule still doesn't come out of this looking good or particularly justified, because the very central core of Ganondorf's character is to be subjugated, and then rebelling in a destructive and brutally selfish, uncompromising manner that ends up robbing him of humanity --and the discomfort of that premise will therefore always haunt the conversation. Nintendo dug themselves into that mess. I feel like a lot of the Ganondorf fans I know merely... point at that. At the mess. And I feel like the longer the games avoid this mess, the more coats of spinach green they slather ontop of his skin, and the more nonsensical characterization they pile up, and the more Ganondorf will become a parody of who he once was, and what made him compelling to begin with.
And to top it all off, as if he wasn't contentious and complicated enough to handle already, they leaned into the internet turning him into a sex symbol for some fucking reason??? Yeah I genuinely have no idea how Nintendo will manage this dude moving forward, because to me, he is, at best, an endless source of (very lucrative) headaches, and at worst a ticking time bomb. I'm not sure how long they can get away with that TotKification strategy, is what I mean.
(Also: I tried to not overdwell on all the incredibly complicated conversation re: race and orientalism, but it's borderline impossible to have this conversation without acknowledging that I have never seen a major pop culture villain receive more pushback against "woobification" than him, and I don't think it's a complete coincidence let's say :) )
#asks#ganondorf#totk critical#(a bit)#thanks for the ask!#yeah it's complicated#I do understand the fear of deconstructing things without purpose --it does happen#I feel like it's kind of both a thing that happens and a thing that ends up soaking in all the DEI moral panic being flung around too#when to me these two things are like... not that connected honestly#(I have very pointed experiences to inform this take --but like it's a super complicated convo honestly and hhh tired)#there's incredibly soulful deconstuction --and there's terrified corporate deconstruction --and there's whacky lol random deconstruction#and not to over-pry anon but you seem to mention a lot this idea of āthe writers wanting to be smarter than the audienceā#and like... I won't say that it doesn't happen but I feel like this spiteful self-satisfied intent behind creative decisions is kind of...#at the very least it's hard to prove#I'm not saying this sort of anticipatory behavior to the point of betraying artistic intent isn't a thing. it absolutely is.#but I feel like a lot of the worse expressions of this backlash recently was honestly mostly projection#people generally want to do good art or capitulate under circumstances too difficult to surmount#(source: aaaaaa. hfgfhfgfh. death by gamedev.)#or just kind of fumbled their shit too that happens! sometimes you don't do a good job at art :(#but I think that rejecting complexity --or like the possibility of committing to complicated delicate ideas because it could flop#is no more helpful to art than living in fear of being called out for doing a moral wrongness#at some point you gotta imagine you can nail the concept and execution of what matters to you --because you can#things can be good and rich and simple and also complicated and it's possible and we don't have to live in fear of messing it up#that's my personal take at least
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