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rawliverandgoronspice · 1 year

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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)

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legends-on-legends · 5 months

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the "classic" villain

some ppl try to defend totk ganondorf’s one-dimensional characterization by arguing that he’s meant to be a “pure evil”, “classic” villain. now, personally, i’m not entirely opposed to having ganondorf just be an unhinged evil guy – in my opinion, part of what makes him great is the fact that he can do it all, he can be the tragic fallen hero, the sympathetic anti-villain, the remorseful old man who can’t give up the ghost of his ambitions, and also the magnificent bastard who enjoys terrorizing hyrule bc they kinda had it coming, let’s be real here. pure evil villains are fun, that’s why i love sukuna from jujutsu kaisen, he’s just an absolute unapologetic menace.

but the thing about “pure evil” or “classic” villains is that they still have to make sense. take, for instance, big jack horner from puss in boots: the last wish, a character who some have smugly pointed to as an example of a “real villain” that’s supposedly rare nowadays. the main point of jack horner is that he’s an asshole, a real piece of shit who’s uninterested in redemption or helping others, despite the best efforts of his jiminy-cricket inspired companion. jack horner is fun and adds some variety to a film that also has a sympathetic antagonist who experiences growth (goldilocks) and a force-of-nature antagonist who absolutely steals the show (death). but jack horner still makes sense; he’s an over-privileged man-child who wanted for nothing and therefore feels entitled to everything, and he’s also spiteful bc pinocchio upstaged him that one time. plus, jack horner is funny, so that’s a bonus.

same goes for every other classic villain that people like, whether it’s the old-school disney villains or the bad guys from classic cartoons. pure evil villains still have to be coherent and understandable in some way. that doesn’t mean their reasons have to be good – in fact, i think pure evil villains are basically defined by NOT having good reasons to justify their actions. but they still need to have reasons.

but totk ganondorf? this dude makes no damn sense. why does the king of the gerudo, out of all people, become king of demons? it might as well have been the king of gorons or zora or rito who turned evil. why did the gerudo support his conquest of hyrule only to turn against him once he transformed into the demon king? where did he get his powers from? how and why did ganondorf, of all people, reach the conclusion that hyrule must be bathed in eternal darkness, and why is he so dedicated to this goal that he’s willing to sacrifice his own mind and body to achieve it? what, exactly, is driving this man? you can’t call him selfish because again, he’s willing to permanently damage himself to attain his goals, that shows he’s bound to a higher cause. but there’s no explanation for why he, of all people, has chosen this particular cause.

and sure, the fandom can speculate and try to use the lore to fill in the gaps, but the fact that there are such big gaps in the first place is totk’s biggest failure, in my opinion. if people have to look at lore guides to make sense of your villain, then you’ve failed as a storyteller.

totk ganondorf might have made more sense as just a monster that spawned from the Depths rather than a man who was born among the gerudo. maybe the zonai dug around too deep and activated the Depths’ defense mechanism, and boom, ganon emerges, furious at the surface world that has dared to intrude upon his domain, and determined to return the favor by covering the land of light with darkness. he’s still a monster who must be defeated but at least there would have been some logic to his actions.

#ganondorf #totk critical #ganondorf meta

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thezoraprince · 8 months

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BotW/TotK boys taking care of you when you’re sick

big thank you to the students that live in the residence hall i work in for spreading their illness to me and giving me inspiration :')

i applaud you

Sidon

worries too much

sets aside his princely duties to be with you

Muzu is PISSED about it

but Sidon can’t focus when you’re ill

he’ll wrap you up in 1000 blankets if it helps you to stay warm

and he’s sure to give you lots of forehead kisses

he’s constantly asking how you’re feeling

and if you’re feeling worse, he’ll cradle you in his arms until you fall asleep

unless he feels that he just can’t put you down (which is very likely)

he reads to you, whether it be books; papers from Muzu about how mad he is; a news article; etc.

lots of “I love you”s

lots of cuddling

and when you feel better, he’s still taking an extra day to spend with you

Bazz

super busy with work, but will make time to take care of you

he’ll leave super sweet notes around the house for you to read while he’s away

and when he gets home, he will not let go of you for a moment

he’ll tell you all about his day

if he went on a survey, he’ll describe the scenery in detail

and maybe he’ll bring you back a little something (like a pebble or an interesting leaf)

he’ll constantly ask how you’re feeling

because he worries too much

if you’re still feeling bad on one of his days off, he’ll bring you soup in bed

he’ll let you lay your head on his chest all day, because he knows how much that puts you at ease

and when you fall asleep (because you know you will laying like that), he holds you a little tighter

when you feel better, he takes a day off to spend with you

but because he’s always overworking himself, he absolutely gets sick after you

and you have to MAKE him stay in bed

Link

all he wants to do is lay with you

the way he wraps his arms around you makes you feel so safe and secure

he sleeps when you sleep, which is pretty much all day

and he cooks whatever you want to eat

he’ll bring food to you in bed

when you get bored, he’s your entertainment

he’ll find something for the both of you to do, whether it be read or playing little games

he’s soft

and so gentle

he wants you to feel better so you can explore together

he’ll make TONS of elixirs for you to take

he’s so worried about you, though he shouldn’t be

when you start to feel better, he’ll lead you outside and you’ll both sit in the grass for HOURS

and when you’re ready, you’ll go exploring again

Revali

this bird does NOT like illness

at all

he disgusted

revolted

“You sound like a dying bird… I would know.”

but deep down, he feels bad for you

he’ll stay home with you, because he know’s you need him

and he’ll be his usual self… though a bit more helpful

he’s hesitant to hold you close, but he does anyway

and upon feeling just how warm you are, he’ll try to find something to reduce your fever

he keeps a bin FILLED with blankets just for you (because Rito’s Village gets very cold in the winter)

and you bet he’s going to wrap you in 3+ of them

though he hates to see you like this, he loves how snuggly you are when you get sick

he definitely has soft spot for cuddling with you

when you’re better, it takes him a bit to get back into his normal routine

and if he ends up getting sick…

just be ready

Rivan

has the most experience with this due to being a dad

he will absolutely be staying home with you while you’re ill

“Bazz will get over it.”

oh you bet he’s holding you so close, letting you lay your head on his chest

he gives you millions of forehead kisses

he’ll cook every meal

he lays cool, damp towels on your forehead to reduce your fever

and the cuddles are endless

he cleans/does household chores while you sleep (if he’s not holding you)

he finds fun things to do with you around the house if you’re up for it

and if it’s warm enough, he’ll take you outside for fresh air (but only if you’re okay with it)

he gets you water every hour or so

as well as a snack if you haven’t eaten in a bit

he’s so gentle and kind

and when you feel better, he’s back to work

“I kind of wish I was sick now, just so I can stay home with you…”

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ganondoodle · 8 months

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more thoughts

big part of why i loathe what totk did with its story and lore is that it tremendously hurts botw in retrospect

i said that before and mentioned all of these points before as well but i just have to mention it again; how totk did away with all the little mysteries in botw, like the ancient hero looking kinda strange leading to lots of interesting theories- WHOOP its a sonau mix guy revealed through a collectable and its straight up said by purah/impa that that is the ancient hero .. like it was an always known fact ......

the sonau ruins in botw of a long gone group of people that lived in the forest of phirone - WHOOP those are just monuments built by hylians in memory of the sonau and actually their real architecure isnt rare and few but everywhere en masse and doesnt resemble the ones from botw at all, aside from some vague dragon motive; theres more stuff of the oh so sadly gone and not at all mysterious anymore sonau left than there was of the ancient shiekah in botw (and now it doesnt exist at all anymore, who cares about them, how important they were, or this worlds history, especially zelda, she never cared about shiekah or history that wasnt about sonau :)))) )

one of the biggest crimes, to me, personally, is what totk did with the dragons not actively mind you, but still changed my view of them and i hate it; i always saw them as these ethereal otherwordly spirits older than time itself (i liked the idea of them being like a final evolution of the dragons from skyward sword, tho of course i dont need that to be canon lol) and then totk comes along and .. the newly revealed -always been there super cool- race of people from the sky is heavily based on their designs ... and they have armor sets imitating the dragons ... and have ... magical never heard of before stones that turn people into .... dragons .... i get how that can be an interesting thing for people to connect but for me personally ... its a mystery that REALLY shouldnt have been solved, at all, or even touched, the fact that you knew nothing about the dragons other than they are here was what made them feel so much more divine and awe inspiring (i know you could try to think of it being the other way around, the sonau worshipping the dragons so much they dedicated all of their cultur around them ((but then again were is that anywhere, if they worshipped them so much then they sure didnt matter in any of what we say of them in memories..)) ... but the sonau designs, the armor ... the stones ... its all such an obvious connection ...) and its really hard for me to ignore it, i actively have to work now to keep seeing the dragons as these untouchable ethereal spirits instead of some sonau guy eating a fucking stone

and yet again its like .. can you really blame me for feeling weird about the sonau/dislike them when ... theres nothing that WASNT touched by the sonau, they already had tech way above the level of the shiekah, they were in the sky, the surface AND the underground all along, theirs is the actually important influence on the history of the world, they have been in every place that was once important, hell they were in every place were a settlement of people is EVEN THE FEW YEARS OLD TABURASA (tarrey town), their buildings look like they were abandoned 10 years ago, all their shit is still working, they founded (this) hyrule, they are the royals, they are the gods, they are the dragons, the ancient hero was a sonau mix clad in waht totk made out to be their signature design elements-

we had recordings from that time (tapestry) and even PEOPLE (the monks) and yet the sonau were a total mystery? even though their culture was literally still there when the shiekah built their tech?

what gets me escpeially is how .. they didnt NEED to erase anything shiekah, they didnt need to act like they never existed, they didnt need to make the sonau be the coolest guys ever and were so desperate to get that into your thinking everyone in the game is obsessed with them and tells you why you should be obsessed too

like am i just insane or is it a rather .. obvious connection to make that the shiekah found the tech of the sonau and built theirs inspired by what they could find, it was so old at that point that its non functional or even recognizable in the present, but when the shiekah found it they could still research it; given how the shiekah built multiple shrines and puzzles to them WITHTIN ruins that, in botw, were sonau ruins, i thought that was the logical line to draw and a good way to connect them while still leaving the sonau to be a mysterious ... mystery (this is what im going for in my rewrite btw)

also another thought, if the ancient shiekah could see the future to a degree they built stuff to prepare the next hero for the next calamity that would happen in thousands of years .. how did they never find out about gan? i know they were more about the future than the past but like ... were they really so stupid to see that the calamity will come back just the same from the same place and NOT investigate?? ESPECIALLY considering that the weird half sonau ancient hero was literally THERE when they saw the furture and built all of that for it???? the sonau werent gone gone in any sense and you CANNOT tell me that the shiekah jsut ignored this weird half whatever looking guy outfitted in an aesthetic and culture that wasnt obviously present anymore and clearly connected to somethign else, with probably clear scars were whatever buildings were lifted into the skies- SOMEHOW- and monoments LITERALLY STILL READABLE IN THE PRESENT that tells you about all theshit that went down?? even if you hid them with some weird mechanisms, are you realyl not gonen investigate?? also why hide it anyway?? if its supposed to be a monument to the sonau why the fuck would you built stuff to HIDE the information from it?? gan cant reach it anyway bc hes KINDA STUCK you are telling me the group of people with a vision of the future and high tech stuff that are famously obsessed with the stars and sky didnt see any of the sonau shit floating around there?? ohoho but it was hidden by magic uwu WHY bc you wanted to wait thousands of years for the "right" link to come around?? so you let thousands of people suffer and die just bc you wanted a specific guy? why not the ancient hero instead?? and solve the problem right then and there?? or would that mess too much with the history all of the sudden, you didnt care about messing anythign else up before either

its all just so messy if you start to think even a little bit about whatever the fuck happened in totk and i ahte it, it solves stuff that didnt need solving, ignores or even erases stuff that didnt need erasing and was all ready to go and be more explored, its infuriating

(also additional thought about the previous rant where i mentioned how characters, esepcially zelda, regress HARD in chaarcter development) someone mentioend this about link and ... YEAH, in botw the main thing was the connection between link and zelda, how they didnt like each other at first and at the end were THE brotp; in totk, aside from zelda mentioning how strong link is, theres nothing, the link that was revealed in botw to only be so silent and expressionless (not fully but like supressing everythign rly) bc of the immense pressure that was put on him is now just the most importanest sword guy who didnt even shed a tear when you get the memories of zelda basically killing herself; or did he know she will just be returned to normal with no harm or memory done no problemo in the end?? i dont WANT link to talk mind you, i never want to hear him talk tbh, i like him being mostly silent aside from his grunts when he climbs a cliff or soothes a horse (i go non verbal in high stress situations too) but you could have shown him be affected by it at all, or idk DO ANYTHIGN WITH THEIR RELATIONSHIP they are best friends whod die for each other but that doesnt actually matter in anything bc he just do what sword man does-

#ganondoodles talks #zelda #totk #ganondoodles rants #it really is a replacement for botw isnt it #might as well not have happened

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void-botanist · 19 days

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Commissions for Palestine!

I'm opening commissions to support Palestinian fundraisers. To start, I want to focus on Ezzideen's:

The organizer, Boshra, is currently doing a donation match, which Cosmo ( @blackpearlblast ) has been keeping track of on Tumblr.

The process

Donate to Ezzideen's GoFundMe.

Let Cosmo know on this post so that Boshra can match the donation (check the reblogs to make sure they're still taking donation matches).

DM me with your commission idea and a screenshot of your confirmation screen or confirmation email (I really just need to see the amount and the campaign - no need to include your name or anything)

Things I will draw

humans

furries and fantasy bipeds

robots

plant/mushroom people

plants and mushrooms

weird creatures & monsters

clothes designs

nudity that is "safe for tumblr"

Hatsune Miku/other fanart (some things I'm familiar with: BG3, HxH, BOTW/TOTK, MP100, One Piece, Dungeon Meshi, Gravity Falls, ATLA/LOK)

I can also do graphic designs/photo edits to make covers.

Things I won't draw

complicated backgrounds

gore

nudity that is not safe for tumblr

spiders (spider-inspired elements are fine but I'm not gonna use a spider as a reference picture)

What you'll get

Note: if you are paying in US dollars, the amount you pay will be slightly more than the euro amount. Commission prices are in euros to match Ezzideen's fundraiser.

You can mix and match these by price, so for instance, for €30, you could get two €15 busts or three €10 sketches, etc., instead of a full-body portrait.

These are all drawings I did for myself, so some of them are on lined paper. Your commission doesn't have to be!

€5

Post-it note portraits in pen or pencil

€10

Rough sketch portraits (traditional or digital) or Tumblr mini covers

€20

Digital color bust portraits in simpler styles or more refined pencil portraits. Add extra characters for €10 each.

€30

Busts in more time-consuming styles. Add extra characters for €20 each.

€50

Digital color full-body portraits in any style. Add extra characters for €30 each.

(these aren't quite full body but they're the best examples I have)

Slots

closed

open

(last updated April 19)

#I'll update this post when Boshra reaches the donation matching budget. I'm hoping that I can also do donation matches soon #commissions #commissions for palestine #commissions for gaza #rose arts #id in alt #bg3 commissions #furry commissions #dnd commissions #fanart commissions

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journen · 6 days

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Okay @chaos-vulpix asked me for Simon & 141 encountering Koroks thoughts and so here is my little ramble

Was discussing this with some others too, so also some brainstorm credit / idea credit is owed to Govan, Kells and Goblin!! xD I'm not sure if you guys have tumblrs but I appreciate you all in also indulging in this fun silly idea with me. XD

So this is all inspired by this recent art I did of Simon with a korok lol.

I think he'd hate these little fuckers. They are small and supposed to be cute, and he is confused. Simon would encounter it and be like what the actual fuck is this thing and call Johnny for backup. Johnny thinks they're cute, and tries to convince his LT they are harmless but Ghost doesn't trust them. "These fuckers aren't in the field manual Johnny".

We also joked that Ghost, not knowing what the hell these koroks are at first, would just unload a whole mag in one but little does he know they're immune to bullets and tank the whole mag and are just like YA HA HA 😭😭😂

But maybe Ghost is actually a korok magnet lol. These little fuckers like him for some reason, against his will, and follow him everywhere. They are like lost puppies who follow Ghost around and show up when he least expects it. Disney princess Ghost with koroks. He hates it and wants them to leave him alone. One grabs his leg to give him a hug and he trips and injures himself trying to fucking kick it off and Soap just stands there laughing his ass off at him xD Simon is having a day.

I think Price would be confused by these little guys too and would tell Simon to get rid of them and Simon, exhausted, eye twitching, "I CAN'T!!" One would definitely spook the shit out of Gaz too, Gaz doesn't know what to think of the little guys xD

The koroks also leave little seeds and berries out for Ghost to find and he is so annoyed. He also thinks he has gotten rid of them all at some point only to make up in the middle of the night with one staring at him and he literally screams and it wakes up Soap.

Soap likes the little koroks but they just don't give him as much attention as they do Ghost. But he is very amused by his LT's frustration with these little beings and gets a ton of joy out of it 🤣

I have a few more drawing ideas from this too haha like Simon being cornered and scared by a bunch of koroks. Him walking and just a line of them following behind him. Soap holding a korok going "they're not so bad, LT!". Price smoking a cigar and having an intense stare down with a korok. A korok with a bunch of bullet holes 😭 just going YA HA HA and Simon having a mental breakdown.

And the thing that inspired all this was this fic I wrote that's an AU if Simon left the military to raise his young nephew Joseph, and Soap Is visiting them when he is sent on medical leave. Soap gets really into playing Zelda and when he's away Simon takes the controller to try out the game, he goes on a whole tirade of why he hates koroks xD I had totally forgotten i'd written all that and so it also inspired that artwork I linked earlier ahaha.

I definitely also think he and Soap could be a force to be reckoned with if they team up to play totk because they would absolutely engineer the most elaborate creative korok torture devices xD

Okay sorry for the long ramble ahaha. I hope some of this is kind of funny! Hope to maybe do a couple other sketches for this idea too.

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artsykidwolf-2000 · 15 days

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ZONAI OCS!!!!

Wow finally some art haha lol

Tell me which ones you liked!

Well here we are some TotK Zonai oc doodles and art pieces. The top one was my first doodle page and practicing the side profile anatomy then some front profile. Just made some OCs' designs on the fly apart from 3 (Ryu-ko, Zergos and Layanna) who I already drew before. Love Solarea's fishy clip 🩷

The second piece I came back to and drew Unera then a new design for Layanna bc she looked too plain. I also Drew Solarea in an outfit, I like it but could do a better pose and add some things but oh well.

Made all these OCs to be a part of different "tribes" than what Rauru and Mineru could be apart of (since they're the ONLY 2 that we see....really Nintendo...gimme some art or something...)

Thank you to @briarbramble and @walrus-tusk-615bc for giving inspiration to draw Zonai again with their cute amazing art! I love how Briar draws her cute fluffy OC, she is so adorable and love her fluffy hair and fur! And for Walrus I love how they thought of different types of Zonai and how to interpret based on environments and animalistic characteristics!

🚫🚫🚫PLEASE DO NOT REPOST/STEAL WITHOUT PERMISSION/CREDIT, THIS IS MY ART AND OCS🚫🚫🚫

💚💚💚PLEASE LIKE SHARE AND FOLLOW!!! PLEASE GO CHECK OUT THE AMAZING ARTISTS TOO!!!💚💚💚

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wayfayrr · 11 months

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I would dye for you

so this was inspired by a mix of an ask on @cloudninetonine's account and a couple of details from something I did in totk, but there aren't any story spoilers there's just a screenshot at the bottom.

This is a little fluff side story for something else I'm writing, where Wild and the reader get tossed into reader's world and split from the rest of the yandere chain. I might flesh this out into more of an au but as of now but honestly, this idea just lives rent-free in my brain

"so you’re sure, like completely sure this is what you want"

"I want to try something new, besides it's not like I'll get the chance to have you do this for me again anytime soon, is it? And you’re the one who suggested I should change things up so I don’t get recognised, why not do it like this? "

Wild lifted their arms with the giddiest smile on their face, a box of temporary dye held like the most precious treasure they could've found. Deep cobalt blue, awfully reminiscent of someone’s scarf, just enough to cover all of his hair to hopefully stop the instant recognition of him on the streets wherever the both of you go.

After the initial shock of them falling through the portal with you back into the real world, if you could even call Hyrule fictional after everything you went through there; after their shock and excitement died down to a reasonable-ish level. The both of you decided perhaps something should be done so people don’t instantly recognise him as Link - the protagonist of Breath of the Wild, new clothes helped, but thankfully the modern world has a few more options for disguises.

"When I suggested dying your hair, it’s not like I expected you to get a colour that bold, wait - where did you even get that from?"

"I bought it when you were looking at the other dyes, it’s such a fun colour not like anything I could get easily at home. You - you’re not bothered are you?"

With that last sentence wild seemingly decided to try his luck with you, looking up like a kicked puppy begging for reassurance that what he did was okay, that he won’t be in trouble for his actions. Begging you to comfort him, to do anything to get them to smile; all the while knowing they've got you wrapped around their finger. you're all his, no other heroes to steal your attention off of him, to steal away your smile, to steal your sweet voice from your lips, no he's got you all to himself…

as they believe they deserve.

You can't even see the countless red flags burying him in a crimson hue, too focused on helping him adjust to this alien world or if the thought ever crosses your mind that he's too happy about being trapped so far from home it's quickly dismissed.

they're a link, noble, courageous; chosen by Hylia herself. you've got to be imagining things. He couldn't can’t be like that.

it's hard not to cave at his face, so you simply end up ruffling his hair and plucking the box from eager hands.

"no don't worry I'm not, it's your hair so you get the final say on anything about it. just kinda surprised you chose this colour is all. ready then?"

Wild's mood instantly brightened at those few words, with a relieved manic, unhinged smile bright enough to blind anyone not used to him but keeping the same begging eyes through it.

"yeah! Of course I am, you're going to be doing it all for me right? right?"

"Well, you know how to use the shower, so you can wash the dye off yourself, no? But I’ll be helping you with the rest of it all."

He doesn’t even speak that time, opting to pout and turn away from you sulkily, like you’ve said the wrong thing, chosen the wrong option.

"Do you want me to even wash your hair for you after?"

"..."

"...please [name]?"

If you didn’t assume it was because you were the only thing they had familiar to them in this world, you could say that Wild has gotten far more whiny and needy towards you. Of course that can still be said, but there’s a sane reason behind it.

With a playful sigh, you push Wild down onto a chair, gesturing for them to take off their shirt which they do after a moment of hesitation, their face coated by a blazingly hot blush. After tossing an old towel around their shoulders and tugging on the cheap plastic gloves you could finally start getting to work. Using the bottle of dye’s nozzle to pipe it through their roots making sure every area is coated before running the dye through with your fingers coaxing it through every inch of his hair, drowning the sun by submerging it in the deep blue of the sea.

Wild for his part was relishing every moment in the bliss of your touch, leaning up into your touch like it’ll cure his every hurt, really it’s a miracle they’re still on the chair and haven’t fallen off with how far they’re leaning into you. Having to gently nudge him back to sitting upright, so that the dye’s even and so that he doesn’t slump to the floor.

Before he gets the chance to really enjoy the feeling of your fingers in his hair, you're already backing off and peeling away the gloves to admire your work blatantly ignoring his pitiful whine towards your actions.

"That’s the dye in then, so you’ve just gotta wait for a while till it's ready to wash out, won't take long, only half an hour"

they don't even have the dignity to respond to that, sitting there with a sulky pout that goes unnoticed. it takes them a moment for him to shake off the fact that you couldn't just sit there like that for half an hour, before responding.

"So you’re definitely washing my hair for me then?"

"Pfft, yeah someone’s gotta make sure you don’t trash my bathroom with dye. I’ll rinse it off for you in the sink."

"Can you play with my hair longer this time..?"

He would’ve never had the courage to ask that in front of the chain, lest the arguing starts up again. Although now he’d be far more willing to risk that; due to the fact that the two of you’ve been living separately from the chain together for a couple of months now, it’d be far harder to split you apart to the others’ dismay.

The processing went far faster than either of you could’ve expected and soon enough it was time to wash his hair out and see if the dye took to it well, not that there was much of a chance it couldn’t given his natural colour.

So after leading them to the bathroom and setting them on a chair shifted so they could lean over the sink, you took to work, gently tipping water through their hair to get out all the residue. When the heavy was washed out you switched to massaging his roots till the water ran clear, not a single dash of dye left in sight. Even then you weren’t quite finished deciding to go the extra step, with the conditioner in hand and him melting underneath you.

Shaking him back awake was a new experience though seeing as he’s usually one of the first to wake anyway, then if he were ever to nap it wouldn’t be due to you washing his hair or anyone washing their hair.

"Hey, link all the dye's washed out now. You've just gotta dry your hair."

"Mh, alright then [name]. I’ll do it."

He’s still drowsier than you’d ever really seen him when you all were travelling through Hyrule but chucking a towel at his head seemed to snap him out of it. Ruffling his hair with the old towel till it was dry enough for him, in other words still dripping wet; he leaned against you with a pleased smile like you hung the very stars in the sky just for him."I love this, it just feels right, thank you so much for helping me like this [name]... And I can count on you doing it whenever I need a top up right?"

so uh, I definitely reacted totally normal when I found out you could dye Link's hair in totk. but on the other hand look at Link with blue hair and tell me I'm wrong - that he doesn't look incredible

#totk spoilers #I guess?#there's a single screenshot and an offhanded mention #but 0 story whatsoever is spoiled #link x reader #linked universe x reader #yandere linked universe #yandere linked universe x reader #lu wild #lu wild x reader

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